I transferred in this 2010 Mercedes S65 AMG last fall and ultimately declined to buy. My whole saga is here. Because of our car connection when I declined to buy I arranged for blog reader Hans to immediately take control and transfer to Wilmington, NC. Hans bought the car, but it was not what he expected (it was too tame, and Hans has enough AMG experience to know the AMG growl) and he returned it. Here the plot thickens. Hans and I cooked a deal to have CarMax transfer the car to another blog reader Collin. Oddly, CarMax told Collin the car was “accidentally” sold. Then the plot took an odd turn – blog reader Mustafa, a truly gifted CarMax sniper, alerted me this S65 was posted on cars.com and the seller, a dude named “John” from Connecticut, had contacted him about his Mercedes CL65 and mentioned the S65. More bizarre, the cars.com ad had the picture of the S65 in MY driveway from MY blog post! I contacted John but never heard back and forgot about it. This week Mustafa alerted me to the very same 2010 Mercedes S65 offered on the Bring a Trailer auction site by a company called Exclusive Impex in Miami. Of course I jumped in to share what I know about the car, both to bring prospective buyers’ attention to the car’s mysterious past, and to shamelessly flog my blog. The reaction? Absolutely no one gave a shit about what I (we) knew about this car’s path. Turns out someone else bought this car from CarMax and returned it after CarMax and Mercedes Benz of Manhattan could not solve an electrical gremlin. (Exclusive Impex says they solved it.) Oddly, the car’s history reflects neither my friend in Wilmington’s ownership nor the Connecticut buyer’s purchase. Exclusive Impex claims they bought the car at a CarMax auction (I’ve never heard of CarMax auctions), repaired and prepped it, and made it available on Bring a Trailer. My take after watching this car bid and sell for $11,000 MORE than we all could have had the car for from CarMax? I belong to a half dozen car groups on Facebook and all agree prices are inflated on Bring a Trailer. When I track cars on Bring a Trailer I’m impressed and discouraged by the depth of knowledge and deep criticisms in the comments section. That said, on this 2010 Mercedes S65, the commenters were intoxicated by the car and gleefully overlooked anything suspect. Why did two buyers return the car? Don’t care. What about the one accident on the Carfax? Don’t care. We all could have had this car for $36,000 and bought a five year MaxCare plan to protect us for another five years and 100,000 miles. Instead, a Bring a Trailer buyer got it for $47,500 with no warranty. Time will tell who came out on top!
Pretty surprised that you don’t know about CarMax auctions. They are no secret. Any vehicle they purchase through the appraisal process that is too old, has too many miles, frame damage, salvage history, flood damage, etc. they sell at auction. If you read their financial reports they list both their retail and wholesale sales. Also, you can see everything that is going to be for sale at auction here: https://www.carmaxauctions.com/
Hello! I knew from the annual report they sold at auction all those cars they bought from customers they didn’t plan on adding to inventory (last time I looked I think they made $900 profit on each) but no – did not know they held their own auctions! Thanks a bunch. I presumed incorrectly they outsourced that. I’ll have to explore more. A couple of times cars have been transferred in already in the inventory and Carmax told me they found them unsuitable for sale and were sending to auction. I wondered if that was malarkey and they sold to an insider. Now I can verify cars went to auction!
Transportation damage does sometimes happen, but they also put vehicles back through their inspection process anytime they are transferred and sometimes a new issue is discovered. But as you say, the margin difference between retail and wholesale is enough that they are generally motivated not to “kick” a car to wholesale. That is a metric they track and it counts against the CarMax buyer and the shop. All that being said, accidents do happen, and sometimes vehicles that are supposed to be being held get sold to another retail customer.