Carmax, Hillside, IL Kings of false advertising Hillside Illinois *EDitor's Comment

well I own an auto repair shop have for 20 years (ASE Master Certified) and honesty is very hard to come by these days in the automotive field. I do not typically trust car dealers and without my expertise I think that I would be in deep when purchasing a vehicle. The average person is really at the mercy of the dealers and that includes Carmax! No matter what their deals are and how good their offers seem the incedible mark downs on what they purchase from you and mark ups on what they sell you is astonding. If you had any sense you would see and realize how bad they all rip off the public. Not only on costs but on what is truely wrong with the car that you are buying. They can cover and hide many things untill you have already signed papers and if you know very little about the mechanics of a vehicle which most people do not. you can easily be deceived. I myself was going to trade in a minivan at carmax and when they offered me the price with no disscusion I turned and left because I know from my experience It was worth $2000 more. Always take your future purchase to a seperate mechanic it is your right. At our shop we dont even charge to look at it find and honest mechanic there are a few of us still around.

while I sympathise with you, I also have to let you know that carmax provides a free service no one else will provide. The brochures let you know that certain cars are sold wholesale to other dealers.Kelly blue book and nada have never bought a car before.

There are flaws in their estimates. Use kelly book and appraise any car with about 170,000miles and 250,000miles and see what the values are(probably the same or little change).

A car rated fair with a bad engine,bodywork and no A/C is worth less than fair. kelly book is a guide not written in stone.

Let kelly book find someone to buy your car from you and see if it is possible. You probably could not find someone to buy the car and feel bad you could not negotiate.

Dealers that buy the old cars do not know or care if your mom spent $600 when the cars go through the auction. When you want to sell your next car see who gives you more money amongs all the dealers.

hi Phil, if you work as a car manager why didnt your own company buy your mother's car? And as a car manager you should know that Kelly blue book is a joke!!! Just a comment.

hi Phil, if you work as a car manager why didnt your own company buy your mother's car? And as a car manager you should know that Kelly blue book is a joke!!! Just a comment.

hi Phil, if you work as a car manager why didnt your own company buy your mother's car? And as a car manager you should know that Kelly blue book is a joke!!! Just a comment.

hi Phil, if you work as a car manager why didnt your own company buy your mother's car? And as a car manager you should know that Kelly blue book is a joke!!! Just a comment.

I work for a new car dealer as a manager in the chicago area and have been in retail car sales for 23+ years.

Although the MEGA Chains like Autonation and Car Max have given us some stiff competition they also provide a good service to the public by buying cars from individuals with out the individual buying a car from them. Most New Car dealers can't or won't buy your car without you trading it in on a purchase from them. Car Max, because of its corporate structure has more ready cash to buy these vehicles from you.

My experience has also been that they will often give you more monsy for your car than the new car dealer is willing to offer (although I can't figure how they do it and still make a profit). I have had many instances where we can't give a customer enough money for their trade in vehicle and have sent them to car msx to get an offer from them to purchase the trade and more often than not they will give the customer enough more for the car to cover any costs and tax and DMV fees that the seller may incur. The best part is the customer comes back to my dealership to purchase their new car from us (car max doesn't sell new cars in this market) happy and glad I refered them to Car Max.

Sorry to burst any detractors bubble but Car Max offers a good service, low hassle way to sell your car. (Ever run an ad in the paper to sell your car and have 50 goofy people show up to your home and say "I can give you $300 today and $100 next week and $200 the following week......." Then you sell someone your car it breaks the person blames you and HE KNOWS WHERE YOU LIVE?????)

Again Car Max provides a service.

I don't work for Car Max!!!!!!!!!!!!

phil, this is getting real old, and i cant seem to be able to put in a rebuttal without it being edited, sometimes out of context, so this is the last word from me on this subject.

The price differance you refer to is the differance in wholesale and retail. All stores, it dosen't matter if its carmax or the record store on the corner, buy wholesale and sale retail. Thats how they pay for their overhead. Its simple economics. Why don't you complain about buying a $15 cd that only costed the store $5? Now your grasping at straws and have completly left your original complaint behind.

Phil, i'm sorry that you had a bad experiance with carmax, but if you or your mom would have read the appraisal sheet, this argument would have never started.

have a nice life.

Rob - We can argue about this until we're blue in the face. But that won't solve anything. I guess I'll have to prove my point about Carmax in another manner.

Explain this: Before I get started, I will once again say that the Blue Book is not the law. But I did some research on the Carmax website and found out some startling info. How is it that Carmax has a car for sale for $6,600 that the Blue Book says is worth $2,800 in "excellent condition". This is one of many examples of severe mark-ups I found.

Even if you don't go by the book, you have to admit that a $4,000 difference in value is a little shady. This is only one of several examples I found. And how come the general manager at the Hillside, IL store went silent for 10 seconds when I asked her about these mark-ups?

I think they can plenty afford to pay their employees just fine without the "documentation fee". And I think I don't need to waste my energy on this conversation anymore, do I?

This corporate shill is completely out of touch with any sense of logic and reason. First, Rob tries to justify the extra charge that were not refunded.

One only need see all the complaint on the Rip-off Report to see how big a problem exists with CarMax. This back-peddling just shows how this unethical business tries to justify ripping people off when they fail to jump through their impossible hoops. CarMax had better repair their business practices or we may have to become more insistent.

ED Magedson - Consumer Advocate
EDitor@RipoffReport.com
badbusinessbureau.com
www.ripoffreport.com

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On my last rebuttal, consider the first sentence of the last paragraph to read "... consider it a fee for coming on our lot." It is not a fee for coming on the lot, the apprasial is, and always has been, a free service. The fee is mearly there to offset the cost of buying the car, and is only applied if you sell the car. There is never a fee for "coming on the lot."



Come on guys, I know you reserve the right to edit rebuttals, but please be a little more careful in the future.

To Phil.



I am so sorry that your family can't read. If you would just LOOK at the appraisal, you would have seen that it says, IN BOLD BLUE PRINT, "this offer is good for seven days or 300 miles." It couldn't be any more obvious. Take another car and let them appraise it, then look at the paper. Its right there. You don't have to sell it, thats why it's only an OFFER. Or you can go over to carmax.com, look at the section where you sell your car and its there too. LEARN TO READ MAN!



Also, if you read, where kelley blue book is "pasted all over the website", there is a disclaimer that says, " Note: Carmax can ONLY determine the value of your vehicle with a store visit".



And the $159 fee doesn't just pay for paper, consider it a fee for coming on our lot. It also pays the people doing the "work." First, the salesperson, who is on commision. They have to spend 20 or so minutes with you, which means they now have no chance of selling a car, thus no chance of getting paid for their work. So they get a few dollars of that for their time. And thats ONLY if you sell the car. then you have the buyers, who has to go out and appraise cars in the heat, cold, wind, and rain. They need to be paid too. Then you have the business office, who does all of the paperwork for you. Do they not deserve to be paid? Would you like it if the place you worked didn't make any money so they could't pay you? Oh, dont forget the DMV fees they have to pay too.



I may be naive, but i can reed.

To Rob in Greenville - I know that Blue book is not the bible, but why is Carmax pasting their links all over their website, giving their customers the impression that they can expect X amount of money for their car? I know that older cars with high miles or damage are worth less. THAT'S WHAT THE BLUE BOOK IS FOR!!! To determine where "your" vehicle falls in.



Secondly, there was no mention of a 7 day, 300 mile "decision period". If there was, we wouldn't be having this conversation!



$159 "documentation fee"? Do you know how many reams of paper $159 buys. Explain exactly what the heck costs that much for the secretary to do??? Maybe they're using really expensive pens.



The $600 spent on prepping the car is an issue, because now there is NOTHING car max has to do to "get it ready for re-sale". Don't be so naive. The auto retail industry doesn't have such a poor reputation for nothing!

First off, Carmax does NOT use Blue Book as a guide. The figure they come up with is strictly dependent on each particular car. A car with high miles or paintwork is worth less than a similar car with low miles. If you bought a brand new corvette, went out and beat it all to crap, do you think anybody will give you full blue book value?



Second, you say she "ended up with $840 after a $160 finders fee." She didn't have to take it if it was too low. Carmax gives you 7 days or 300 miles to decide if you want to sell it. The appraisal was free and she was under no obligation. She was free to try to sell it herself, to check blue book, or to keep it. Since she took it, she must have felt it was a fair price. The $160 "finders fee" you refer to is actually the documentation fee. That is for Carmax to do all the DMV work for you. By the way, it's a $159 fee, and that is reduced to $99 if you buy a carmax car.



And as for the false advertising claim, Carmax does give you top dollar for your car. If the car is worth $1000, then you get $1000. That is as top dollar as you can get. The $600 she spent on repairs prior to bringing it to Carmax is a non-issue, because she would have paid that regardless.