Working For Financial Freedom

We Won’t Be Selling Our Car to CarMax

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CarMax is an auto dealership that sells and buys pre-owned (used) cars. You walk in, they appraise your car in about 30 minutes, and you don’t have to hassle with advertising your car to sell it. Sounds like a sweet deal right?

Our goal is to get out of debt. Dave Ramsey suggests to many people that are “up to their eyeballs” in debt that they should sell their cars if they are making payments on them and get something cheaper. When is he ok with keeping the cars? If the total value of your vehicles is less than 50% of your yearly income and you can pay them off in 12-18 months. We meet both of those requirements but we’d still like to sell one of our cars.

For 2 reasons.

#1 We hope to be expecting #4 to our family soon and our Ford F-150 Supercrew truck (a four door truck) just isn’t going to cut it.

#2 We’d like to reduce our debt. So if we can sell the truck, get something bigger and reduce our debt at the same time, I think we should do it.

Financial stats on the F-150?

We owe $14,683.

I used Kelly Blue Book Online to get an idea of what our truck is worth.

Kelly Blue Book Trade-In Value
Good condition $15,680
Excellent Condition $16,725

Kelly Blue Book Private Seller Value (if we sold it ourselves)
Good condition $17,880
Excellent Condition $19,010

Kelly Blue Book Retail Value (what a dealer will sell it for)
Excellent Value $21,415

I’ve heard good things about CarMax so I decided to give them a try yesterday. I shouldn’t have been expecting much since their goal is to buy the car from you, but still be able to turn around and sell it at a profit.

Here’s how it went.

I walked in and they took some basic info from me and my keys. The salesman placed a number on the top of my truck and gave the keys to the appraisers. Then we went into his office so he could input my name and address into the computer.

Now it was time to wait for the appraiser. I didn’t have to wait very long but while I waited I walked around the lot and found a truck similar to mine (although mine was nicer looking) selling for $19,995. hmmm…

What did they offer me?

Well, first he said that the appraiser told him that their trucks were taking longer to sell than usual. Next, the SWEET after market wheels we had on the truck would need to be taken off and we would have to put the ugly stock wheels back on (which we have). They only sell vehicles on their lot with stock parts. If we didn’t have the stock wheels, they could still buy the truck, but would offer us a reduced price and then turn around and sell the truck wholesale. Understandable, but STILL, those wheels could fetch $1,000 alone. And they look awesome on the truck, I don’t go anywhere without guys drooling over my wheels. I’ve never seen any like them.

So…something to keep in mind. If you have after market parts on your vehicle that cost $$ you probably won’t get a fair price for you car at CarMax and would do better to sell it on your own. (although, if you aren’t able to make payments on your car you might do better just to get rid of the car and sell it to CarMax if you can’t find a private buyer)

Ok, enough about my wheels. Really, I’m OK with selling the truck.

What did we get offered?

$14,000!

I think the salesman was almost embarrassed to show me the offer. And I politely told him we won’t be selling the truck there, but would sell it on our own.

We won’t be selling our truck to CarMax but they might just work for you.