Business Review: CarMax

As I mentioned to some of you yesterday (via Twitter... what do you mean you aren't following me?), I had to go out and buy a car.  It wasn't because I had the new car bug... I certainly didn't, because Mrs. Gunfighter and I aren't really car people.  I mean, having a new car is cool, but not having a car payment is even better in our book, so we tend to drive our cars until they start to cost more money than they are worth in terms of maintenance or repairs.  Well, this turned out to be the case last week.  I'll tell you the story, briefly.

I tool the car to get inspected last week, figuring it would pass, as we had just (that same week) gotten new tires.  Everything else was working fine, so there were no worries.  Anyway,the car failed inspection becaue the tie-rods were loose.  Damn.  OK, small thing as one our neighbors is dating a preofessional auto mechanic who does side-work for extra cash.  This guy works on the car for awhile and tells us (and I believe him) that our rack & pinion system was so trashed, that fixing the tir-rods wouldn't be enough, and that even with his discount, the reapirs would cost nearly 900 dollars.  Naturally, we weren't going to plop down a thousand dollars on, so it was time to go spend some dough.

We had heard good things about CarMax, and we are fortunate enough to have one of their locations less than five miles from our home, so at 11:30 I went to the dealership and found something that I thought Mrs GF would be comfortable with for her commute into DC, since she would be the person putting the most mileage on it.  After seeing what was available and comparing prices, I came up with a 2008 Ford Edge.  I told the salesman that I would be back so that my wife could see it and make a decision.  When we returned at 2:30, we had our test drive, and were signed, sealed and delivered by 4:30.

Now, that might not seem like that big of a deal to some of you, but I really, really hate the car buying process, and the folks at CarMax made it quick and easy... and I left without feeling that we had been screwed somehow, which is usually how I feel when buying a car.

The staff was courteous, knowledgeable, and didn't waste my time.

The CarMax in Woodbridge, Virginia gets full marks from the Gunfighter family.

The new GF-mobile!