How does Carmax usually appraise cars?

"Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To" (murdersofa)
04/28/2016 at 09:05 • Filed to: None

How do their offers compare to NADA values? I’m taking the Mustang there after work, NADA trade in value is $4500 (note: that’s dealer trade in value, the lowest one) and I need to get $5500 out of the car. How likely is it that I’ll get that number, or be stuck listing it on Craigslist and fielding texts that say “hey can i look @ car and will u trade for honda ruckus”

DISCUSSION (12)

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
04/28/2016 at 09:13

I felt our CarMax offer was extremely low. They offered us $5000 for the car, but we had private interest and eventually a dealer offer at $8000.

itschrome > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
04/28/2016 at 09:17

if you’re not buyin from them they low ball you hard. If you’re buying from them you’ll get a solid dealer trade in. but they do a pretty detailed look over. they ran the ODB for codes, put it on a lift, went over every inch. took about a solid hour.

shop-teacher > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
04/28/2016 at 09:17

I don’t think they use any of the guides, I think they look at recent wholesale auction prices and go from there.

I’ve found their offers to be really hit or miss. I’ve had really good offers, and really crappy offers. Where you may be in luck, is now is the perfect time to sell a convertible.

Slant6 > itschrome
04/28/2016 at 09:24

I don’t think they do that. They don’t even know if you’re buying from them when they do the inspection.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > shop-teacher
04/28/2016 at 09:32

Yeah. I’ve been driving the car off and on and it’s had no other issues, doesn’t leak, no codes, drives great, no mechanical issues, but it is approaching 140k miles and it’s an ‘05. Hopefully they’ll offer me enough to get out of my loan and I can be done with this thing and have the extra $250 a month this thing costs me in insurance and payments to put into an old truck.

Ash78, voting early and often > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
04/28/2016 at 09:39

I used to work for a competitor, same deal — they’ll offer you safely about 20% below what they think they’ll get at auction, which is usually below wholesale. Forget everything you’ve seen on KBB/ebay/CL. They come up with great reasons, too. Like offering me $2k for an immaculate Passat wagon worth about $5k because "German cars with over 100k miles drop like a rock in value." That would have worked on me...in 1987.

BmanUltima's car still hasn't been fixed yet, he'll get on it tomorrow, honest. > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
04/28/2016 at 09:46

If you’re looking to get the most money, then selling privately is the way to go.

Birddog > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
04/28/2016 at 09:50

I got two quotes from them for work vehicles recently. They were at Wholsale on one and about $1000 below on another.

itschrome > Slant6
04/28/2016 at 09:51

I just went through all this last month. and they asked me about 15 times and it swear my price dropped because I wasn’t.

shop-teacher > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
04/28/2016 at 09:55

I’m sure you’ll be able to get it private party, if not from CarMax. It sure would be nice to just get a check from them and be done with it.

Slant6 > itschrome
04/28/2016 at 10:08

I went about a year ago and it never came up. They might overall be bellow what the going rate is but it’s most of the time more than worth the hassle it takes to do a private sale.

I was also having a 2010 Suburban appraised, so it was a car they could easily resell. Demand is pretty consistent.

haveacarortwoorthree2 > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
04/28/2016 at 10:45

Had a fair offer from the dealer I was buying my car from for the DD — no mechanical issues, interior great, exterior beat to hell with door dings from parking garage and rear end a little scratched from transporting bikes. Went to CarMax, had them appraise, and test drove a car while waiting (don’t know if it made a difference, but I certainly let them believe I could be buying a car from them). They offered me $500 more than the dealer, which the dealer then matched. It was right between the “rough” and “average” trade-in values.