Farewell 200SX

 
Of course this means that we needed to sell our old car. Since this is the car which Kyoko got when she first moved to the US, there is sentimental value. We hope they find a good home for the car. If not, we may have to buy it back! 

New car

After the unsatisfying experience with CarMax, we felt the odds were slim to find a Celica that we wanted. By the way, looking for a new Celica started when we found out that Toyota stopped production of Celicas and that 2005 was the last year of the Celica. The original plan was to wait 2-3 years before buying a new car, but since Kyoko did not really see any other car that she liked, a Celica would be the best opportunity to buy a car that she really, really liked. In the future, she may find another car she likes but that car may not be affordable.

There were other 2005 Celicas for sale, but they generally had over 20,000 miles and more like 25,000 miles. This one had 17,000 miles but did not have a price listed for it. I thought it was not a good sign, but I thought it would be worth a try to inquire about the car. As it turns out, the price was much higher than we were considering, but I made a counter offer (based on Kelly Blue Book) and he accepted.

The car was being sold at Advantage Auto in Tyler. We worked with Michael Meeves (pronouncd like may-ves) who is the Internet Sales Manager. Unlike the CarMax experience, he was always very responsive to my questions by e-mail. We drove out to Tyler and the car was in immaculate condition, just as he stated. I had put together a list of things to check, and everything seemed to be in good working order. We took the car for a test drive, and it handled very well and the ride was very smooth. Previously, we had test driven a 2002 Celica at CarMax, just to make sure we liked the car, and the ride was definitely rougher on that car.

Anyway, we ended up buying the car! Even though the drive to Tyler is quite a longish drive, it was worth every mile. Working with Michael Meeves was a very positive experience, and I would not hesitate to buy another car from Advantage Auto. They seem to specialize in high quality used cars.

And by the way, View Point Bank gave me an extremely good loan for a used car. I was wondering if she had mistakenly given me the rate for a new car until she asked to verify that the car had less than 60,000 miles on it.

Unsatisfying experience at CarMax

We were trying to buy a car at CarMax, but had a very unsatisfying experience. We don't plan to try to buy cars from them again. Usually, sales people want to give you reasons why you should buy the car. Especially with car sales, I think this is my first experience I've had where they came up with reasons why I can't buy the car. It's not really that they were intentionally rude or anything like that, just that our experience does not give us a lot of confidence about their competence. It also does not give us any positive feelings about their view of customer satisfaction.
It all started on August 3, when I found a yellow Celica for Kyoko. It was located at one of their other stores, so I inquired about the Celica. They said it can be transferred for a price as part of their sales process. I then noticed on the website that it mentioned that Toyota-certified used vehicles cannot be transferred from that particular store. Since Celica is a Toyota car, I wanted to make sure this would not cause any problems for us, but I did not hear back from him. In fact, after the initial contact, of about the 3+ mails I sent to him, I only got one response. Since the first step for transferring a vehicle is to go to the local CarMax dealer and we were planning on doing it by the weekend, I did not worry about not getting a reply. We actually headed to the dealer on August 4. We test drove an older model Celica which they had at the store and decided we wanted to get the newer one transferred. As part of the transfer process, we get to ask 5 questions about the car which are sent electronically to the other store. Based on the responses from the other store (takes about15 minutes), we get to decide whether we want to go ahead with the transfer since the transfer cost is non-refundable. As an example, we asked about the exterior and interior condition of the car. We asked our questions, was satisfied with the response, and asked for the transfer. We also assumed that if the car would not be transferrable, the other store would have said so. When trying to get the car transferred though, we were told that the other store did not have the title and could not initiate the transfer yet. The next day, I heard the title was sent to Dallas, so that it would only be a matter of how to get the transfer going. On Monday, I heard that the title might have to be sent back to the other store so they could transfer the title and the car. On Tuesday, I heard that the title was not transferred to Dallas, so it was still at the other store. On Wednesday, 6 days after I inquired, I finally heard that this car was a Toyota-certified used car. Apparently, Toyota has a policy that these cars can only be sold at Toyota dealerships, which would exclude CarMax. I told them that since I was interested in the car, as long as the car was not misrepresented, I would be willing to buy the car remotely. On Thursday, they said buying the car remotely was not possible. I was told that they would try to see if there is anything they could do to sell the car to me. On Friday, I was told there was nothing that could be done.

While it's true that I'm sure that this car will eventually sell, as far as I know, in the car sales business, there is no disadvantage to selling the car quickly. This means your staff and sales people are free to sell other cars. It seems to me that the policy for Toyota certified used cars is to help protect the integrity of Toyota certification of used cars, not for hindering the sales process. And finally, noone ever actually asked me if I would be willing to go to the other store to purchase it, which I would.

Anyway, based on this disappointing experience, I decided to call the general manager of the other dealership. I was hoping he would be able to try to be positive in selling me the car. Unfortunately, even after leaving two messages on his voicemail, he never returned my calls. I then also sent a feedback to CarMax custome relations and have not heard from them either.

While I'm sure for the general case, they do a good job of selling cars. However, if I were given the opportunity to buy two equivalent cars, one from CarMax and the other from another dealer which does not have any known customer issues (such as those registered with BBB), then I would go with the other dealer. If, for example, in this case, if there were two yellow Celicas available, and I had gone with CarMax and not found out until after about a week and a half that I could not buy the car, the other car might've been sold in the meantime.