Jason Abel

Review of Carmax, Sterling VA

I knew the car I wanted and the details about ever...

I knew the car I wanted and the details about everything going in. The salesman helped arrange for the transfer of the car I wanted from another store, and kept me posted on everything. They offered me a fair, although on the low end of fair, appraisal of my used car which I decided to take. When my car arrived from the other dealership, I noticed some faults in the car (missing screw covers in the interior, and part of the trunk access mechanism didn't open). CarMax offered to resolve these, but it seems like it should have been something CarMax discovered before I did. Also, while I know it's not realistic to expect the salespeople to know all the ins and outs of every type of vehicle, it was a little disappointing that the salesman couldn't tell me lots of specifics about how different things in my car worked. The only real complaint I have is that I decided to go through the financing offered by CarMax rather than using my bank after the salesman told me that I would be able to make the monthly payments using a credit card - I was interested in being able to accrue points on my credit card with each monthly payment (I wasn't looking to avoid paying by just charging it, but figured I could really get lots of airline miles if I paid monthly using my card). Well, after all was said and done, and when it was time for my first payment, the financing people told me that I had been misled, they don't allow payments to be made on cards. That's disappointing and I feel that I was purposely misinformed to the advantage of CarMax's financing organization. I purchased the extended warranty offered through CarMax as well. I haven't had to have anything done, but I specifically asked the salesman if the warranty covered particular things, he assured me it does. I'm very much hoping that he was truthful in that, as I won't be pleased to find out that it doesn't cover something I expected it to if/when I must have the car serviced.