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The car market is a lot more “it’s expensive e to be poor” than it used to be. For 20k you can get a 2023 Mazda CX-30 with 30k miles. It doesn’t really make sense to buy anything cheaper, unless you don’t have the money. To me the best deal out there right now is the Hyundai Ionic 5 lease, which is basically nothing down and 300/mo. For 3yrs. The Toyota Corolla you can get for the same is not anywhere near the same league of car. But there are always caveats.
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We have also used Carmax for our last several cars.
Maybe a touch overpriced for some models, but at least we know the cars are inspected. Easy to shop multi state inventory and have something you like sent to you... our daughters car came from 700 miles away for $100... worth it... nothing good in our area.
Sprang for the extended maxcare warranty, which has been a worthwhile investment. thrust arm bushings for our X5 have gone bad at 50K. Its a $2800 fix... but only paying $350.
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jdc wrote:
We have also used Carmax for our last several cars.
Maybe a touch overpriced for some models, but at least we know the cars are inspected. Easy to shop multi state inventory and have something you like sent to you... our daughters car came from 700 miles away for $100... worth it... nothing good in our area.
Sprang for the extended maxcare warranty, which has been a worthwhile investment. thrust arm bushings for our X5 have gone bad at 50K. Its a $2800 fix... but only paying $350.
To get a comparable car to what we got at CarMax we would have had to rely on negotiating, and I’m not sure anyone actually comes out ahead when negotiating with car salesman, etc. I know they think they do. They only charged us 300 over sales price out the door (plus a sickening amount of sales tax). I was happy with that. I didn’t get the CarMax warranty because this car was a 2024 and had remaining warranty.
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kj wrote:
To get a comparable car to what we got at CarMax we would have had to rely on negotiating, and I’m not sure anyone actually comes out ahead when negotiating with car salesman, etc. I know they think they do. They only charged us 300 over sales price out the door (plus a sickening amount of sales tax). I was happy with that. I didn’t get the CarMax warranty because this car was a 2024 and had remaining warranty.
yeah. We got a 2019 X5 xDrive 40i. 28K on it, $34K. Immaculate inside and out. They did new brakes, new tires (like $1600 right there), and the 30K BWM major tune up -- so practically "new". was mostly loaded.Feels like a warm blanket: heated seats, wheel, armrest and center console. wife loves that. Didnt look like anyone had ever sat in the back seats. Only thing we really were really trying to find was air suspension, but no dice. Coming from an XC90 -- its way more solid. super reliable inline 6, quick, quiet. handles great. mpg is meh, but we don't drive much.
seamless in and out. sales guy even looked in a 200 mile radius to see if there was another one with better specs/price/features... nada. got lucky.
