A couple weeks ago a car showed up on Autotrader from a Carmax in N FL. Two weeks later it is now at a S FL Carmax, 350 miles away. I know that you can pay to transport a car to a facility close to you, but that would imply that someone had money into this and then still backed down, which doesn't give a warm fuzzy feeling. Are there other reasons why Carmax would just casually move a car?
Sure, if it's not selling well in one store, they will move it to another and try to sell it. Plus, being only 350 miles away it was probably a free transfer. I thought about transferring one 200 miles just to test drive since they didn't have one on my local lot.
-Rob
Interesting, I didn't realize that they did that much shuffling.
Some cars bring more money in different areas. For example a subaru brings more money up north then it would in say Florida where AWD isn't as big of a selling point. Also the manager at one store may prefer a certain mix of cars and will shuffle cars from a different location to get the inventory that he wants.
Inventory mix. For example, if you've got 4 or 5 of a particular model at one location and none at another.
When we were looking for a car for my daughter I would google the VIN. Some cars would show up on several dealer inventories.
Plus, they are not shipping these things one at a time. There may have been an empty spot on an otherwise full trailer.
pimpm3 wrote: Some cars bring more money in different areas. For example a subaru brings more money up north then it would in say Florida where AWD isn't as big of a selling point. Also the manager at one store may prefer a certain mix of cars and will shuffle cars from a different location to get the inventory that he wants.
My old boss just traded in his 4 year old Tahoe Hybrid. It was immediately shipped to the US. The extra money they bring down there was enough to justify the move.
Up here the Hybrids end up running on gas all winter anyway. Its too cold for them to run on battery power.
You can have any car shipped to your local carmax from another carmax dealer across the country for a nominal fee.
As much as $800 =! "nominal fee."
Sometimes dealers will even trade like-value cars between them. If sedans sell better at Dealer A, and SUVs at Dealer B, they might swap. Maybe there's a little cash involved if the perceived value of one car is not quite up to the other.
It's only a red flag after giving a car the critical eyeball and the car doesn't seem right.
In reply to Teggsan:
I've seen up to $899...
You'll need to log in to post.
