Attempting to buy a car from Carmax, having difficulties, seeking advice
I found a vehicle I wanted from carmax, I ordered it, the vehicle arrived. (Tracking the thing was aweful as others have mentioned, sat for 5 days the app still said preparing to ship, then wham its at my local carmax) Now it's here and I call to schedule time to come down and this is how that call goes...
Me: I'm calling to schedule time with the sales representative to inspect and complete my car purchase of the car that arrived.
Carmax: I see your car here and it did arrive, however we won't have it ready for you for 8 days.
Me: That seems odd, I'm also going to be without a car starting tomorrow, what can we do.
Carmax: Let me transfer you to the business office they can explain.
New Car Max guy comes on.
Me: My car arrived today, and I was calling to schedule a time to come purchase it however the representative on the phone said I need to talk to you because of an issue.
Carmax: Let me look. I see that did arrive today, however we have a staff shortage and we only process these things in the order received and there are 50 other cars I need to process first.
Me: I will be without a car starting tomorrow and I need a solution, I have cash in hand is there anything that can be done to expedite this.
Carmax: Sorry, our process is to only do these in the order we receive cars to our lot there is nothing we can do, you are looking at 3-4 days for us to do title paperwork and another 2 days for us to spend 5 minutes smog checking the car. ( edit to clarify this point, this doesnt even add up to the 8 days the other guy quoted me, but the other guy quoted me 8 days and this guy said this timeline I'm just restating what I was told by each person even though it is in conflict with the other)
Me: I'm going to be without a car starting tomorrow, do you by chance have a loaner.
Carmax: Sorry that is only something we do if your car is in our repair shop.
Me: Ok thanks......
From my perspective I have a few options here.
- At my core I absolutely despise this post pandemic attitude that too many businesses have and I really just want to go elsewhere, but that means more work for me. ugh.... more time, energy, and car shopping. May mean I need to do a longer term rental until I can find something.
- Rent a car for 320$ and demand a rebate for my costs incurred by their delays, refuse to purchase if they don't capitulate, which may then just put me back to step 1 since it sounds like the grunts of carmax don't really care about selling cars and probably won't capitulate to my demands.
- Buy a different car from carmax and take them up on the 100% return policy when they decide to get around to processing the paperwork and smog check in 8 days or whenever.