Just completed my sixth year blogging about CarMax unicorns, my money losing hobby that leverages my enthusiasm for cars and being cheap. It started with Guenther back in 2013 so really 10 years into buying high-end cars and shifting the repair risk to CarMax with MaxCare – although as you know I just strayed and bought an unlimited mileage Mercedes CPO from a dealer. Promise I will replace my M3 in a few years with another CarMax unicorn, hopefully a Porsche 911.
Still holding steady the last two years with over 10,000 visitors to the blog annually, and this summer hit over 200 email followers and for that I am grateful. “Business” is down, as far as my writing, due to too much work, travel, my now completed search for a Mercedes replacement, and honestly I so hate the new CarMax app I find it painful to surf for cars. I’ll get over it. Hang in there with me?
My goal now is one unicorn posting a week, and I’m starting with this 2020 BMW M4 Heritage Edition sent to me by Mike back in July. He clued me in on the 1/750 limited edition and by the time I wrote him back it sold. Six weeks later it was back on a CarMax lot where it remains today. According to BMW it’s actually called the “BMW M4 Edition M Heritage“, and it mostly, but not all, is a special appearance package to commemorate the end of the line for the (then) current generation of M4’s. First, BMW says the special paint colors are “Laguna Seca Blue. Velvet Blue. Imola Red II. The distinctive paint finishes of the BMW M4 Edition M Heritage pay homage to the original colors of BMW M“. The cars also have special stitching and stripes and a dash plate indicating 1/750. We’ll get to that in a bit.
It would be unfair to suggest that since the Heritage is mostly an appearance package that it’s any less of an M car. In fact, all of the Heritage M4’s include the Competition Package, with a sweet 444 horsepower inline six cylinder and M-tuned adaptive suspension. To reduce weight the Heritage also gets a carbon fiber roof with an embedded red, white, and blue stripe under the clear coat. With the seven-speed DCT the car hits 60 mph in 3.8 seconds (not bragging….same as my GLE63 AMG – okay bragging a little).
The seats are lightweight M-seats and the interior fairly conservative. The car comes with a heads up display, seat heaters, Apple CarPlay and Harman Kardon audio. Leans toward performance over comfort features.
And here’s the “M Heritage Edition” badge. Tricky BMW marketers have listed every single one of these as “1/750” and I guess each car is one of 750, but not #1 of 750. If I’m going to pay for a limited edition, numbered car I’d kinda like the badge to be more exclusive – #34 of 750, for example – my high school basketball jersey number. Or maybe #4 of 750 since it’s an M4?
The car sold new for close to $90,000. Scrolled through a BMW M4 enthusiast forum and most posts preferred a straight CS model instead, and CarMax has a 2020 M4 with the Competition Package for thousands less (and check out this 2020 with a manual for $5,000 more). There’s also slightly older “vanilla” M4’s for $20,000 less than this Heritage. But if you’re a BMW M-fan who is happy to pay a premium for a BMW M4 Edition M Heritage, there’s nothing wrong with this one. It still has some manufacturer warranty and I’d still spring for MaxCare to 125,000 miles. It’s a two-owner car that’s on reserve here in Edison, New Jersey that for some reason isn’t selling. Wish I had recorded the sales price in July when Mike sent it to me!
Earlier this week there was a decent preseason NFL game between the local Washington Commanders and my hometown Baltimore Ravens and that meant dinner in the recliner watching football. And football often means fried chicken. Popeyes being the closest joint I fired up the M3 and raced my way into the drive-through slalom for a four piece chicken meal with Cajun fries, cole slaw and a biscuit.
It didn’t take long for the dullness of preseason tryouts to set in, and so with greasy fingers I found myself scrolling the CarMax website for unicorns. And I noticed that just like the chicken choice at Popeyes, mild or spicy, many of these cars are available the same way. And so here are three pairs that you can have either way. The choice is yours.
First on the family-sized menu are a pair of Jaguar XF’s. Have to be careful here. Have gotten to know a great guy and Jaguar owner through this blog and we met for drinks once to talk cars. I mentioned this “mild or spicy” angle and implied his XJ was mild because there’s an XJR version. He noted his 5.0 liter V-8 was not exactly sluggish and he was correct. The 2012 Jaguar XF Portfolio below has exactly the same motor, rated at 385 hp, and runs a very respectable five second 0-60 mph time. The XJ only weighs a little more so probably not far off. Regardless, this XF reminds me of the unicorns I posted about when I first started this blog – it’s selling for $17,998, and there’s a slew of boring-ass cars you could be driving but don’t have to if you’re trying to keep costs down. Throw in a couple of grand for MaxCare and drive worry free, in style, for the next five years.
The black XF above is a little newer (2015), with fewer miles, and $11,000 more, but boasts the spicy, supercharged 5.0 liter V-8 making 470 hp. It is called (cleverly) the XF Supercharged! The additional horsepower drops the 0-60 time to 4.7 seconds and a governed 155 mph top speed. It also growls and snarls more aggressively. Sometimes that’s important.
The Portfolio interior (above) and the Supercharged interior (below) are pretty much the same. Nicely appointed, handsome trim. The Supercharged has a heated steering wheel and Meridian audio system. Both have heated and air conditioned seats.
The obligatory motor shots. Portfolio above, Supercharged below. I was hoping for something drastic on the Supercharged model, like giant intakes or orange heat panels like on a rocket ship, but no. To me indistinguishable. To Jaguar folks, I suspect they could spot the differences immediately.
The 2012 Jaguar XF Portfolio is milder than the Supercharged but is probably the better bargain. Eleven years old, decent mileage, burgundy over cream colors (just right for the Washington Commanders’ region), and a bargain price at $18k – sold new for maybe $60,000. It’s a four owner, accident free car. MaxCare to 125,000 miles. It can be tracked here as it’s on the way to Lafayette, Louisiana. And Lafayette is about 2 1/2 hours from where Popeyes got its start, just outside of New Orleans!
Stock No: 24462335 VIN: SAJWA0HB7CLS45542
The spicy 2015 Jaguar XF Supercharged below sold for maybe $70,000 and is now $28,998. It’s got quite the sleeper profile, with very muted exterior badging to indicate the super-stuffed motor. With only 40,000 miles MaxCare is available for another 85,000 – plenty of cruising cap. It’s currently on reserve in Clearwater, Florida so here’s the link to keep tabs on this quick tabby.
Stockno: 24502433 VIN: SAJWA0HP4FMU65358
(Secret Bonus Car below – a beautiful 2012 XF below with only 23,000 miles, a V-8 engine, beautiful blue over gray, and a $23,998 price tag! It’s here in Jacksonville, Florida.)
After the weekend novel on buying my Mercedes GLE63 AMGs, thought I’d squeeze in a really short piece here, another ultra-low mileage Cadillac CTS-V wagon that blog reader Cannon and I stumbled upon. Unfortunately, it’s an automatic, and yet it is still a quite rare unicorn. Rare, except CarMax somehow keeps finding these low mileage beauties – it was just last month that I posted about another 2012 with only 11,000 miles selling for $69,998. It just sold and here’s another chance!
This 2012 has 12,000 miles on it and is offered at $72,998. Looks brand new inside and out. But is it worth $73k? Yes, if you want a CTS-V wagon. All the others in the country, and there aren’t many, are far more expensive even with 50-60,000 miles. Hell, there’s one at PJ’s Auto World in Clearwater, Florida with only 4,000 miles on it selling for $89,990. All the sudden this price isn’t bad, although there are a lotta newer, hotter cars out there for $73k.
The Cadillac has heated and cooling seats, rear view camera, and Bluetooth. But what it really has is a huge 6.2 liter, supercharged V-8 motor rated at 556 horsepower. With the six-speed automatic, the Cadillac hits 60 mph in 4.7 seconds. (That’s what I wrote last month, and I’ll write it again next month when CarMax lists another one!)
This 2012 Cadillac CTS-V wagon is still worthy of a 150,000 mile, five year MaxCare warranty. Not sure it’s necessary. Find the three-owner, accident free car here in Fremont, California.
It’s been nine months since I sold the Mercedes S600, and much longer that I’ve been bemoaning the challenges of finding my next unicorn. I finally took the plunge and picked up a 2021 Mercedes GLE63s AMG. It’s a (mostly) wonderful SUV that scratches (almost) all of my automotive itches. Unfortunately, I strayed from the fold and did NOT buy it from CarMax. I gave them every opportunity to wow me with a bust-the-budget dream car and just couldn’t get what I wanted – a loaded and exclusive SUV. Even flew to Florida last spring to see a CarMax GLE580 that was listed as fully loaded, only to find it lacked some features CarMax said it had. So I’ve gone out on a limb to buy a Mercedes CPO, paid for a Mercedes’ extended warranty, purchased it long distance from a Mercedes dealer in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and had it shipped to me in Virginia. It’s been a challenging journey.
Once I entertained buying a Mercedes CPO I settled on GLE63’s and GLE580’s, 2020 and up (2021 for GLE63’s – there weren’t any in 2020). Found limited quantities of both, and the 580’s were roughly $20,000 less than their AMG brothers. The GLE580 makes 483 hp and the GLE63 603. Both have a 48v mild hybrid power augmentation. The GLE580 does 0-60 in 4,3 seconds and the GLE63 in the low-threes. Justifying the additional $20,000 came down to a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go for the higher horsepower and exclusivity of the AMG version. I’ve owned the car for almost two months now and haven’t see another on the road. If you want a professional review of this car read this Car and Driver piece. If you want to know about buying from Mercedes and my experiences, read on!
While I found limited inventory of GLE580’s and GLE63’s from 2020-2022 (my price range), even more frustrating was just how bad the Mercedes Benz CPO web site functions. It’s horrible. Far worse than CarMax. Even worse than General Motors. It’s simply not possible to choose wanted features and sort through the nationwide inventory. There are a very limited number of options to choose, and the results are unreliable. The corporate MB app forces the buyer to go to each dealer’s website to dive deeper on details. MB doesn’t even provide a link – have to cut and paste each dealer’s name and google them to find the dealership. THEN you find the car (again) and hope there’s an “iPacket” of vehicle records that will include the data card of options by description and code. There are three Mercedes dealerships near me, and only one offers iPackets online to find data cards. Otherwise, the buyer needs to reach out dealer by dealer by email or phone to ask for a data card, and tolerate obnoxious sales reps only motivated to get you to walk in the door. More than one sales rep flat out lied, or was bizarrely unaware of what features were actually available on their vehicles.
For example, I absolutely had to have a heated steering wheel. They are extremely hard to find on 2020-2021 GLE580’s. One sales rep told me the heated steering wheel was controlled by the MBUX infotainment system and that’s why I wouldn’t see the switch on the side of the steering wheel. Total bullshit. I finally found a really good guy at the Alexandria, Virginia Mercedes dealer who explained to me that the chip shortage of 2020-2022 resulted in features, such as heated steering wheels, being dropped from some models and reserved for higher end cars. He said some new vehicles even showed up during that time with only half the ambience lighting installed, and a $500 credit on the Monroney sticker! Bottom line, I trusted nothing and no one on features until I got the data card. And then I still overlooked stuff!
After months of searching I found this beautiful blue over cream 2021 Mercedes GLE63s AMG in Santa Fe with only 12,000 miles. It had all of the features I wanted, or so I thought. But it was over budget. Found another white one in a less preferred color scheme in Boerne, Texas, but it was even more expensive. And after I had mentally committed to going all in on the GLE63 over the 580….a nice 580 showed up in Tennessee for $20,000 less. But it sold. The blue GLE63 dropped a thousand, then another two thousand, during my indecision mode. During that time I asked the sales manager about pricing and he flatly refused to negotiate. “I put my best price on the internet.” Another week went by and I engaged a pretty helpful sales rep and flat out made an offer. Said I had to get the price under $100k or my wife would leave me. He checked with the manager (of course) who gave me an ultimatum – they’d accept my offer if I completed the financial part that day and wired them payment. It was as if they’d challenged my manhood or integrity and so I said done, threw caution to the wind, and wired them the whole kit and caboodle. And then waited on paperwork and wondered if I had been swindled.
Although the manager and sales rep assured me they did long distance transactions all the time, they just weren’t very good at it and certainly not timely. Paperwork FedEx’d to me had my name spelled wrong. The email from the finance guy spelled “Benz” wrong. The sales rep and the finance rep were friendly and helpful when we talked, and yet they took forever to return calls. Lots of apologies that they had live customers in front of them, implying that buyers a thousand miles away were less important. When the finance guy initially called me, after trying to sell me windshield crack insurance (I thought Ziebart protection was next) he quoted me the extended CPO warranty for $2,000 more than the sales manager had. I corrected him and he accepted my number – wish I had said it was free!
A week later the sale was complete and we turned to shipping. The dealership claimed they outsourced shipping, but it turned out to be nothing more than “we know a guy”. Jacob, from Global Auto Transportation in Los Angeles. A broker. and the dealership doesn’t arrange transport, I do. Jacob promised me he could get the vehicle booked within a few days, and it would be here in a week, for $1,200. And the normal arrangements were to pay Global $300 and then, get this, Venmo the driver the remaining $900 upon delivery. I saw nothing but extra charges and getting squeezed by the trucker on arrival if Global didn’t pay him and said no – I’d pay Global, up front even, but I wanted a cleaner contract. Jacob agreed, When the SUV was picked up in Santa Fe I texted the truckers (two Russians) and promised a decent tip if they took care of my car. They did, and after delivery I Venmo’d them a couple of hundred bucks, and got a really sweet “May God bless you” text back. They were the highlight of this purchase.
The Mercedes had New Mexico temporary plates good for 30 days, and I needed them. It took the Santa Fe dealer all that time to get me a title and the originals of the purchase documents. And the purchase order was incorrect and rejected when I went to the Virginia DMV. Fortunately, the finance guy at the dealership took my call immediately and within minutes faxed corrected documents to the DMV and just last week, I became legal. I held off writing this piece all this time wondering if it would work out, or if I’d have to drive the car back to Santa Fe and dump it back on them. But it worked out. Just took almost two months to get here.
The SUV is pretty spectacular. I try to overlook design shortcomings like the cupholders above. The cupholders will EITHER heat OR cool your drinks, but what if you have coffee and water – can’t do one of each? Unacceptable 🙂 I misunderstood the Smart Phone Integration package – it has wireless phone charging, and full Apple CarPlay and other integrated features…..but the phone has to be tethered with a USB cord. Was joking about the cupholders, but I really wanted wireless CarPlay. I missed that. I’ve since bought a puck, wired into the port and hidden in the glovebox, but running two Bluetooth connections (MBUX and the aftermarket) is clunky and drops calls. Will probably just run with a wired phone. Disappointing.
The massaging seats are wonderful, and well supporting on my 600 mile road trip. The aromatherapy (below), like the heated/cooling cupholders, is a bit of a novelty. The atomizer was missing when the car arrived so I dropped $100 on Amazon for a genuine “Mercedes Benz Genuine Flacon Perfume Atomizer”. It goes in a special mount in the glove box. Passed on Sport fragrance (was thinking locker room?) and went for “Freeside Mood”. Amazon said it’s “citrus and tea with floral top notes. Base notes include cedar- patchouli and ambergris.” I don’t know what that it, but I do know the first time my wife rode in the car she said something like “Good God, what’s that smell?”. Fortunately, it’s easy to turn off.
While we’re at it, the Mercedes also has the heated armrests – the center console and the door rest. I’m sure they will be critical come winter. It does have the heads up display I dig, although no night vision assist. The Driver Assistance Plus package (hands free driving, including auto lane change and stop and go assist in traffic jams), has been worth it. The 603 hp 4.0 liter V-8 is an absolute brawler……if you want it to be. Peculiarly, I’ve been driving it mostly in reduced power mode because I don’t need that horsepower all the time (or at all?!) and I might as well save on gas. And after 2,000 miles of driving, with only one 600 mile road trip, I’m averaging 19 mpg. That’s what I get in my 2013 BMW M3. And that’s why I sometimes wonder if I would have been just as happy with the “cheaper” GLE580? I’m usually driving the GLE63 the same way. Sort of how my BMW M3 is fine around town in normal mode, and yet hit the “M” button and it’s a race car.
Finally, let’s look at the warranty. The reason for this blog is because I’m a MaxCare addict. I like the financial protection of near bumper-to-bumper coverage on high-end cars and wouldn’t own one without it. Every time I looked at CPO’s, though, I found the coverage was only one year or so beyond the manufacturer warranty. CarMax sells five years from the purchase date from CarMax – not linked to the original sale date. That’s the differentiator. But I found the Mercedes CPO warranty is one year beyond the manufacturer warranty for free, and an additional two years could be purchased with an extended CPO warranty. My SUV is a 2021, and the manufacturer warranty is four years, through 2025. The CPO warranty adds a year, to 2026, and the additional two years I bought, for $5,960, will take me to 2028. That’s five years and unlimited mileage! I plan to drive the wheels off, and not worry about managing mileage. I am waiting for an opportunity to take the car in to Mercedes and see if this is as easy as it has been with my trusted rep Ryan at CarMax.
That’s my story. The car sold new for maybe $130,000 with all these options and carbon fiber trim and I got it for under $100,000 – not the unicorn deal I’ve grown accustomed to, and yet just this once it’s the right thing to do for me. I know it will be worth a third that when I’m done. When I replace the M3, I will no doubt be looking for a bargain at CarMax!
I’ll get back to blogging about CarMax cars now. And enjoying the best, or nothing.
On the East Coast we got this high performance 2014 Jaguar XJR unicorn with 55,000 miles awaiting a new owner. This is a first year model and when introduced got great reviews. The car was lighter than the XKR below, and with a supercharged motor hit 60 mph in 3.9 seconds – a staggering number for a luxury family car almost a decade ago. The full instrumented Car and Driver review is here.
Written about so many Jaguars that by now the interiors all look the same to me, from the XF to the XK to the XJ. That means they all look luxurious and high end, to me. I’ve driven several of the XK’s and XKR’s and if not for a jammed key box behind my seat during a test drive that made me think I had four inches less leg room than I needed, I’d be the owner of an XKR now instead of an M3. The rotary shift knob took some getting used to but didn’t take long to master.
Don’t know what it is with Jaguar switches that get all rubbery, but they do. Previous owner left their fingerprints all over this one.
The Jaguar XJR has such nice lines, and the quad exhaust, the “R” badges, and some front end fascia upgrades are a few of the distinctions from the regular XJ. Befitting a luxury car of its day it has heated and air conditioned seats, a Meridian audio system, and a panoramic sunroof. And tons of room inside and in the trunk.
What makes the XJR special is the upgraded 5.0 liter V-8, a supercharged, 550 horsepower, high performance car that with an eight-speed automatic and will hit 174 mph. And again, Car and Driver was able to pull off a 3.9 second 0-60 mph run. The car sold new back in 2014 for about $125,000 and is now only $33,998. Find it here in Buffalo, New York.
My father was a huge fan of station wagons. With four kids, family trips long and short were just made easier with a wagon. We had some behemoths, like our 1961 or 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air (Impala?) wagon below carrying us from Baltimore to Kentucky to see family. (That’s a two year old Chuck checking his pockets for keys.) My favorite was the Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser with the skylight roof window. We had some mid-sized Rambler wagons, and for some odd reason a tiny, two-door Opel Kadett wagon. Cruel parenting to squeeze three kids in the back of a two-door anything (the fourth kid, often me, rode on the front hump.) But my father never, ever had a Cadillac. And he never had a wagon this fast.
The wagon version of the Cadillac with a Corvette motor (that’s what CTS-V stands for?) is a rare Cadillac indeed, with only 1,767 units manufactured during its 2010-2014 lifespan. The manual transmission CTS-V wagon is an even more extinct unicorn, at only 514 with a stick. Last CTS-V wagon of any kind I saw was two years ago this month, and Hans and I swapped texts and a photo but I never posted and the CarMax link is long gone. Sigh. This one will NOT get away. Ironically, I had this one saved about the same time Hans texted me again!
This is an 11 year old Cadillac and (to me) the lines of the wagon are still unique, almost fresh. The wagon has a real sleeper, secret family hauler race car quality about it. No diffusers or special vents. The mesh grille looks purposeful, as does the muscular bump in the front hood. But you have to squint to see the V badges.
The body may look sleek, but the innards not so much. The pop up infotainment display looks clunky compared to an Audi A8’s slender screen. The thick steering wheel and Recaro seats ($3,400 option) should help with high-speed maneuvers, though. CarMax lists the car as “Loaded” with 9/10 on features, and yet it has only heated and air conditioned seats, panoramic sunroof, navigation, Bose and Bluetooth, a rear view camera, and remote start. My 2010 Mercedes S-class had so much more, but then again it sold new for maybe three times what this Cadillac did. So not sure how it’s “loaded”.
The cargo space is merely adequate at 25 and 58 cubic feet with second row up and down, respectively, and understand that’s less than a similar E63 wagon. But for those of us who think we need an SUV to “haul stuff” (even though we rarely do) the Cadillac wagon is a nice alternative.
My father also had a 1959 Chevrolet Kingswood wagon with the rear-facing third row seat, blue and used like this one, and it was the bomb to roll down the highway staring down Think there are still Volvos, Mercedes, Teslas, and even Ford Taurus wagons out there with these cool rear facing seats.
Enough beating around the bush. The best reason to buy a Cadillac CTS-V is the huge 6.2 liter, supercharged V-8 motor rated at 556 horsepower. With the six-speed automatic, the Cadillac hits 60 mph in 4.7 seconds. I’m sure it sounds badass through it all.
The reason to get THIS 11 year old Cadillac CTS-V wagon is because it has only 11,000 miles on it. (If my arithmetic skills serve me right that’s….1,000 miles a year?) Find this 2012 Cadillac CTS-V here. It was reserved in Irvine, California and is now on its way to Oxnard for another test drive. It’s selling for $69,998, sadly that’s more than it sold for new. MaxCare? Why not, and run this wagon hard until it breaks. And someday I may have to pick up a wagon myself in memory of my Dad.
Happy Independence Day! Let’s just say that had the Continental Army picked up this massive pickup from CarMax, they probably could have driven the whole battalion across the Delaware River instead of rowing Washington the hard way. Years ago I was having beers with some buddies awaiting the race in the Le Mans campground and asked “what American vehicle would be the most iconic for tooling around France?” (yes, the France that went all in on helping us with independence in the first place) My friend Todd immediately nominated a dualie and it was pretty much case closed. Only Ford, Dodge, and GM make dualies – one ton, six-wheel pickups.
So for Independence Day let me share this incredibly huge Ford F350 Super Duty Lariat FX4. If there’s a more muscular rump on a vehicle (I think that’s the correct automotive term) I haven’t seen it. The F350 is 22 feet long, eight feet wide, and weighs a few muskets less than 7,400 lbs. Empty. And it will tow a mighty 35,000 pounds – or roughly 17 trailered horses like Washington’s “Old Nelson” or Blueskin” all at once. How does the F350 tow so much? The answer must be horsepower, right? Au contraire!
The answer is torque – a staggering 1,050 lb-ft generated at 1,600 rpm. Damned near at idle. That power comes from a 6.7 liter turbodiesel “Powerstroke” V-8 that pumps out “only” 475 hp. And once again I’m confronted with my knuckleheaded understanding of torque vs horsepower. Stealing an oversimplification from a lengthy Car and Driver essay on the topic, “torque is the capacity to do work, while power is how quickly some strenuous task can be accomplished”. And that explains my fascination with horsepower over torque – I’d rather get hard work over with and crack open a beer than ponder my (limited) capacity to do work. It’s that simple. While we’re at it, with the 10 speed automatic the F350 will hit 60 mph in about seven seconds, but that’s not why anyone buys it.
The payload in this behemoth bed is also just under four tons, or about 17 Revolutionary War cannons. (Hmmm…tow 17 horses or haul 17 cannons? What is this, some sort of automotive Fibonacci or Pythagorean thing?!) The price for all of this oomph is an estimated 15 mpg. Fortunately, the F350 has a 48 gallon gas tank pushing this truck to a 720 mile range. Washington could have easily driven on a single tank of diesel from Trenton, New Jersey to Yorktown, Virginia for the final battle of the war and back! Would only hit Wawa’s for hazelnut coffee, a carton of smokes, and bathroom breaks for the men. And at today’s price of diesel a tank would be about $185.
Yeah it’s a work truck, and while this F350 has the FX4 off-roading package, it’s not even close to austere. Heated and cooling seats. Bang & Olufsen audio, Apple CarPlay, panoramic sunroof, automatic high beams, blind spot and cross traffic alert (all to spot the British?), and much more. Luxury. The truck sold new for maybe $90,000 and is here in Gainesville, Florida. Happy Independence Day and God Bless America!
We’ll get to this spectacular 2013 Mercedes SL65 AMG unicorn in just a moment. First I owe you an explanation on the total silence on this page for the past month. There is no truth to the rumor the CarMax Unicorn Blog management furloughed me for being a slacker, although I am. The truth is a combination of factors interfered with blogging, and I do intend to write a few pieces on these challenges. First, the new CarMax app on my phone and tablet are very difficult to sift through for unicorns, so much that I complained and CarMax reached out to me to discuss. I owe you a piece on that. Second, I did a fantastic long distance road trip in late May, and I owe you a piece on that. Third, I’m very close to closing a deal on my SUV unicorn, and I owe you a piece on that. I also had drinks with blog reader and car guy Scott about his most recent MaxCare repair on his Jaguar XJ, and I owe you a piece on that. So we got lots in the hopper and will try to pump out the above, and track unicorns more better and more faster. Speaking of which, check out the SL65!
This 2013 Mercedes SL65 AMG was spotted by Hans, who may or may not be in the hunt for it. I can tell you it’s in the process of being shipped from Raleigh to another dealership in North Carolina. The two attributes that jump out at me right away are, of course, the V-12 power plant, and it once sold for over $214,000. All of the Mercedes owner pages suggest they were sent to the USA in limited numbers – maybe only a few hundred a year, but I cannot find how many with any authority. If you find a source let me know.
The interior is roomy and plush like an SL, and has the air scarf neck heater, the Magic Sky Control moonroof – pretty neat in a hard top convertible, Bang & Olufsen audio, seat massagers, adaptive cruise control, lane departure and blind spot warnings, and even a rear view camera! Lots of carbon fiber trim as well. But it’s the hand built, 6.0 liter V-12 below that sets the SL65 apart from the SL550 or even the SL63. The SL65 pumps 621 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque at only 2300 RPM. The convertible hits 60 mph in 3.7 seconds and maxes out at a governor limited 186 mph. Brutal performance for a luxury convertible. That said, this Car and Driver review points out it ain’t any faster than the $60,000 cheaper SL63. But it’s a V-12!
You can track this 2013 Mercedes SL65 with this link, or by the stock number or VIN on the CarMax website. It does show one accident (left rear) with the one owner in Raleigh, and it does have relatively low mileage. As with any high end AMG it seems a no brainer that MaxCare will pay for itself and is highly recommended. Honestly, if it comes back on the market I may need to trade up from my M3!
The only thing better than a cheap 500+ horsepower M-series SUV are TWO of these unicorns. It’s the third one that’s passed through CarMax in the last month but the third sold. Hence the X6M². Get it? Both of these are 2014 models, identical in performance but with one slightly better equipped. Both were once $95,000 brand new purchases and almost a decade later are to be had for the mid-$30k range. Why not by one for you and one for the spouse?!
The first one has a little higher mileage at 53,000, and costs $2,000 more, but has heated and air conditioned seats, rear sunshade, heads up display, and heated steering wheel. Both have navigation, AWD, rear view cameras, adjustable suspensions, and monster motors.
The 4.4 liter, twin turbo V-8 below makes a whopping 550 horsepower, and the six-speed automatic pulls this 5,200 lb SUV to 60 mph in 4.3 seconds. Damned fast for an SUV “coupe”.
This 2014 BMW X6M is selling for $38,998 and is available here in Houston. It’s a two-owner, accident free car that’s spent its entire life in Texas.
Regrettably we have stumbled on a limitation on MaxCare coverage that to date I’ve not experienced nor seen implemented. For the last 10 years, since I bought my beloved 2004 Mercedes S55 AMG unicorn, and certainly for the past five here in this blog, I’ve been advocating the advantages of MaxCare – shift the financial risk of major repairs when owning high-end automobiles to CarMax.
I had enjoyed $35,000 in repairs to the S55 I purchased for $21,000, and over $15,000 in repairs to the 2010 Mercedes S600 I paid $31,000 for. Woven into many posts I’ve gushed about warranty coverage for up to five years and 150,000 odometer miles. I’ve emphasized that MaxCare is transferable, and sold both Mercedes with mileage and time left on the warranty for the next owner to enjoy. Well, there’s a third rail to be aware of on transferable warranties, discovered by Jared – the buyer of my S600, that I need to make you aware of. Before I do, I have to express my gratitude to Jared for being a gentleman. neither he nor I knew this was going to be an issue with the purchase and he has been gracious in sharing with me….and not hiring an assassin. To the best of my knowledge.
When Jared took the S600 to his Mercedes dealership for a repair CNA, the MaxCare underwriter, advised that the ceiling had been hit for repairs and declined additional work. Both Jared and I were stunned. He shared with me the Limit of Liability in the MaxCare service contract (General Provisions, paragraph 5); “The limit of Our liability is the total amount We will pay for all claims throughout the Service Contract Term and it shall not exceed the purchase price of Your Vehicle.”
Jared and I chatted and we were stunned that CNA was exercising that provision. I asked if CNA had shared an itemized list of repairs to date – how can we be sure of their calculations? So far, they’ve only indicated the ceiling had been reached and we have to take their word for it? There has been no accounting so far on the S600.
Guenther, my 2004 Mercedes S55 AMG first unicorn.
Going forward, buyers need to be aware that there are three, not two, caps on MaxCare; 1) the time limit, 2) the mileage limit, and 3) the purchase price of the vehicle. That’s mentioned nowhere on the CarMax website when describing MaxCare, only in the MaxCare service contract itself. Beware.
Disappointing, but the three attributes are knowable when buying a car directly from MaxCare. Presuming CNA (or the other MaxCare underwriters) will stop paying for repairs when the purchase price is hit, we know what that cap is – whatever we pay for the car from CarMax. It should have been $21,998 for my 2004 S55, $30,998 for my 2010 S600, $36,998 for my 2008 Porsche 911, and 41,998 for my 2013 BMW M3.
My 2008 Porsche 911 unicorn. It never broke enough to profit from MaxCare, but CarMax refunded $1100 in prorated MaxCare warranty price when I sold the car to a local Porsche specialist.
But what about when buying a CarMax car from a private owner like me, and transferring MaxCare to the new owner. The private buyer will need to know the original purchase price from CarMax and the amount of repairs MaxCare/CNA have covered in order to know how much is left for future repairs. Is that even knowable?
My 2013 BMW M3.
Turns out it is. I decided to experiment and contact CNA, the underwriter for my BMW M3, to ask how much cap was left on my MaxCare warranty. First, it wasn’t easy to navigate the phone menu for claims, transfer, cancellation, etc. None of them really applied. I chose transfer and got nowhere. They relayed me to claims. Claims insisted they couldn’t help me and tried to punt me to the dealership where I bought the car. The problem was they could not understand my question and thought I was asking how much refund I could expect from MaxCare if I sold my car. With a little persistence, though, the rep (Gary) understood what I wanted and in seconds tallied up the repairs to date on my BMW. He told me I have $39,025.67 left. To the penny. So the repairs are tracked and knowable, just not as easy to get there as I would have liked.
The 2018 Cadillac CT6 Platinum – aka the Clotmobile.
Bottom line? I don’t think it changes a thing on my enthusiasm for MaxCare as the primary buyer from CarMax, other than the chances of getting the underwriter to pay 150% of the purchase price (S55 experience) are probably slim. That said, until now my strategy was to sell these cars with enough time and mileage to give the buyer some comfort they can drive the cars hard and sort them out initially under the MaxCare protection. That model only works if I haven’t reached the purchase price cap. Someday when the M3 is for sale I will make the allowance clear. And if you’re buying a CarMax unicorn with transferable MaxCare from someone other than me, know that you need to know how much cap is less, and that it is knowable.
The 2010 Mercedes E63 I owned and loved…for the 48 hours I owned it before it blew up.
Final thought. My estimate when I offered the S600 for sale was that I had enjoyed $15-18,000 in repairs, meaning there may have been $12,000 in available repairs left on the warranty. Jared had more confidence in his local Mercedes dealership over his local CarMax on this high-end V-12 sedan and I totally get that. That said, $12,000 goes a lot farther at CarMax than it does at Mercedes. I had always used either CarMax or an independent Mercedes shop for work on the S600 here in Northern Virginia. Many times CarMax sent the S600 out to Mercedes for work they could not do. I had always been a fan of that – if Mercedes wants to charge labor rates MaxCare won’t cover, the dispute was between my CarMax dealership (the customer), MaxCare, and the Mercedes dealership, and was resolved without my knowledge. I do not know if repair costs done by Mercedes when CarMax was the customer were any less than if I had gone direct to Mercedes. But I do know that given Jared’s experience I won’t be taking my M3 to BMW any time soon.
I have two more MaxCare experiences to share – one from a reader and one from me – but I owe it to you all and to Jared to get this out now. Will write again this week. But if you have MaxCare experiences that differ from mine I always welcome feedback.
