Any Ex-CarMAX Employees Here?

I was wondering if someone could give me a clue as to their margins, and whether or not it is possible to guess as to what their offer on your car would likely be by looking at the listed prices for nearly identical vehicles.

You might ask: Why don't you just go there and have your car appraised?

The reason is that I need to sell my dad's car on his behalf, and being that he is now disabled and not very mobile, and with the nearest CarMAX being over 100 miles away from him, I want to have some confidence that their offer on the car will be acceptable before I go through a bunch of hassle. There will be some logistical issues traveling to retrieve his vehicle, and selling the car to them without my dad being present will require getting power of attorney through them, which involves going through some rigamarole with forms and a notary .

The car is a 2014 Honda CR-V EX-L with all the trimmings. It has 55k on it and a clean carfax. CarMAX has nearly identical examples listed for $20,998. I would be happy to get $17,500 for it. Private party is supposedly ~$19,000 according to KBB but my dad can't handle selling it himself, and neither can I due to the distance.

I have two data points, both about 4 years old by now:

4 year old plain jane Camry, offer came in about 10% off black book and 15% off MMR. 

10 year old Ford minivan came in at about 50% off both. The thought there was that it was just going to go to wholesale; they weren't going to put it on their lot. After factoring the sales fees and everything I can't believe they'd have made more than $500 on that car; it was only worth about $4k private party. 

I remember the Camry person being very pissed at the offer and the minivan person taking it. No hassle, very easy. I thought both were fair offers; they gotta make money somehow, and in my family's two experiences buying from them they've been just phenomenal. 

I believe Argo works there currently. He may be able to help you. 

Used to work in purchasing strategy at CarMaxhq, but it's been a good few years. Based on mileage I don't think you'll get 17.5k -my guess is more like 16.5k.

My experience is to check the phase of the moon against to position of mercury as there seems to be no logic to their offers.

One time I rolled in with a CLEAN one year old car with 600 miles and was offered $ 8k below market, another time I rolled in with a 3 year old car and 130k miles and smelled like a trash truck, and was offered $3k over market.

Have you called any local new/ used dealers? Some will buy your car straight up.

Paul B

Drive it to the nearest Honda dealer and ask the used car manager if he is interested. I sold an 18 month old Civic back to a Honda dealer. It was a very fair price and an easy transaction. 

Thanks for all the input.  I will update with whatever I figure out.

PM me your VIN and I'll do a Wholesale scan for you. Lately, I've been within $2-300 off of their offer. 

M3Loco said:

PM me your VIN and I'll do a Wholesale scan for you. Lately, I've been within $2-300 off of their offer. 

OK thanks. Will do when I get home.

M3Loco said:

PM me your VIN and I'll do a Wholesale scan for you. Lately, I've been within $2-300 off of their offer. 

 I guess yahoo is becoming more stupider. I got this notice:

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

<richie.[xxxx]@gmail.com> (edited by me)

    (reason: 550-5.7.1 Unauthenticated email from yahoo.com is not accepted due to domain's)

Is this you?

It probably wouldn't hurt to post the estimate here.

JamesMcD said:

M3Loco said:

PM me your VIN and I'll do a Wholesale scan for you. Lately, I've been within $2-300 off of their offer. 

 I guess yahoo is becoming more stupider. I got this notice:

 

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----

<richie.[xxxx]@gmail.com> (edited by me)

    (reason: 550-5.7.1 Unauthenticated email from yahoo.com is not accepted due to domain's)

 

Is this you?

 

 

Yeah, it's me. 

Lately I'm seeing many instances of yahoo and gmail not playing nice together.

e-mail me at james31416     AT    g m a i l    .   c  o  m  

Here's what I pulled from Manheim Market Report. If you can get $17,500 for it, you're good. 

Questions, let me know. 

My only experience was being offered $2k under wholesale and the dbag they let test drive it managed to warp my rotors in the 20-25min he was gone with it. I made up for it by abusing the hell out of one of their MS6's a few weeks later. 

I went to CarMax today. They offered $16k. I thought that was a bit low. I mean, they have CR-Vs like mine (EX-L, 54k miles) listed online for $21k. So offering $5k beneath that seemed kinda crappy.  I made a CL ad and parked it in my driveway (I have good frontage).

List it on Honda and CRV forums too. 

markwemple said:

List it on Honda and CRV forums too. 

I would try that, but it seems like all forums these days,  that are still active, lock new users out of the classifieds until they've made some number of posts in other sections. 

I ended up selling to a Toyota dealership for $17,400. Their buyer saw my CL ad.

Wow, that's quite a bit more!  I'm surprised, figured that an outright sale to the dealership  that wasn't part of a purchase would result in offers that were all in the same range, +/- a few hundred dollars.

Congrats!!

docwyte said:

Wow, that's quite a bit more!  I'm surprised, figured that an outright sale to the dealership  that wasn't part of a purchase would result in offers that were all in the same range, +/- a few hundred dollars.

 

Congrats!!

Thanks! Yeah, I was happy with that.