CarMax review: Used car buying service

At Roseville CA Carmax on November 18, 2024.
I received a quote online for $8600 online for my 2014 Aura RLX. The vehicle is in excellent mechanical condition but needs a paint job. I made an appointment, and the car was evaluated and came back with an evaluation that it had a transmission problem, and they changed the quote to $7000. I do a lot of mechanical work and know nothing is wrong with the transmission. They said there was a hesitation shifting from 2 to 3 and to cover the risk that something may be wrong they had to cut the quote by $1600. I told the gal I was mechanical and did a lot of work on cars and that I wanted to ride with the person who did the evaluation and if they could point out the problem, fine. I was told the evaluators are not mechanics but trained evaluators. They got a second evaluator to drive the car, again without me being allowed to ride along and the second evaluator confirmed there was a slight hesitation that was barely noticeable but might be a problem. The evaluator said she was fully confident in the car and would drive it anywhere but there was the hesitation at times. She said it might need fluid change. I said this was flat out wrong and nothing was wrong with the car. The adjuster admitted the evaluator was not a mechanic or technician but had been trained to listen for symptoms. I pushed to bring the quote up and was told no, take it or leave it.

I told them while I was waiting, I had heard another adjuster talking with another person selling their car. She was telling the guy that the transmission had problem shifting and the risk required that they lower the quoted.

Bingo, there is method to CarMax. Give a quote and when they get you in, they give a very subjective evaluation by "trained evaluators" who have no technical background or training. The transmission is a good thing for them to identify as a "problem" then to account for the risk of the transmission falling apart they reduce the quote, in my case by 19%. From listening to the adjuster and the customer from earlier and my own experience you tell what they were saying was scripted. They used the exact same words and reasoning, "not sure what it is", "could be a risk", "we are building a case", "trained evaluators", etc.

The second evaluator seemed embarrassed but with the adjuster right there she could not say anything else. As for the adjuster she could tell non-truths with a straight face. I would guess that CarMax sends them to be trained for that.

They got me as I have no desire to sell this on the market, so I took the money. To be fair the rest of the experience was relatively painless but took a lot of time. I do not understand why they had to be dishonest on the quote part of the experience.