Richie
Riverside,#2UPDATE Employee
Sun, April 30, 2006
It's ASE, not SAE. So the guy above me was never a mechanic anywhere. SAE does not offer certifications for technicians and ANY mechanic/oil changer/tire guy or student knows that. Non dealer shops have access to some recall info, but it takes quite awhile for the info in the aftermarket service info software to catch up to what the dealers have access to. Hell, it takes a year or 2 for the aftermarket sources to pry service info out of the manufacturers. The nissan place making you buy new rotors and pads for $800 is another issue all together. Granted Car max should have fixed the problem, but the nissan dealer ripped you off beyond belief. Even using expensive dealer parts 99% of the shops out there could have done it for half what you paid.
David
Sellersburg,#3UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, December 02, 2005
I used to be a mechanic at the Greenville, SC carmax. I can guarantee you that over half their mechanics are NOT SAE certified, and their 125 point inspection is not 125 items... the list has 125 different check boxes but MANY are duplicated, and they do not cover everything that should be checked on a vehicle, nor do the ones that are being checked always require a FULL and COMPLETE check of the item involved... Brakes for example are only a VISUAL inspection. Most carmax employees will finish the "125 point inspection" in under 30 minutes... how complete is that???
Steve
Asheville,#4Consumer Suggestion
Fri, September 09, 2005
Reading your complaint, we too had a problem wiht a Carmax vehicle we purchased, and the next morning we called them to complain about a broken headlamp switch we found on the vehicle late the night we drove home after signing sales docs. We wasted our time to get the corretc part (since we lived about 60miles from that Carmax lot, and sent the ivoice to Carmax as they told us to. It took a couple letters and nearly 45 days unitl we received our check back to reimburse us for whatw e had to purchase and repalce ourselves- when this all SHOULD have been caught in their famous 125 point inspection if it had been done correctly!!! Your complaint and hundreds of others we have found all say the same thing. Carmax advertises one thing, but does nothing to live up to the consumer's expectations in the end with the amount of complaints being lodged. We even filed complaint with SC Attorney general's office on our ordeal and a "spot delivery scam" we realized they puleld on us 3 weeks after-the-fact too! For a major national public traded company whose stock has been pumped up, I think the SEC ought to investigate the underlying business fundamentals & operations of the General manager's stores and many stores of Carmax nationally to really see what is going on to manipulate their stock prices as high as they have gone; because these "safety" events they are evidently passing over (to make faster paper profits) can lead to the death of a person in the end- and then who is to blame if that happens when their 125 point inspections and sales techniques are proven a sham after it is too late??? Hell, we have even tried to deal with Carmax corps.'s legal department attornies (with no satisfaction) and they are a bunch of time wasters trying to discredit a consumer as if we are nuts and trying to sugar coat documented facts and play "PR", when we, and many others, have in file from our own experiences whatw e have experienced to our great dissatisfaction..