Selling to Carmax

[Cancer Man]

All:

The missus and I inherited a car when her grandmother passed away last month. It's paid off and since I've got about another year or so of payments to make on my car, I was going to sell my mine and keep her grandmother's.

Now, I can either sell it myself (seems like a hassle) or take it to Carmax (I hear they'll give you the best deal). I don't have to sell it right now -- I can wait about a week before making another payment -- but I'm trying to get it out of our hair.

Has anybody dealt with Carmax before? Is there any haggling with the price they value your car at or is their number final? Essentially, whatever we sell it for over what's left of the note, we get to keep. I owe about $5,000 on it and Kelley Blue Book puts the value of it at between $8,000-$9,700 (it's a '02 Accord with high mileage but in good shape). If I sell it myself, I might get $11,000 apparently.

Any thoughts? Advice? I'm 95 percent going the Carmax route but wanted to get as much of a return as possible.

 

[Baboso]

Plan on getting $1 to 2 thousand less than if you had marketed it and sold it yourself. Convenience charge. I sold my 96 S10 Blazer to Carmax because it was convenient. I could have probalby gotten $1,000 more if I had put it in the paper, but I just didn't want to hassle with people coming to the house, test drives, etc. There isn't any haggling - they'll take your vehicle, appraise it (takes about an hour), and make you an offer. The good thing is if you don't like their offer, you can walk out, get in the car and drive off.

 

[XYZ]

what baboso said

carmax only offered me $1,800 for my car so i sold it on my own for $3,200...you pay for the convenience

 

[ldogg53]

go to CarMax... get an offer... then compare that to what prices you see in the classifieds from other people selling on their own...
you have a week to decide if you want to accept the CarMax offer... if you decide to take it you just go back.. give them the paper they handed you and about an hour later you'll have a check in hand.... I would recommend selling your car to them during office hours though.. it makes the process faster as they'll need to contact your bank for the payoff information..

 

[OrangeChipper]

My experience has been hit or miss.

On one car... carmax wanted to give 500 LESS than what a dealer would give. On another car carmax was giving over 1200 MORE than what dealers would offer.

I've heard from others that 9 times out of 10 Carmax will beat dealers. So if you are looking for the easy out... go with Carmax... but do look into dealers or other areas.

 

[Bierman]

 

[UTinBigD]

they gave me over blue book for my truck, and i had only had it for 10 months (after buying new). So i had a good experience.

 

[khorn]

I have dealt with them twice and had a great experience both times getting slighlty above blue book and significantly more than the dealerships were offering. Both of my cars had relatively low miles. I have heard they will really lower their offers if you have alot of miles on your car.

 

[Boozehound]

I'd get a quote from them and compare to the classifieds like everyone else said. I think for 99% of the time, you'll do better selling it on your own. If you're both interested in selling to the same market eventually (general public), why would they pay you more than what a consumer is willing to pay (which SHOULD be the price they can sell it for)?

My experience with them is quotes that are 2500+ too low.