Carmax's advantage is a large nationwide inventory of - TheCriticalThinker
Carmax's advantage is a large nationwide inventory of used cars which they can ship to you fairly quickly to test drive for a reasonable cost. Their prices are competitive or slightly better then manufacturer dealerships. However their inspection and cerification process leaves a lot to be desired..Their online review of the car i bought flagged a couple of small token paint chips on the bumper, but overlooked the larger scratches on the right front fender, and nevermind that the entire fender had been repainted (and not top quality bodywork) to fix a large dent... I spotted this during my test drive ( which prompted a call from the store asking where I was since I had exceeded their 15 min test drive window..) I told them I was in their lot inspecting the fender repair. The manager came out and looked and said that the repair met Carmax standards... I decided to buy the car anyway, because I liked it. The paperwork process went quickly, but they had prefilled out paperwork without asking how we wanted title to be held? They were initially reluctant to redo the paperwork and ended up handscribbling corrections, which did get scrutiny at DMV... After I got the car home, I found a nail in one of the tires which looked like it had been there awhile, and an oil leak... I will take the car to a dealer to fix the oil leak under factory warranty, and ended up putting a new set of tires on the car, since it had a mismatched set from front to rear... Again not too impressed with Carmax's inspection process.... Definitely buyer beware. They do have a generous 10 day return policy so examine your vehicle closely in that time frame. Given the prior fleet/rental use of their cars, they will have their flaws for sure. Also the CarFax reports provided are largely useless for these type of purchases. Large fleet/rental car owners do their own maintainence and body repair work, which will not appear on a CarFax report.
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