Ever sell a car to Carmax or Autotrader?

I've done both. We sold our BMW to the Carmax in Ft Lauderdale. It's a very simple transaction. They cut you a check on the spot.

Scott

 

I've sold and bought from CarMax. Great to deal with. I had a basket case car that I didn't want to deal with selling personally, and they gave a great price. Near us there is another shop right next to CarMax that always offers a bit more than CarMax. Worth getting a couple of offers.

 

I've sold a car to Carmax. They made a fair offer and cut a check on the spot. I was very pleased with the transaction.


Mark

 

I wasn't able to negotiate.

Scott

 

Me either, but to answer one of the questions above, once they give you a quote, it's good for a certain number of days. I don't remember the timeline, but I had a quote in writing with a certain number of days to accept.



Mark

 

I believe it is good for 7 days. I've sold several cars to Carmax, and they've always given me a better price that I could get by turning the car in to a dealer.

Not as much as you could get private party, but the lack of a hassle has made it worthwhile to me.

 

This has been my experience as well.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

 

I think it's an interesting option than trading in a car. It's worth a shot to see what the dealer would give you for your car vs carmax.

When I traded in my mini they went directly to the Autotrader website, plugged in the numbers, and showed me what the car was worth. I felt this was fair rather than just he dealer saying how much it's worth. And, I thought it was a fair price.

 

Sold a car to Carmax. They do not negotiate. They give you a number, if you like it, take it, if you don't they pass.

D

 

It's difficult to sell as a private party nowadays since most dealers can offer financing on vehicles as old as 10 years, which includes 60 months financing.

I have an excellent condition 2011 Jeep Liberty Renegade (62K miles), with all options including the Selec-Trac II 4x4/AWD system and NAV. A nation-wide search of dealer asking prices shows $21k to $23k but they offer only $13k to $15k as a trade-in. No way in hell I'd give this Jeep away for anything less than $18k.

Plus the vehicles I'm interested in are marked up by 2 to 5 thousand dollars on top of that.

 

What a scam/time-waster that is.

I just tried Autotrader; after filling in a bunch of info the last page requires your name, email address and phone number. Then it tells you to check your email for the instant cash offer. Which, in turn, tells me that I need to call a specific dealer to get "my instant cash offer".

Then, my house phone rings (the one I submitted). The sales guy offer $13k for my Jeep.

What a stupid waste of time!
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i've shopped several cars to carmax. easily sold them private party for more....

one for $2k more that day on CL.

 

Hmmm... that's strange. Maybe the dealers have a different way of doing it because it was all done in a matter of seconds for me.

All I remember is they plugged in all kinds of info on the car (mileage, MY, condition, anything wrong with it, accidents, special equipment, adherence to originality, color) and then a second later a bid came up that was the price.

 

Probably so. The guy who called said that he was the Autotrader rep at the dealer. I suggested to him that the website for an "instant cash offer" was misleading. His response was that "he didn't have control over how the software works."

 

Autotrader works with leases too. Before my lease was up I was curious to see if I had any equity in my Wife's Minivan. It was the fully loaded Honda Odyssey, we had 28,000 miles on the 3 year 36k mile lease. Instead of turning it in and walking away we traded it in and got $3k. I just took the printout from autotrader to the dealer.

 

I sold my last car to Carmax. I got tired of people wasting my time, and the offer I got from Carmax was pretty close to what I was looking to get anyway.

On the last couple cars I have sold, I have had better luck on Craigslist than Autotrader or Cars.com.

 

Check out Beepi. They're a startup that's trying to simplify selling your car privately and getting you the most money out of it. I think I'm going to give them a shot selling my Jeep after the winter.
https://www.beepi.com/TopFiveQuestions/

 

Sold my 2011 VW GTI this last December. 4 years old, low miles (20K), in excellent shape. CarMax offereed me 14K, I hade been trying to get 19-20K. With the CarMax offer in mind I lowered my Craigslist ask to 17K and sold it quickly, with multiple buyers in waiting. In my case I think the offer was significantly under market. However, the process to get a quote was relatively quick and relatively painless.

 

This is the way to use Carmax - get a quote from them, list it for slightly higher locally on craiglist, if it doesn't sell in a couple days take it back to carmax and be done with it.

 

I sold my BMW to CarMax. They appraised it, and cut a check, done. It was less than I could have sold it for retail, but that's the value; I didn't have to sell it myself, and answer the phone, go on inane test rides, teach people about the car, risk my life etc. Well worth the time saved.

 

ding...

cars that they don't plan on selling on the lot get shipped off to auction.... they discount accordingly.

i'm guessing the lowball by $500-1000 at a minimum