The past few days have led me to be quite busy. Our 8 year old Chrysler had some serious engine problems that would cost nearly what we owed on it to be fixed. We took a long hard look at the car and our needs and decided (well, it was mostly me) that we needed a minivan. So, we traded our Chysler in for a Nissan Minivan. Did I mention we barely made it to the dealer to do the trade in?
We bought from Carmax and if anyone is looking for a hassle-free car buying experience, Carmax is a great place. We didn't feel any pressure from our sales person and bear in mind, we were shopping at the end of the month when you know they have sales quotas to meet. We test drove it and even left for a few hours to browse at other dealers and could not find another minivan to meet our needs or our budget. We did finance through them, but since they have a 3 day refinance rule, it cost us nothing extra to run home with our new car and apply on line at our credit union to see if we could get a better rate than the one their bank gave us.
What a surprise! We snagged a rate that was 3% less, which equaled out to $30 a month less. When we went to the credit union yesterday to sign papers, we mentioned how pleased we were with the ease of applying online and getting an answer in 60 seconds at 10:00 at night. She told us that since we applied on line vs. in person, we received an extra .25 off our loan, which was why it was below their advertised rates on their website. While a 1/4 of a percent isn't much, over time our 10 minutes at the computer will save us $180 over the life of the loan.
So skip that face-to-face loan interview and do it on line if you can. You may just get a lower rate than you were expecting.
2 comments:
Hi! I am the social media PR guy at the CarMax home office in Richmond, VA. Google Alerts notified me of your blog post mentioning CarMax. I wanted to say thanks for the kind words on your blog. Also, I wanted to let you know that at CarMax, our sales associates don't have a quota to make each month, nor are they paid a commission based on which car you buy. They are trained to find the right car for you. It's how we can confidently say that CarMax is the way car buying SHOULD be. Congratulations on your CarMax car! I hope all your readers decide to visit a CarMax store, or http://www.carmax.com.
Thanks Chris for clearing that up. Our sales man did say they have a range of what they are supposed to sell - a suggestion really. He also did tell us, upfront, within 5 minutes of greeting us, that he gets the same commission whether or not he sells us a $50,000 car or a $2,000 car - that really what he is paid to do is to find us the right car. He did! We love the new car and truly appreciated such a pleasant and stress-free car shopping experience. We took two kids along and they were already enough stress on us! Thanks for stopping by my blog!
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