Why Carmax will thrive...

On December 27th I dropped off our 2002 Mercedes Benz C320 wagon at the dealer. We brought it in to get a "Service B" checkup (every 20k miles) and to have a flat tire replaced. We also asked them to give us a quote on getting a couple little annoyances fixed.

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS later we got the car back with a new battery, new fuel filter, and the promise of at least $2000 in imminent service that we decided to put off. SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS of that was to perform the Service B check, which amounts to little more than changing the oil and topping up the fluids.

I was INCANDESCENT. I complained to anyone that would listen, including the Service Manager. I calmly explained how fucking ridiculous it was to charge $600 to change some fluids and asked him point blank how they could charge me $100 in labor to replace the battery. I was told that costs were costs. The decision to sell the car was made before I left the repair shop.

After Gabby stopped crying (she really liked the car, but knew getting rid of it was the right thing to do), our next decision was what to replace it with. My criteria had fundamentally changed. Cheap. Reliable. Low maintenance. How about a Honda or a Toyota? Too small though. We enjoyed being able to chuck the Pack-n-play and Alex's stroller in the back and luggage for the family for a week at the beach.

What about an SUV? Hey - there's a flash new hybrid Ford Escape SUV! Even Kermit likes it! It gets good mileage and good reviews, although I probably would've mangled my legs in a head-on collision.

WHOA. Sticker price of $33k and people are paying two and three grand above sticker without batting an eye? OK. Maybe it's worth it. So I put my "let's be prudent and try to reduce expenses rather than increase them" mentality aside and we got ready to make a deal. We were ready to go and signed the paperwork. The vehicle was delivering Jan 1st. We'd just come in and pick it up.

It became obvious that there was something wrong when the dealer and the salesman started dodging our calls. Turns out they had already sold the car to someone else. A day passes, my frustration growing exponentially, as they continue to avoid me claiming they are trying to find another vehicle. Finally I got tired of it and went into the dealership. (I'm very difficult to ignore in person.) They pulled out all the stops. Can we try this? What about this? Not interested, says I. We ended up tearing up the contract.

Gabby and a couple of our friends will know the knots I tied myself into over this. It really wasn't the right financial decision, and I'm glad it didn't work out. In fact I kinda feel like it didn't work out for a reason. Lesson learned.

Meanwhile we had been to the Carmax in Laurel to offload the Benz. For those who don't know, Carmax operates on a very simple premise: there's no negotiating. You may not get the best price, but you'll get a good deal -- regardless of whether you're buying or selling. And they do a decent inspection of the cars too. Edmunds and Kelley Blue Book suggested I could probably get $14k for it and we had tried to trade it in for the Ford. The reason we went to Carmax is because the dealer offered me $10,500 at first and it was all I could do not to tell them to fuck right off.

It tooks us one hour at Carmax to wrap everything up. They gave us a respectable $13.5k. While that forced us to cough up a couple hundred to pay off our note, there was no way that car was going to remain in our possession. My conservative estimate was that we were looking at $2000 for the next two years in service at least.

After some discussion, we decided to go back and look at the Passat Wagon. Gabby had been wanting one since we had bought the Mercedes, but at the time they were out of our price range. Plus we had already had a positive experience with a '99 Jetta, a car we'd only gotten rid of it because a) we wanted something bigger with Alex coming and b) an automatic transmission was key to Gabby getting her license. We found a couple that were certified pre-owned (which meant the car was basically reconditioned to new and we were getting the balance of the factory bumper-to-bumper warranty plus an extra two years or 24k miles) at our local dealer and test drove one. Nice car. And in the low 20s, the price was definitely right. Meanwhile the salesman, who did generally seem to be a nice enough guy, was kind of giving us the hard sell. We had mentioned we were looking at a couple cars and he was definitely keen to get us on the hook. Yet somehow an afternoon of calling up yesterday resulted in no call back, and he neglected to tell us he wasn't going to be in this morning when we told him we were going to come in to check out another car that hadn't been on the lot yesterday.

Anyway, we turned up around 10:30 this morning and met Joseph, a nice Polish man, who in a very Eastern European way gave us the hard sell.

So. You drive car. If you like, you come back and we make deal.

And that's exactly what we did. Armed with my printouts from KBB, we haggled on price for a little bit, which entailed Joseph leaving the room to see the sales manager and coming back twice. Finally the sales manager came out and we worked everything out with him. We found out that we could finance through VW Credit for less than the credit union, which resulted in us meeting Derek the Finance Manager, a nice Irish lad from Dublin and a Spurs fan. We spent about 45 minutes in his office, mixing what should have only been about 15 minutes of paperwork with a half hour of amiable chat about football, Irish sport (hurling and Gaelic football), travel, and pubs. Top guy Derek. Now we're just waiting for them to finish an oil change and a cleaning and we'll pick it up later today.

The entire experience has left me both angry and awestruck by the car industry. They're desperate. I mean really desperate. And if you're not paying attention they will get you coming and going. Which seems to be exactly what they're doing. Gabby and I were blown away by the number of people we saw who clearly had not done any research on costs. And even if you are somewhat savvy, they're still going to try to put the squeeze on you. Undercarriage sealant anyone?

Out of this entire experience there have been only two positives.

One was Carmax. There is truly something to be said for their business model. Loads of cars. No negotiating. Good deal. Tell me there isn't a need for that amongst the vultures and the sharks that usually circle dealership sales floors.

The other was Derek. He's offered to buy the first round this evening. Job's a good 'un!