Update on the latent smoke smell in my car.

I've been talking with them since Saturday about it and what they were willing to do to fix it. They kept stalling and putting me off to push me past the 5 day grace period so that I couldn't return the car. The refused to schedule a cleaning/ionizing until after the 5 day grace period was up. I ended up talking with their corporate offices about extending the grace period to two hours after they finish cleaning my car, so that if the smell doesn't go away, I can still return the vehicle. They refused. The general manager also told corporate the he offered to exchange the vehicle for me. He has never spoken to me and never made any such offer.

So fine, I'm willing to give them a chance and let them do the deep cleaning/ionizing they offered, because I really like the car, aside form the smoke smell. No big deal, right?

They won't give me a loaner car and actually recommended I take the bus from the nearby park & ride to get home after I drop off my vehicle. Adding insult to injury, they won't reimburse me for my bus fare for the two days I'll be commuting and traveling to the dealer by bus.

That, my friends, is a great way to make your customers happy.

Moral of the story is that if you want a place that will take care of you after your purchase, Carmax is NOT that place. I will never buy another car from Carmax again.

Zips, you are being a bit of a drama queen. YOU bought a car KNOWING that it reeked of smoke. Take the car back now.

I like Burt's Bees better.

thanks for the heads up

I sold a car to them, and they paid more for it than I could sell it for anywhere else.

So, Thanks Carmax!

I could smell it from 5 feet away...

Sorry zips

i have never dealt with carmax of autonation. I refuse to purchase a car where there is a 'no haggle' policy. That means that they also have an inherent 'customer screwing' policy as well.

I spent all of 2 minutes in the vehicle before I bought it. The first thing on my mind wasn't how it smelled. It was after I bought it and was driving off the lot that I noticed it. I made the sales manager aware of it immediately, and the sales rep won't return my calls.

I can't take the car back now because the grace period expired on Tuesday.

Allthings....

You still talking about the car?




[This message has been edited by aggrad99 (edited 6/1/2006 10:50a).]

still think you should take my leaky cat for a week. promise youll never smell smoke again.

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I spent all of 2 minutes in the vehicle before I bought it. The first thing on my mind wasn't how it smelled. It was after I bought it and was driving off the lot that I noticed it.

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as far as i see it, they dont owe you a thing. you got in it, didnt take enough time and bought it on impulse. why is this their fault? they didnt hide anything.

carmax has reaaallly good deals on certain cars if you look around, even though they wont haggle. i got my tacoma w/ TRD there, in GREAT condition w/ 70K, lots of upgrades for $12,000. no one in the Houston area came close to giving us a deal like that. carmax is ok by me.

Insurance companies should consider cat urine a qualifier for 'total loss'

Walton got it right...

Take it to a detail shop and have them shampoo the seats and carpet.

Sorry Zips...

I didn't buy it on impulse. It just wasn't necessary for me to drive it around for 20 minutes before purchasing it. I had already looked at ~20-30 vehicles prior to this one.

But you didnt buy any of those....you were buying this one.

And get it shampooed.

But you can usually smell smoke immediately. Especially if it's as bad as you say.

I'll never recommend CarMax or shop there. When I went in last week to look at a possible sell and buy, they offered me $1500 less than my research showed I should've been offered (and actually $1500 less than I got when I did trade it in a day later).

Sounds like you're sunk. Spend the $$ and get it detailed, cleaned, shampooed.

Sounds like a good time for you to start smoking *cough* *cough*

buying a car after only spending 2 minutes in it would be classified as "on impulse" in my book.

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I spent all of 2 minutes in the vehicle before I bought it.

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Well that's just plain stupid. Did you buy any of the other 20-30 vehicles you drove? No, you bought the one that smelled like smoke.

It's not knock-you-over bad. To me, it's mostly a stale, musty smell. I'm sure I would get used to it, and it's not bad enough to make my clothing smell, but ask ATR how he reacted to it. He could smell the smoke from 5 feet away. I couldn't, but he could. One of the biggest reasons I bought this vehicle was for the passenger room. How my friends feel in my vehicle is very important to me.

quote:

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I'll never recommend CarMax or shop there. When I went in last week to look at a possible sell and buy, they offered me $1500 less than my research showed I should've been offered (and actually $1500 less than I got when I did trade it in a day later).

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Of course a car dealer isn't going to offer you the full amount on the first go around.

I told you how to get rid of the smell and you are spending your car cleaning time whining and posting on TexAgs. Buy the apples and get busy!

Seriously, though ... the place is a used car dealership. How much trouble would it be for them to give me a loaner that I would put maybe 50 miles on, tops while they do something they admitted they should have done but didn't do?

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How my friends feel in my vehicle is very important to me.

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It wasn't that bad after a few minutes, really. It was just at first that I could really tell.

I bought my 98 Blazer from Carmax in late '01. Sale went fine but the car had some minor problems. Once I got out of my warranty I haven't had a problem since.

1. Bad alternator, broke down in Refugio on the way back to Houston from Corpus late on a sunday. Got f'd for $200+ in towing. Carmax replaced the Alt for free and reimbursed me $50 for the towing.
2. The Alternator they replaced was bad and crapped out within 2 weeks, luckily at my apt. They towed me, gave me a rental, and replaced the Alternator for free. no problems since.
3. Got a flat in Brookshire on the way to SA. The rim of the spare wasn't the right size for the Blazer (too small). I returned to Carmax to replace the spare with the proper one and they did,for free. A few months later I got a flat in downtown and it turns out the spare they gave me was the wrong kind AGAIN. I was pissed. I took the spare back and *****ed them out. They ordered me a standard rim (same as other 4) and replaced the spare with it. Got a $700 rim for free.
4. After a tune up they didn't put the skid plates back on
5. They forgot to refill the A/C with freon
6. They said they replaced the driver side window motor but never did.

that's all I can think of.

I would be very careful about buying a car from them. Their mechanic shops suck ass.

At least they gave you a loaner instead of telling you to take the bus.

Carmax gave me more than my truck was worth when I sold it to them, I got a better deal on the new(er) truck I bought from them, but asking them to be anything more than a used car dealer is a mistake.

The leaky headlight they fixed was never really fixed. The All-inclusive warranty excluded the battery that went out within weeks of purchase.

They get cars in from individuals and auctions, clean them up, mark them up 15% and sell. They make money on that, their worthless warranties, and the financing (they jack up the APR by 1-2%).

IF you are going to sell them your car, get it cleaned up first. It adds 10% to the value. If you are buying a vechicle from them, buy one that still has the factory warranty so you don't get conned into getting theirs, secure your own financing ahead of time, and wait for the car you want to become a "last chance" vehicle thus knocking off $1000 from the price.



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If you can read this, thank a teacher.
If you can read this in English, thank a Soldier.

To their credit, they gave me $1,900 more than my truck was worth.

About 4 years ago my wife and I were contemplating the purchase of a '00 Nissan Xterra from Carmax. The car had almost 50k miles on it and they were asking over 17k for it.

We went to Baker Jackson Nissan and ended up buying an '01 Nissan Xterra with only 36k miles on it, fully loaded: leather seats, v6 engine, cruise control, power windows/locks, etc., am/fm cd and cassette, plus it was certified used. We paid only $14.5k.

You can get a better deal at a dealership, but you do have to go through the miserable experience of haggling. We've found the experience, miserable as it is, to be worth at least a couple of thousand dollars.

TAF

I think if they had just said, "Sure, we'll try to get the odor out. In the mean time, here's a loaner, and if we can't get the odor out, we'll take the car back or let you exchange it" I would be perfectly happy with them.

Instead, they effectively said, "We will try to get the odor out, but only after you can't return the vehicle, and if we can't fix it, that's your problem, even though we didn't do what we are supposed to do. I'm sure the bus can get you where you need to go."