I'm in the early stages of car shopping and have been seeing the ads for CarMax. Anyone have any experience with them ? They seem to have newer cars with low miles at decent prices.

I didn't buy from them. I sold them my old car because it had 225,000 miles on it and no way would it pass smog here in CA. I didn't want to spend the money to fix it up and it basically had little trade in value.

Regardless of why you go there you get the whole spiel, which was pretty informative and took about 15 minutes. Then while they appraised my vehicle I went around with the sales guy to look at what they had.

They don't work on commission. They're prices are no haggle (so they say).

The sales guy I dealt with made the experience pretty pleasant. Test drove a couple vehicles. Then got my appraisel in writing and sold it to them the next day for more than I actually thought they would give me.

Their prices are competitive and they were low pressure the whole time. Even when I told the guy I most likely wouldn't buy from him he was pleasant.

I didn't buy from them because I work at a dealership and get a really good deal there

Beats the heck out of the traditional dealer or used car lot experience. All the cars I looked at and drove seemed to be in good condition.

According to what I was told by them, they only resell about 15% of the vehicles they take in trade. The rest are auctioned off and go to used car lots. That should tell you something right there.

I bought my Mitsubishi SUV from there 2 years ago and my Volvo recently in July of this year.  I bought 2/24,000 warranties for both vehicles.  On my SUV the HVAC crapped out and on the first warranty job, the warranty paid for itself. $1200 warranty and the repairs amounting $1500 all covered.  I had to go back about 2 more times for HVAC issues the last time they took it to the Mitsubishi dealership for the fix. and provided a free rental through out the whole period.

Seriosly no pressure, no hassles, they even lay out your financing options and all the staff was pleasant.

One of the clerks at the business office screwed up on our DMV registration. The VIN didn't match the smog check.  We resmogged it with the correct VIN number and they reimbursed us and gave us a $25 credit for use in the service bay.  They even apologized!

When I traded in my Saturn I KBB'd it at about $2500 and figured if they go below that I was going to hold off from buying the Volvo.  I took two hours the night before to do a quck detail and clean the car, even Simple Green'd the engine bay.  They gave me $3000.

I am convinced they are a good place to purchase a  preowned car if you absolutely hate sales pressue and car salesman b.s.

two of my good friends areworking/have worked for carmax. their honest opinion? don't buy from carmax. they both said that they've sold people some real lemons and have felt bad, but because they only make money if they sell a car, they were forced to either sell or go hungry.  of course, this info is worth exactly what you paid for it.

they both said that they've sold people some real lemons and have felt bad

That's true of any dealer that sells newish cars.  Car Max doesn't have a magic ball that tells them which few newish cars are good ones and which of the majority of cars that people got rid of quickly are problems.  People get rid of lemons quickly, and they end-up being sold somewhere.  That's why you either buy new or buy used from someone you trust.  More often than not the past few years the people I've known that have bought a newer used car have gotten screwed hard.  Cars cost so much to fix these days that it can be a very costly mistake to buy someone else's problems.z

Carmax can only catch so much, they rely on CarFax too much, Ive personally paid for crashed cars out of my pocket. So carfax only tells part of the story. With that said, ive sold 2 cars TO carmax, they did me right and actually gave me more for one car than I had thought they would. They basically came in jus under retail. I was shocked and I couldnt hand the keys over fast enuff. But I think the make and model have something to do with it. This last car was a Honda S2000, so it wasnt a normal car per se. I was happy with the deal. Dont think id buy anything from them, I rarely buy cars anyway. But id maybe look, etc.