CarMax has an extended warranty?

Like everyone else, I'm always "window shopping" for my next car when I'm online. This afternoon I noticed CarMax has a '99 Acura CL 3.0 for a decent price, considering the color and miles. Unfortunately, Hondas/Acuras of this time frame are notorious for crapping their automatic trannys, and the 3.0 CL comes only as an auto. I then noticed for the first time that CarMax has it's own extended warranty and wondered if anyone here has had ANY experience with this warranty and further how well CarMax is at honoring it. The short "blurb" on the website makes it seem pretty straight-forward....unlike other warranties that are written by lawyers. But I always tell folks "it doesn't matter HOW LONG/HOW MANY MILES the warranty is, if the dealer won't honor it, or makes it too hard to get work done. I can't imagine CarMax would fall into the shady end of the pool when it's time to honor a warranty.

My own experience with CarMax: Every car that we have looked at had something wrong with it:

The CTS smelled musty. Reach under the dash, and yup, we got sludge

The Jetta's exhaust was very black. Very black.

The Roadmonster was advertised as rust free. I guess it could have been called that if it had been pulled out of the bottom of a lake.

And that was the last time we went there. It must be noted that this was all the same CarMax, I know people who will not buy a car from anywhere else.

I've visited the local CarMax once, maybe twice. The sales person went to great pains to point out how CM would never sell a car/truck/SUV that had been salvaged or rebuilt. They seem to lean quite heavily on things like ...crap, I forget the name right now of that auto history check service. Anyway, as has been pointed out here and elsewhere, it's possible to "skirt" the insurance reporting involved with an accident and therefore have an inaccurate CarFax.

My bitch with CarMax? Their prices seem to have no relation to the market...cars that would "seem" to be similar can and do have very different prices. Example? An '04 and an '05 Focus with widely differing mileages...but similar prices.

I don't like to haggle, I'm not good at it, but I care even less for overpaying. I suspect that the "set price" is where they manage to hook the majority of their customer base. The only good point that I see to CM is that they can have pretty much any vehicle...somewhere, in inventory and if you want it bad enough they will get it to you.

BTW, the interior of my car smells "musty" when the a/c has not had a chance to dry out after the last use...smells like old gym socks. But if I drive it and shut the a/c off about 5 minutes before I shut off the engine I don't get the smell.

A Jetta? I wouldn't buy a VW product unless it was the last vehicle on the planet and I needed wheels desperately. I owned Audis and VW in the '70s and '80s and they were okay cars, the newer stuff is junk.

I'm not at all sure what you mean by the "rust" remark. Submerging a car in fresh water doesn't always cause rust, it's the minerals in water...any water that usually start the rust.

integraguy wrote: A Jetta? I wouldn't buy a VW product unless it was the last vehicle on the planet and I needed wheels desperately. I owned Audis and VW in the '70s and '80s and they were okay cars, the newer stuff is junk. I'm not at all sure what you mean by the "rust" remark. Submerging a car in fresh water doesn't always cause rust, it's the minerals in water...any water that usually start the rust.

I know that VW is largely junk. But a Jetta was a car we were considering. And the Buick, I meant that it was far from rust free, as it was advertised. I guess I was a little too used to the creative writing class I'm in right now where we have to use a roundabout way of describing something.

My point with those three was that they claim never to put out a bad car on the lot, but the three that we test drove were all junk. I actually think it had more to do with the specific carmax we were at.

Never bought anything from CarMax but I'm building a new store for them now in Dayton!

And because of this I've been "behind the scenes" at one of their Columbus stores and didn't see anything that really scared me (no totals or wrecked cars being rebuilt or anything). I believe their business model entails buying lease trade-ins, fleet cars and keeping some of their own trade-ins, cleaning them up and selling them for a fixed price.

integraguy wrote: BTW, the interior of my car smells "musty" when the a/c has not had a chance to dry out after the last use...smells like old gym socks. But if I drive it and shut the a/c off about 5 minutes before I shut off the engine I don't get the smell.

That's because running without AC is letting the evaporator dry up before shutoff. Otherwise, the condensation sits in your ductwork and mildews. Buy a big aerosol can of Right Guard deodorant and spray it into the fresh-air intake of the car's HVAC system periodically, when it is running with the fan blowing. Problem solved.

I bought from the first Carmax store here in Richmond years ago. A great experience. Mercury declined to warranty the top on my then 3 year old, still in warranty, Mercury Capri. Carmax fixed it without a whimper.

My parents bought a few cars from that same store. It worked out well for them.

A female friend bought a Toyota SUV from them and found out that the engine was toast. Sludged to death. They replaced the motor and returned it to her. Some would consider that a questionable action but she was satisfied.

Bear in mind you will pay at least a couple of thousand more for any car than you would if you pursued a private sale.

mtn wrote: The Roadmonster was advertised as rust free.

You read it wrong.

You thought it was free of rust, when in reality they were not charging you for the rust that they were giving you.

It is a marque of a good value ;)

Thanks, Xceler8X....this is the kind of experience I was hoping to hear about. Yes, I realize you pay more, sometimes ALOT more for the "CarMax experience", but you also pay more for a CPO vehicle than you do for a run-of-the-mill used vehicle.

IF, I went with the used Acura/Honda with a transmission that MAY fail prematurely (for a Honda product), knowing it will be fixed with few or no quuestions asked, may make it worth the extra expense. Now, I'm still wondering if the extended CarMax warranty is needed, or if they will repair a car that they sell within ....? miles for next to no cost to the customer, if you DON'T have an extended warranty.

One thing I would check into...

Look into the deductible and coverage limits on this extended warranty. That should be in the fine print of the warranty contract.

My grandparents have a CL 3.0 and just had the tranny replaced. I'd check and see if there isn't a recall on it. You might be able to get Honda to replace the tranny, even if you don't buy it from a Honda dealer.

I would also look to see if CarMax has to work on the car or if anyone can and the warranty be covered. Granted, CarMax is all over the place, but what if you are stuck somewhere there isn't one?

I'll give another kudos to CarMax. My wife and I have bought two cars from there and were pleased with both. The second one had a few initial issues, but CarMax worked with us the entire time and pressed the dealer (it was still under dealer warranty) to get things resolved. They even provided us with an "equivalent" loner car.

-Rob

Well, the issue is temporarily moot, as the CL I was looking at is already gone. This seems to be a common happening with me, when something looks real good, before i "pull the trigger" it disappears.

Two different "backup cars" a Toyota Solara....I can't seem to decide between a 4 or a 6, both have a manual tranny, and a Mazda6.