I bought a truck from this CarMax about 30 days ago. Overall it was a pleasurable event. I walked in and was greeted immediately by a sales person. The sales person was nice, and wasn't pushy. I told him what I was looking for, he showed me what they had, and I took the one I liked out for a test drive.
I liked the truck. Using my iphone, I looked up the bluebook value, it was priced a lot higher. I then looked up other trucks at other dealerships of the same make/model/miles within 50 miles, they were in the same range as the one at CarMax, the KBB value was somehow way low. Considering the price is no haggle, it was a simple decision to either take the truck or not. Although I never felt pressure to buy from our sales person, with the volume of cars/trucks this places sells on an average Saturday, there's not a lot of time to think about it. They sell about 60 cars/trucks per day there, if you like something there, you need to decide quickly or risk losing it to another buyer. Anyway, I told the sales person I wanted the truck, and we could start doing the paper work.
We went into a little room and worked out the details. I was shown a vehicle history report, it was all good. I looked at the extended service plans, and since I was buying a used car and didn't know the maintenance history, I bought one for about $1,500 that runs until 125k miles (truck already had ~48k miles). I felt pretty good about that, although I know I have to keep up maintenance and maintain documentation of maintenance, or the extended service plan will not be worth the paper it's printed on (read the fine print - keep records, or you're wasting your money).
CarMax couldn't offer me financing at a rate anywhere close to my credit union, so I used my credit union. No problem. Unlike others have reported, I did not experience any decline in attention from my sales person because of this, he didn't really seem to care if I used CarMax or someone else. He even smiled as my credit union's loan officer made fun of the interest rates they were offering over speaker phone.
Now just about everything was ready to go. Money was paid, papers were signed, and I was waiting for my car... Then the one problem with my entire experience happened. As the CarMax guys were prepping my new truck and pulling off the window stickers, they tore the tint on the window. I was informed about this as I was signing my last piece of paper... The options I was given included: keep the torn tint, we'll remove the tint free of charge. They apologized, but specifically stated that they would not replace the tint as it was aftermarket and not from the manufacturer. This upset me, and I told them so. I almost cancelled my transaction and told them to keep the truck, however I don't much care for tint, and it had been a long day and I was worn down, and I wanted that truck! So I had them pull off the tint on back two windows, and leave it on the two front and rear window(s). I again told them this had turned a positive car buying experience into something less than satisfactory, and they should offer to fix the tint. It really wasn't about the tint, it was the principle of the whole thing.
I eventually got in my new truck, and tried to enjoy my ride home (although I was still upset, it was my new truck, and it was fun). The next day, my sales person called to once again apologize, and let me know that he had called the district (or it could have been regional) manager, and they would reimburse me if I wanted to take my truck some place to have the tint fixed. I wasn't expecting this, and I appreciated that my sales person had taken this extra step, and the fact that some higher manager understood they should have handled this better. At that point, I asked that they just remove the rest of the tint (like I said earlier, I'm not big on tint). I brought my truck in a couple days later, and they removed the tint. All is well once again.
Besides a small headache with CarMax on the tint, the buying experience was very nice. However, I have to question how they'll handle any problems down the road based on the tint issue. After a $23,000+ transaction, before I even drove the truck off the lot, you think they'd have handled that a little better. I'll have to update this review as things progress.
Of note (and already mentioned in other reviews), CarMax gives a 5-day window to return the car with no penalty. You also get a 30-day warranty from the date of purchase. You also have the option on most cars to buy a MaxCare extended service plan (not actually issued by CarMax, but by a 3rd party, although you save money on repairs by bringing the car back to CarMax).
Also of note, after getting the truck, and not knowing it's maintenance history, I decided to do some basic maintenance so that I knew it was up-to-date on everything. I noticed the spark plugs were still the factory plugs, and should have been changed over 18k miles ag read more