CarMax: Used Cars for Sale

I recently retired and I am selling a third vehicle. Carmax was recommended by a friend, so I decided to give them a shot. I downloaded the app, created an account and filled in the requested information about my vehicle. Great! Easy to download and navigate. I was given an offer of $10,400. Reasonable for the vehicle. So I set up a n appointment with the local office to sell the vehicle. Online communication was great, everyone I had contact with was friendly and professional. The check in process was easy and I was taken care of expeditiously. Now we get to the one star. I say in the waiting room and watch a young inspect the vehicle and drive around the parking lot a few times. About 15 minutes later they came back with an offer$2,900 below the online offer. The reason? The clutch is rattling on my automatic transmission. When I questioned them, he came back and stated that it’s making a whirring noise. Now I did not by the vehicle new. But it has been meticulously maintained by the same local shop since I have owned it. Never has there been an issue with the transmission. One month ago, new breaks all around, transmission fluid replaced, oil changes and the tires replaced at Costco less than $10,000 miles ago. I should have known better. So if you are looking to purchase a vehicle and you are working on building credit, maybe it’s the place for you. But if you are looking to sell them a vehicle, don’t bother.

CarMax’s new app has COMPLETELY changed the game for them. I’ve been a long time fan of CarMax and a large shareholder, but felt the company may slip away into irrelevance with their lagging technology. The new app shows that they’re serious about their technology and trying to turn that all around. CarMax has always seemed to prioritize a desktop experience and ignore app. Personally I love to browse on my phone at night and I know family members that don’t even have a computer and just use their phone. Data is also showing that more and more people are using an App over web. Even with this transition, it felt like CarMax stubbornly believed that people wouldn’t use an app to buy a car. The new app changes all that. The design is simple, clean, and intuitive. There’s no longer a bunch of annoying web views, and the app adds new features that could never be done on desktop! Such as the ability to tell CarMax you’re on your way. I’m also impressed that CarMax had the guts to just completely redo the app. Inherently this will create some bugs, but the changes are well worth it. I was thinking of selling my CarMax stock, but after this I’ll probably be willing to buy more! Looking forward to the future changes. The new CarMax looks good!