CarMax — Local services in Costa Mesa

THANK YOU CARMAX!!!! …& God most importantly…. But yes thank you CarMax! Thank you Miguel, Kyle, & Sugar at the Costa Mesa location!! You three made my experience the most memorable car buying experience ever. The first night I came in was a little rough… I had my 2 year old twins (bad idea😆) and I have never bought a car before. I just showed up with legal binding documents, money and a lot of hope. The employees at CarMax not once made me feel shameful about my kids causing a ruckus. Unfortunately at that point I was ready to tap out but wouldn’t you know they were open the next morning on the 4th of July to allow us to finish the deal!!! Simply amazing… they worked diligently with us as they kept pushing information in and out of their system allowing this to become a dream come true for me and my family! They understood particular parts of my situation and reiterated all of that to the lender and made sure we walked out with the first initial car we chose that worked within our budget and reassured us that if we couldn’t there was so much more to pick from. I love their 10 day exchange policy where if within 10 days I don’t like my vehicle I can come back in and refinance on a different one of my choosing. That’s the biggest part for me, because you never know and I like the security of that option. This store deserves an award for all that they do. Thank you from the Santiago Family!!

HERES AN UPDATE This is for the Service Center, not the Salespeople at CarMax. I believe I could have done better by doing a test drive and allowing my husband to do a full check on the inside of this vehicle. The oil had never been changed with my vehicle, nor had the spark plugs or any of the 3 filters within the vehicle. My husband had to do all 3 because my car started running a little off, grant it I drive a lot of highway miles to work. The oil looked as though it had never been changed since the first original owner, and the 3 filters had detailed signs that they have never been replaced and it was necessary that the spark plugs needed to be replaced as well. It was obvious the only thing the service center did was replace the windshield wipers… and that was it. Kind of disappointing considering the fact that the service centers one and only job is to make sure everything was top notch before I drove off with this car- and not by just the way it looks on the inside. They could have even put two new tires to match the back new tires but they didn’t do that so I’ll have to replace those soon too. These are the things that truly matter because the value of a car like this can go down immensely had something happened. Yes I’m still happy with my purchase but when I look back on other peoples reviews I see exactly what they are saying when it comes to this...

I HATE shopping for a car. I absolutely hate it. So when my BMW was on it's last legs, I knew I had to enter into the Thunderdome that is buying a used car. Ugh ... I rather eat shards of broken glass than go through that. Well, that was my experience BEFORE I found CarMax.

I saw a friend on Facebook that had had a great experience buying a car through CarMax, so I thought, "Why not at the very least eliminate them from the list first?" So I went in to the CarMax in Costa Mesa, and waited for the sharks to come circling. Well, they never came. Instead, I was greeted by some very friendly people who gave me over to my sales person, Brendan. "Okay," I thought, "this is where the teeth come out and the hard sell begins." Well, that didn't happen either. Brendan was really friendly, helpful, funny, and honestly seemed to car about my needs. i told him what I was looking for, what my price range was, and some of the deal-breakers that I had on my list.

We walked around on the lot, sat in a few cars to check for fit (I'm a big guy, so trying to fit in most cars requires braking my spine and folding me in half just to get in the driver's seat). Brendan was really helpful, and did a quick check on some cars he thought I'd be comfortable in. And what do you know? The first two cars he suggested, I fit into perfectly! I decided on a 2008 Honda Accord, so the next hurdle was financing. Can I just say how surprised I was when the whole financing took less than 20 minutes? Like no fooling, LESS THAN 20 MINUTES! And I really thought I was going to get hit with a nasty interest rate since I had just gotten a new job after being off work for 3 months and was going through some financial issues ... that didn't happen, either. I thought I was going to be looking at 18 or 15%. Imagine my surprise when it came in at 10%. Really? WTH? What kind of voodoo witchcraft are these people working with?

So the bottom line? I'm never going to buy a car anywhere else. Ever. In the history of the world. CarMax has absolutely 100% restored my faith in people and the used car market. Honestly, I almost cried because the experience was NOTHING like I'd been used to. If you are going to look for a used car, I can not recommend CarMax in Costa Mesa enough. And be sure to ask for Brendan as your...

CarMax is the best place to buy a car but NOT FROM THIS LOCATION. I don’t even know where to start I purchased a bmw x3 35i and before I purchased this vehicle I had it shipped from a different location. We were told numerous of times that when the car arrived that there was a FULL INSPECTION DONE!!!! WE WERE LIED TO….can you believe that lied straight to our faces that the car runs fine from a car dealership like CarMax!!! There was no inspection done and was admitted to us when the car started having leaks. On top of that when we got the vehicle there was body damage…you would think since we shipped the car to this location and came 4 days later they would have fixed the body damage but nope…we were told the front bumper would need to be replaced and when we went to the scheduled service visit so they can do that…they didn’t touch it and told us that it would need a new bumper which we were already made aware of so we had to reschedule another visit back to CarMax. Now waiting for the appointment we had the tailgate lights go out which we were told were changed when the car arrived at CarMax. Then the trunk broke… one after another this car started falling apart and like I said we just bought the car!!!! So what are they doing today finally towing it back to CarMax to fix it after two months of complaint trying to reach someone on the phone with no LUCK. Now we are supposed to receive a rental car who knows what that will look like… but what I do know is they are doing nothing about honoring the fact we were lied to deceived by the sales and repair team. They are doing nothing about the stress and financial loss they have put me and my husband through…so don’t come to this location because they will do the bare minimum when complained to over 15 times in the span of two months and they are just now doing what they were supposed to do from the very beginning. In my professional opinion they should have at least knocked off something from the original price since they deceived us as customers. A dealership isn’t allowed to lie or make up information to gain money it’s a crime. If I wanted a car full of problems and to be lied to I would have bought a...