CarMax

[Johnny Rockets]

Bump for anymore leads on decent car lots (not necessarily Carmax).

The wife and I have been looking at a variety of used cars in the last month, but no one wants to negotiate. That would be fine if they weren't $1,000 or more above KBB.

Anyone know of anybody selling a cheaper SUV in the $5-7,000 range? Jeep Grand Cherokee, Jeep Liberty, Hyundai Santa Fe, etc.

Going to be putting my GMC Envoy up for sale in 2 weeks. Fully loaded, 8 passenger seating, leather, sunroof, running boards, 4 wheel drive, etc....basically has all options available for that vehicle besides heated seats. I haven't really researched a price on it yet but I think it will be more in the $9,000 range.

[CharlotteBeer.com]

Going to be putting my GMC Envoy up for sale in 2 weeks. Fully loaded, 8 passenger seating, leather, sunroof, running boards, 4 wheel drive, etc....basically has all options available for that vehicle besides heated seats. I haven't really researched a price on it yet but I think it will be more in the $9,000 range.

I like the Envoys and appreciate the offer, but it's a little out of our range. That seems like a really good price, though. To be honest, the $7,000 area was a bit high as well.

We found a Grand Cherokee that my wife likes (she'll be the one driving it), and she's finalizing all of the details today. At $5,500, I feel we could have talked them down a bit more -- but my wife is stressing out about it and the price seems fair.

[Delhommey]

They do not haggle. And yes, they're a little steep.

[cookinwithgas]

Carmax is more about the idea that you walk in without facing the idea of playing the "dealership" game to me. You can get the car cheaper somewhere else, but you will have to work for it, and the salesguy is more commisions based, so it's a contest.

They have a decent warranty deal and their cars are generally in good shape, which is great to a lot of people.

I am driving an 11 year old Grand Cherokee now with 130,000 miles on it and aside from being a little shaky on the transmission, it has been pretty good. Miss my convertible though.

[Carolina Husker]

That was the issue with me. CarMax was the only place within 500 miles that had the car I was looking for with the specs I wanted. The closest one I found was in Georgia, had 3x the miles and not as many features. And it was only $1500 less. I would have liked to negotiate, but it wasn't an option.

I pulled the trigger on it after it got shipped down to Atlanta while I was deciding. Luckily the guy down there didn't buy it, so I had them ship it back and I bought it the next day.

[mush]

Guys, please understand that any car you buy that isn't certified pre-owned is just a car that the dealership bought at an auction or got on a tradein and just threw it out on the lot. they are sales people not mechanics. On used cars there is no lemon law and it's usually as-is no warranty, if you want a warranty those ARE EXPENSIVE! Usually 2-3k more than the price of the car.

There is no money made in checking it over and fixing things on it. You just eat into your profit doing that too much. At the end of the day, you have to live with a few little things wrong cuz it's a used car. You should always drive it more than a few minutes or take it to someone you trust to look it over because from the dealership standpoint the less they know about it the better. They don't want to know what's wrong with it because it just would cost them money (profit) to make it right. So the weight is on you to figure it out.

At the end of the day, the dealership you all trust are really just salesman, the fact they have a shop there doesn't mean they know anything about the car they're selling you. Most of the salesmen haven't ever even driven the car you're thinking about buying. And someone over them bought it knowing nothing about it so they know even less.

[Carolina Husker]

I took mine to my mechanic during my 7-day window. He said the only thing he saw on it was an after factory exhaust, and that's covered by the warranty. Obviously you shouldn't trust them on their word that the car is fine, but they give you ample opportunity to have someone else check it out to make sure it's not a lemon.

[panther4life]

if your looking in the 5-7k range your best bet is craigslist or some other private party classifieds.

[CharlotteBeer.com]

Yeah, we picked up a 2002 Jeep Grand Cherokee off Craigslist for $5,500. I think we might have been able to get them down to $5,000, but the wife was tired of negotiating (we already got them down from $6,000).

Cleaned it up a bit yesterday, put on some new hood lift supports, popped a small dent out of the bumper. We're having a mechanic check a few more things today and we'll probably take it to the beach this weekend. Can't wait to get 17 miles per gallon the whole way there!

I'm just glad the search is over. Car buying can be stressful. In my past, I was scared to negotiate. This time, I was adamant about getting a car at a good price, but I found many dealerships wouldn't really negotiate at all. I mean, they might come down $100 on a car that was already $1,000 over KBB, but that was it.

We went to Metro Honda to check out a 2001 Honda Civic. They had it priced at $7,900, but the KBB was around $5,700. I told them we wanted to spend $5,500, and that we felt that was a fair price for the car.

Then they gave us some "Internet price" of $6,800. I thought if they could just drop a grand like that, they'd be willing to come down more. She did -- to $6,600.

We continued to check Craigslist, and we saw them list and relist that car, each time lowering the price substantially. Over the course of a couple weeks, they got the car down to $5,900. I assume they sold it for that or less, but even though we called back several times and left countless messages and e-mails, they wouldn't call us back -- despite us expressing interest in the car and it being right around our range.

So fug you, Metro Honda of Indian Trail.

:rantoff:

[Carolina Husker]

I hate those motherfvckers if for nothing more than those terrible goddamned commercials.

[Scrumtrilescent]

There's a car at a CarMax in Chicago I want. Epi, drive it down here and I'll buy you a beer.

[panther4life]

Dealerships generally put their bottom line price online, so I doubt they were just being greedy. And when you say kelly blue book are you referring to trade-in value or retail value?

[CharlotteBeer.com]

Dealerships generally put their bottom line price online, so I doubt they were just being greedy. And when you say kelly blue book are you referring to trade-in value or retail value?

The retail. They came down $2,000 in less than two weeks. I think they set the price really high knowing that people would want to negotiate down to a fairer price. I just don't understand why they were so unwilling to negotiate with me.

[Carolina Husker]

Maybe you're really ugly and they'd rather negotiate through the internet.