Bad Carmax Experience
 

I bought a 2006 CS from Carmax in Sterling, Virginia on Saturday and ended up returning it under their 5-day return policy yesterday. When cleaning it yesterday afternoon, I noticed overspray on the seal around the passenger window. That raised an eyebrow so I started looking around a bit more and found bad paintwork in a couple of places on the door and (get this) the protective film in front of the rear wheel well had been painted over.

So that's at least two body panels that had been resprayed. I was furious, so I took the car back to Carmax and returned it. The guy dealing with my return mentioned that the car had been repainted at their shop, but didn't divulge what damage they were trying to cover up. Needless to say, this was all way too much for me so I gave them the car back and had them do a refund. Thank God I found the evidence of the damage in time to do the return.

In case they try to sell this car again, please note that it's a silver '06 Cayman S with PASM and Sport Chrono, with the following VIN:

WP0AB298X6U780447

The Carfax and Autocheck reports came back clean, by the way. I've learned a lesson - NEVER buy a car without a full PPI. The next car I buy, I will insist on this. I should have done so in this case and nearly paid the price for it.

Caveat emptor.

Too bad you had to go through that, but you were fortunate to find the repaint issues so you could return it. Well done, now go find a better one.GL

Thanks, yeah I'm very fortunate to have found the issue when I did. I'll keep looking!

i went to a carmax before looking at an s2000.. i noticed two area's normally black raw plastic that were painted and asked them about it.. they said "we normally remove all front bumpers and repaint because of bug damage" i didn't like this at all. i would much rather have bug damage than a repaint!!!

they need to disclose all their paint work.

It's pretty common for dealers to refinish bumpers on used carss these days.
Most use outside vendors that do not even remove the bumpers to paint and the work is usually sub par. Seen this in action at my local Porsche/Audi/VW dealer.

Looks like this car has been around the block, and back again! Thanks for posting VIN. I would not have known otherwise.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2006-Cayman...S/192738093606

That's not a bad CarMax experience. That is a good CarMax experience. Had they not taken the car back it would have been bad. It worked exactly as it was supposed to. They gave you time to inspect the car. You inspected the car. Didn't like it. They took it back and gave you all your money back.

My Cayman S has a few chips that were filled in by the air inlet. the whole passenger side of my RX-7 convertible was repainted by me because someone dragged their handbag when walking by it. That doesn't mean the car was a lemon, or in an accident.

It seems CarMax did its job: you were protected by the five day no questions return policy.

I get the frustration but I consider this a good experience. You bought a car, discovered it didn't meet your standards and they took it back. Few dealers have a policy that would have allowed you to do that. Carmax actually is one of the best dealers to work with from a consumer perspective. Again I understand the frustration but imagine if you bought from the other 99% of dealers that would have told you too bad the second you drove off the lot.

Right on to all of these three posts.

Damn right it ended up as a good experience. They should be congratulated. But in this BS time in todays society someone will give Carmax a bad rating or review because of it. As a business you can't win with the retaliatory mentality of consumers & use of on-line ratings as a weapon. As a buyer you could have looked the vehicle over in further detail before signing - just as any PPI could have done for you. You found it after the fact right? Nothing would have stopped you from seeing any detail prior to that. I see little reason to poo-poo Carmax for standing behind their satisfaction policy without issue. It is actually quite refreshing.

You had a great CarMax experience and yet you are still complaining. Go figure.

Mods please lock this eight year old thread. There is no discussion of what was a four year old car when the thread started, and is now a twelve/thirteen year old car that had some paintwork done eight years ago.

It's an eight year-old thread. No point in beating a dead horse this far down the road. Gonna lock it.