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CarMax trade in?
Jimmy King
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Just to get this out of the way, obviously without being an actual CarMax employee and being able to actually inspect the car, no one is going to be able to reliably make any sort of promises, that's not what I'm looking for.
So, short version. I've got a '99 Mustang Cobra that I've been trying to slowly restore and get to a like-new condition and level of reliability. It continues to break faster than I can fix things, though. The latest clusterfuck may have left me needing head gaskets replaced and, if I'm really unlucky, warped heads (overheating and spraying coolant out the reservoir cap in construction traffic with nowhere to pull over sucks) and I already had a separate repair which was probably going to run me $1000-$1500 I was preparing to have dealt with this week. Depending on overall damage once I get it towed and checked out at a shop, I am prepared to just give up on this car. We've had a good run and it's a pleasure to drive, but I've got bills to pay and a job to get to.
I have read in the past that CarMax frequently offers considerably more than expected for cars in such a condition because they will part them out and get a lot more money for them than they could at an auction. Anyone know if there is any truth to this? Does anyone have a clue what "more than expected" means? I mean, like are we talking $1200 instead of $1000 or $2000-$3000 instead of $1000?
I've got potential buyers, so I'd hate to spend $100+ on towing just to see if I can get $50 more from CarMax.
So, short version. I've got a '99 Mustang Cobra that I've been trying to slowly restore and get to a like-new condition and level of reliability. It continues to break faster than I can fix things, though. The latest clusterfuck may have left me needing head gaskets replaced and, if I'm really unlucky, warped heads (overheating and spraying coolant out the reservoir cap in construction traffic with nowhere to pull over sucks) and I already had a separate repair which was probably going to run me $1000-$1500 I was preparing to have dealt with this week. Depending on overall damage once I get it towed and checked out at a shop, I am prepared to just give up on this car. We've had a good run and it's a pleasure to drive, but I've got bills to pay and a job to get to.
I have read in the past that CarMax frequently offers considerably more than expected for cars in such a condition because they will part them out and get a lot more money for them than they could at an auction. Anyone know if there is any truth to this? Does anyone have a clue what "more than expected" means? I mean, like are we talking $1200 instead of $1000 or $2000-$3000 instead of $1000?
I've got potential buyers, so I'd hate to spend $100+ on towing just to see if I can get $50 more from CarMax.
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Carmax does not deal in particularly old cars. Most of their stable is less than 10 years old.
Considering it's reliability issues it's possible that they will not even accept it.
Your car would probably go to an auction block, and you'll get auction prices for it, no matter where you trade it in to. Sometimes, a dealer will show you a report of "similar cars at auction" and give you a certain % less than that.
I have gotten 83% and 50% more selling private party than Carmax has offered me.
I may just get lucky on this. I was able to get a hold of a local Mustang only shop which I've had do work in the past, but was having trouble contacting this time. They charge about 2/3 what the dealerships do for labor, work quicker, and do a better job. As long as the heat didn't do serious damage, the repair will be a much more reasonable cost than the dealership prices I thought I was going to get stuck with.
Rebuild was because I'm one of the "unsuspecting owners" referred to in this post. Most frustrating part of that fiasco was that when I got the car I asked about that because the dipstick actually showed low when running the 6 qts the manual says and at that time everyone said to run 6, it's fine, the dipsticks are just dumb.
Oh well, I'd better stop derailing my own thread. Going to leave it at carmax will give me fuck all for trade in and I'll be way better off selling it since I've got a buyer lined up anyway if I decide to get rid of it.
My views are slightly tainted. I did have a friend who had one and he swore up and down that those years were the worst and complete shit. He got the '02 and swore up and down that those years were the best because they fixed the motors and all that was wrong with the Cobras before. There was a local guy around here running 1000 BHP '04 twin turbo Cobra.
'99 and '01 are basically the same car. The '99 Cobra originally came off the assembly line putting out way less power than it was supposed to, but that recall that's not a recall was done and there are very few in existence that didn't get fixed. I have no clue how the determination was made but they were all fixed with either an updated cpu tune, change to the exhaust, or acid dipped (I believe) intake manifold... maybe some combination of those was also done? Then they got a dot put on the intake manifold which is coded to which fix the car got. I've heard reports of some of them coming back making way more power than they were supposed to after that. The '01 was just the '99 the way it was supposed to be in the first place with a couple very minor exceptions.
I believe the '01 IRS was improved (the '99 IRS does kind of suck, it's a bitch to not get wheel hop), '01 got a different 5-speed transmission than the '99 ('01 has a tremec 3650, '99 has a tremec t-45) which is supposed to be slightly stronger but most people prefer the tranny from the '99, '01 got stronger axles, and somewhere during the '01 production run they switched to a different slightly weaker engine block, but both were way stronger than 99% of owners would ever need. Basically no difference performance-wise most drivers would ever notice, especially just cruising around town, after the fix for the '99. There were also cosmetic changes.
The in '03 they went balls out. Went back to a solid axle, iron block, 6 speed tranny, and threw a blower on and have been going batshit crazy making faster and faster cars ever since then. The mach 1 then took the place of the naturally aspirated cobra, more or less (it's still not quite the same).
And now you know more than you probably wanted to.