I am awaiting the arrival of Alice Cooper, and have about 3-weeks to sell my car. It is currently listed on Autotrader, but if it doesn't sell, how much of a dollar difference is there from selling to CARMAX to dealer trade-in.

 

Thats impossible to answer without know the specific on your car. I can tell you that the dealer offered me about 1800 less than selling to CARMAX

 

My experience is that carmax is almost always substantially better. In fact I have twice had dealers tell me I am better off selling to carmax than to trade in. I have found that, depending on the model, they will give you as much as $1,000 over kelly blue book trade in value and dealers are often under kelly blue book.

I don't know how it is wherever you are but here in Illinois when you trade in a car you only pay sales tax on the difference between what you are buying and what you are trading. So if for example you trade in a $10,000 vehicle, you would save approximately $650 (at a 6.5% sales tax rate). So then carmax has to be more than $650 better to make it worthwhile. Usually they are much better than that. But it depends on the model.

 

My experince w/Carmax is limited, but I'm happy with them. I "sold" my Saturn to Carmax in Glencoe, IL and used the proceeds towards the purchase of my '05 MCc (which I bought right off of their lot ) . They got me Blue Book for it so I was happy. They give you a written purchase commitment that's good for about a week. The whole process for the estimate was about 30 minutes.


I would at least get the estimate from Carmax and go from there. :smile:

 

Does an Alice Cooper come with optional snakeskin seatcovers?

 

This was my experience....

I used to own a 16 month old 2004 MCS (Bought brand new) with 17K miles on the clock. Back in January '05 I placed an order for a new 2005 MCS, so I began to inquire about the "Trade-in" values for my '04, first with the dealer then with Carmax. Here are the results of both appraisals, made one week with each other:

Dealer trade in offer: $18,500
Carmax trade in offer: $18,400

Both places rated the car to be in excellent condition.

I immediately walked away from that option.

A couple of weeks later I sold the car privately for $21,900 I made $3,400 right off the bat over both trade-in offers. That is a NICE chunk of change if you ask me. I sold the car for $700 more than I originally paid for it new back in Oct '03.

It pays to sell privately!

 

Alice Cooper didnt mention he had a MINI as a tradein. Private sale is not always good with most cars. Carmax is usually very high and much better than tradeins.

 

Something to be aware of with Carmax - they specifically told me they do not want or quote well on modded cars. They told me that they cannot put a modded car on the lot and get rid of them another way (I can't remember the specific wording at this time) and thus they do not really want them. The inspection guy told me outright that their offer would be quite low based on this (not the condition of the car which was excellent) and that I could do better selling it directly.

This was partially due to the upgraded suspension (Dinan Stage II) on the 3 series, he spotted that it was not stock ride height and they yellow Koni shocks. They also ask you outright on the forms is anythign has been changed (engine, software, etc) and I'm not one to lie anyway even if they didn't spot the mods. The car never made it into their garage for the exam so I can't tell you if they would have noticed the other modified items.

 

Carmax in Miami almost always gives out lousy trade in offers.

This is yet another BAD experience with them 3 years ago:

We had ordered our first MINI. My wife wanted to get rid of her '97 Mercury Tracer sedan. Went to Carmax. Final Appraisal $2,500. One week later we sold it privately for $4,500 cold cash.

Conclusions:

Trade ins are more convenient, but you do pay through the nose for that convenience. Trade ins = Lowballing the price.

Private sale you always make more money and often approach the vaunted Blue Book retail values.

This is my experience in Florida. Maybe Carmax is more "generous" elsewhere in the country

I rest my case.

 

My '04 MCS was bone stock. Yet I was still quoted a terrible trade in offer by Carmax.

 

I believe you just hit it on the head. Ever look up car prices and the first thing they do is check your zip code? Car prices do vary by geography.

I traded on toyota for a more expensive one and they gave me more than KBB (the real book, not the online prices) for private sales.

As to mods, everyone knows that you never get the price of mods back. However, that may not be true for factory mods (aka JCW). But you definitely will not get more money for that fancy stereo or new wheels

 

I know a couple of people that sold MINIs to CarMax when they were getting another MINI. Both of them said they got less money than they wanted but more than the MINI dealer would give them in trade.

Like others have said, you'll ALWAYS do better with a private sale, but it's much more trouble than selling to CarMax or trading the car in.

Good luck!

 

Private sales are always more work, but I believe the added profits are well worth the effort. I work hard for my money and therefore, I don't feel like giving "generous" gifts to a car dealership just because I believe my chances at succeeding on a private sale are slim to none.

Trade-ins work reasonably well in very specific situations, but in 99% of the cases out there, if you have a car in decent shape, seel it yourself.

 

One of the major things that affects what any dealer will give you for your car is whether or not they will put it on their lot and sell it or just wholesale it out. So when you trade a Ford in at a ford dealer it is likely you will do better than if you trade yoyr Ford at a Toyota dealer. Obviously all dealers sell all brands on their used car side but they tend to have some preference for their new car sales brands.

The bigger factor is age and condition of the car. Carmax doesn't generally sell cars for much less than $10,000. Also they are quite picky about condition in general. If your car has good value and is in good condition and is not a model for which they have a big inventory already it is more likely that you will get blue book or more. If it is not a car they want to sell then you are likely to get less than blue book.

Private sale is alwsys better. For me though generally the time and effort is not worth it usually. I generally have little time for this type of thing. Between advertising it in some way, responding to inquiries, showing the car, and then the details of the transaction - it would end up taking time away from either work or family and neither is then worth it for me. Buying a car already takes too much time. I don't want to add to the process with selling one too. But that is just me being a single dad and self employed I just don't have the time.

On the other hand when the day comes for selling my MINI I may just try to sell it myself because my guess is that the resale value and demand for MINI s as they are may make selling it easier and quicker than if I were selling a ford taurus.

 

Carmax in Miami steals used MINIs on trade ins and then turns around and sells them for FULL BRAND NEW RETAIL price + Markup


Those bastards make at least $4K-$5K per used MINI on their lot.

 

the Carmax here in Baltimore has a standing agreement with MINI of Towson that they will buy any MINI off their lot for $1000 sticker so I am guessing that this is a vehicle Carmax can move very quickly. In this case you should definitely take it over there as it can't hurt and it will give you a good idea what the market is like.

I have sold three cars to Carmax and have come out ahead on every one of them.

 

We had a 1999 Chrysler Sebring JXi Convertible with LOW miles that we were going to trade on our MINI. We live in a fairly small town and Sebrings are a dime a dozen, so selling the Sebring would probably have gotten us more money, but we may have had to try to sell it for 8-10 months.

The dealer told us that they would use KBB trade in values for "Fair" condition for our car. Before we went to the MINI dealer, I got on KBB and got the values for our car using the dealer's ZIP Code and printed them out and took them with me.

They went out and looked at our car then said they would give us almost $2000 BELOW the fair value. The car was not perfect, but was a heck of a lot better than what they rated it. I had not expected to get exactly what KBB said it was worth, but something fairly close. The dealer said that was the "Fair" value for our car, and started to get online to show us what KBB said. I had it printed out already and showed him what KBB said-he re-entered the info and got the same amount-and he didn't have a lot to say about the big difference in their appraisal.

We then went to Carmax to see what they would give us for the car. Their appraiser spent about 15 minutes looking at the car and offered us $400 ABOVE KBB value. Needless to say, they bought themselves a Sebring that day.

We called our saleman to come pick us up and take us back to the MINI dealership. We liked the look on his face when we told him we got almost $2500 more for our car than they offered.

As a final note: I checked the Carmax website each day after selling them our car and our car was gone on the second day.

 

Carmax was straight wholesale with me. My dealer gave me a few hundred more but I pre-traded it to catch the October trade-in price.

 

The car has 35000 miles in excellent condition, and is certified to 100k miles.

 

Kind of makes you think your in the wrong business

 

I've never understood this kind of statement. No one is putting a gun to a buyers head. Supply and demand.

If you're selling something and someone wants to pay more than they could get the item for somewhere else I doubt that you will turn them away.

 

Sold my 01 Audi A4 with 80K miles and Carmax in Sterling Va gave me $10K for it. That was in the range that KBB had with the options I had.

MINI of Sterling could only offer me $8000, but it was late on a Friday night, and they couldn't get ahold of many whole-sellers (they don't appear to sell used cars there).

It's a toss up. I feel sure that I could have gotten more money in a private sale, but that would have taken a lot of time out of my schedule. The ease of selling at Carmax is what really worked for me. I went in about a week before my MINI was due in, and then made sure that I didn't drive the car too much so that my offer would still be good if the dealer couldn't do a good trade in.

It's aways going to be a bit hit and miss. If they are busy, or your car is one they are sure they can move quickly, they may overlook minor things. If it's a slow day, and your car is so-so, they may give you a low quote just to save the bother.

As for Carmax probably turning around and selling the car for $15K, good for them. After all its a business and they have a good network and provide a handy place for people to get a nice used car. My girlfriend picked up a used Escape earlier this summer and is very happy with it.

 

No way.. If I only can have one, choosing between either my bimmer (325Ci) or MCS.. The 325Ci will stay definitely.. but lucky I don't need to.
Wonder what makes you want to trade from the 325Ci to MINI (MC or MCS).

 

Anyway.. hope you can find a good trade.

 

When I bought the MINI, I sold my 2001 Jeep Cherokee to Carmax after trying to sell it privately for a few weeks. People called up and offered me ridiculous numbers like $3,000 below the price you would get for a dealer trade according to KBB, Edmunds, etc. Then I had a guy calling wanting me to pay them $500 to list the car with some certain group of buyers they had. Felt like a scam to me.


Anyway, I ended up getting a decent price for it, probably $2,000 over the trade-in listed at KBB.