Anydone done a CarMax test drive day?

We currently have too many cars and are thinking about trading in two of them for a single car/single car payment. Problem is, we don't know what we want. I mean, I know we want a mid/full size sedan, but that's about it.

We're thinking about going to CarMax with a list of things to test drive and figure out what we like. While we're "in the market" fairly soon, we wouldn't buy something that day.

My experience has always been CarMax is pretty low pressure wise, but there's a good chance we'd want to look at about 10 different cars. I'm starting to wonder how much pushback they'd give us.

Anyone done something similar? Did they give you any grief about it?

-Rob

We have when we bought the minivan, and I helped a friend look for cars this weekend. They are happy to spend time talking and driving. We went on like four test drives. Highly highly highly recommended.

My guess is you are better off doing this on a slow day if possible. A salesman doesn't want to miss too many other sale opportunities with a potential future buyer.

itsarebuild wrote: My guess is you are better off doing this on a slow day if possible. A salesman doesn't want to miss too many other sale opportunities with a potential future buyer.

I have not seen this to be an issue at Carmax.

They will be totally game to help you out in my experience. Just bought my Accord Coupe from them.

As far as I know they work on a flat commission structure and distribute incoming leads to try and give all of their reps a piece of the pie so I can't imagine it would be an issue.

I'm also going to say that I bet your mental ability to keep things separated and organized will end after about 4 cars. Many more than that and you will truly struggle to remember each one distinctly.

I don't disagree that it may be maddening after a few cars, but a lot of it will be based on size and "value". We know we want a sedan type thing and the price range we're looking at has a ton of options. For example, is a 2015 Caddy ATS with 28k miles "better" than a 2017 Accord with 17k miles? How much bigger and more comfortable is an Infiniti Q50 than a Mazda6? Most of the cars we've never really seen up close, much less even sat in.

That said, it'll be SWMBO's main car and I'll start driving the truck again. Luckily, she's a car chick and has already said she doesn't want boring car. Heck, most of the cars we'd look at she's just appeasing me. If it was her choice 100%, we'd get an R/T (SRT is a bit out of our price range) Charger in black or purple and call it done. I just don't know that I want another one (we had an SRT8 for a few years).

-Rob

6 was the most they let me do in one day. But sales guy was cool as hell. I stated bluntly when i scheduled an appointment that i wouldn't be buying that day, and that i wanted to drive x y and z.

Dusterbd13 wrote: 6 was the most they let me do in one day. But sales guy was cool as hell. I stated bluntly when i scheduled an appointment that i wouldn't be buying that day, and that i wanted to drive x y and z.

I didn't even know they had appointments. We were just going to show up when they opened. I'm starting to wonder how "helpful" they'll be this Saturday given it's a three day weekend. Although, if we find something we like and can crunch the numbers OK, I'd guess we'd pull the trigger on it Monday.

-Rob

Caall the local one. I was suprised they did appointments as well. Thats how my wife decided on a mazda5

My wife and I sat in every SUV with a third row a few years back at CarMax, and they were very accommodating. We were up front that we weren't going to drive or buy anything that day, but wanted to sit in everything and narrow the field down based on access to and room in the third row.

Are you really going to need to test drive all 10 of them, or can you narrow your field of options significantly by just sitting in every one?

You are usually free to wander the lot of unlocked cars to check them out. Just test drive a few you are more interested in..

We were shopping this past spring and carmax was great, we compared a lot of cars all in one trip and only test drove 3 of them I think.

When I was shopping for cars, I went to Carmax and drove a bunch of different cars. Sat in a Solstice, hated it, did not like the dash on the Civic Si, opened the hood on the MINI and walked away. Drove an NA Miata, a Boxster, a Z-3 and Z-4.

Convinced me I wanted a Miata, so I flew to Portland and bought a Mazdaspeed.

Duke wrote: I'm also going to say that I bet your mental ability to keep things separated and organized will end after about 4 cars. Many more than that and you will truly struggle to remember each one distinctly.

Take notes

Ours the cars on the lot are not unlocked. Have to have a sales guy unlock them.

Great points. I don't know how many we'll actually drive as some will narrowed down by just sitting in them. I assumed (as Dusterbd13 pointed out at his) that they'd all be locked so we couldn't just wander and sit. IF we can, that will narrow it down. If they're locked and I'm dragging someone out to unlock it, I might as well drive it. Maybe, I don't know.

My initial question's been answered that my experience with CarMax rings true that they won't pressure me into one specific one and will give me the chance to "shop" several different cars. Sounds like it might be common enough that it won't be an issue. I know if I went to a traditional dealer used lot, I'd get to drive one, MAYBE two, before they'd start hounding me to buy right now and probably not let me drive more.

I do not want to waste a salesperson's time. I'll be totally upfront and honest with them from the start. I'll make damn sure that I get their card and deal only with them when we do buy. We're not just looking for a day to play. I fully intend to buy a car very soon.

Full disclosure. My wife and I are both notoriously bad about impulse cars. Sometimes it's OK, sometimes it's not. I'm trying to force us both to look at options (more appliance like) instead of making the emotional decision (tire scorching, handling monster). Hence the multi-car test drive.

-Rob

That is what I did last year. Had my young two kids with me and we checked out SUV, CUV, minivans and sedans. All cars at Carmax were unlocked except for ones that are sold or pending transfer to another location. It works great, no hassle and no salesman following us around. We sat, crawled around, opened doors/hood/rear, inspected over a 2 dozen vehicles. My job was to find out which vehicle works well for young kids to get into, move seats on their own, close doors on their own and so forth. I had another child at home but she was too little to go and would have likely tired out by the 3rd or 4th vehicle. I whittled down the list to 5 and went over it with the wife at home. The next day we ALL went for test drive in those 5 vehicles. 3 were eliminated pretty quickly by the wife. We ended up not buying the vehicle that we liked at Carmax because their price was 15-25% higher than what the other dealership was charging for lower mileage or newer ones. Carmax was being dumb since they would NOT budge on price when I point that out so they lost the sale because of it. Anyway, if I had to go vehicle shopping again, I would do it all over again at Carmax but won't likely buy the vehicle there.

I looked at somewhere around ten cars. Took a lot of time and seriously looked at every aspect of them. Then test drove five prior to deciding in which one I wanted. It was at least half a day. And the salesman was awesome throughout. Not rushed nor pressured at all. In the end he said "you've come back to this one after every car we've looked at, seems like it's the one". I agreed and did the paperwork.

That was the second car we bought through CarMax. Without a doubt the best car buying experience I've had.

I have never bought a car from them, but they give me free coffee and donuts every time. Someday I hope to be financially stable enough to buy one of their cars and warranty.

Sine_Qua_Non wrote: Carmax was being dumb since they would NOT budge on price when I point that out so they lost the sale because of it.

This is kind of Carmaxs thing. There is no negotiating the price, at all.

I agree, pricing on some vehicles is way out of line with the market.

I am sure some of the pricing is comparable though. Ive never bought there but my dad had bought there twice.

failboat wrote:

Sine_Qua_Non wrote: Carmax was being dumb since they would NOT budge on price when I point that out so they lost the sale because of it.

This is kind of Carmaxs thing. There is no negotiating the price, at all. I agree, pricing on some vehicles is way out of line with the market. I am sure some of the pricing is comparable though. Ive never bought there but my dad had bought there twice.

My experience with them is that it depends on the vehicle, how niche it is, and your local area.

I bought my manual Accord Coupe from them because it was listed $1500 less than anything else within a 100-mile radius. I basically bought it for bang-on KBB private party retail and I was okay with that; they also offered me $1k more for my trade than any other dealer. Sure, at one of the traditional dealers I might have been able to haggle my way down to a slightly cheaper price, but it would have been a gamble, the experience would have sucked, etc. Not only that but they brought it to my local store from 150 miles away for free, saving me the headache of driving 2-3 hours to hit a negotiation wall and leave without a car.

For manual subcompacts, sports cars, weird wagons, niche vehicles etc their pricing tends to be pretty attractive or below competing dealers. For super in-demand vehicles like crossovers, SUVs, entry-luxury sedans and so forth you tend to pay a bit of a premium for the easy buying process. I would not say Carmax is the place to buy no matter what you are looking for by any means, but they can be a surprisingly good deal on the right car.

One final note: some dealers charge absurd doc fees and weird undisclosed crap on the back end, Carmax is very transparent with this, so make sure you are comparing apples to apples. My $17,500 buy at Carmax on a 5-year loan somehow managed to have a $150 cheaper monthly payment than a $17,500 buy on a 5-year loan at the local Hyundai dealer. Those guys couldn't piss me off faster if they tried.

failboat wrote:

Sine_Qua_Non wrote: Carmax was being dumb since they would NOT budge on price when I point that out so they lost the sale because of it.

This is kind of Carmaxs thing. There is no negotiating the price, at all. I agree, pricing on some vehicles is way out of line with the market. I am sure some of the pricing is comparable though. Ive never bought there but my dad had bought there twice.

Car Sense (similar, smaller chain) is the same way - no haggle. Period. But in my experience, the price wasn't bad - a bit under book value for a dealer price. At least for my minivan.

I thought the CarMax "no haggle" policy was well known. I guess not.

Ian F wrote:

failboat wrote:

Sine_Qua_Non wrote: Carmax was being dumb since they would NOT budge on price when I point that out so they lost the sale because of it.

This is kind of Carmaxs thing. There is no negotiating the price, at all. I agree, pricing on some vehicles is way out of line with the market. I am sure some of the pricing is comparable though. Ive never bought there but my dad had bought there twice.

Car Sense (similar, smaller chain) is the same way - no haggle. Period. But in my experience, the price wasn't bad - a bit under book value for a dealer price. At least for my minivan. I thought the CarMax "no haggle" policy was well known. I guess not.

I already knew about their no haggle policy but I did try to have them make the "sale" if they could match or beat the dealership price on the same model. It was a $4k price difference which is a big deal to me. Funny thing was about 2 months later on their lot, they finally dropped the price by $2k and it still did not sell. It ended up getting transferred to a different state.

I've been there twice for me, and once for my SIL. They've always been very accommodating. For me, I think I test drove 3 cars, looked at 5 or 6. In the end I bought a new car from the dealership, but only because I got a better deal. They were nice about the entire process. My sister in law was there all day. She's notorious for not making up here mind. I bet she drove a dozen or so cars, and bought the first one she drove. Once again they were patient and nice about the process. There was never any pressure from the sales woman to get her to choose and leave, although I bet she was at the end of the day.

One other thing about CarMax. Say you find one you like, but you don't like something about that particular one, they usually have plenty more were that came from and can ship one in for you.

I've done that with no intention of buying a car, I was just bored and it was fun. do it.

If it's the north Austin store, don't expect much of a test drive. It's literally around the block and they don't let you take it any further than that.

For pricing, It's like anywhere else know the market and shop accordingly. There are some good deals and not so good deals. I've gotten great values on selling cars there. Most of them have been pretty unique so that helps out a lot.