Quote Originally Posted by shagwAg3n
uh don't know about all that...all i can say is, when i got rid of my prelude, carmax offered me the generous sum of $6500 for it. when i took it to a local dealer that used to be a sponsor of ia? i got $9900 for it day of, and they turned around and sold it a week later for no less than $10500...
Carmax almost always auctions cars with the following:

Modifications.
10 years of existence.
100,000 miles of travel.
Any issues with the title.
Too many pings on CarFax.

If they plan to auction your car, they will give you going auction rate for your vehicle, and not KBB/Black Book. If they plan to lot your car, they will give you Black Book Trade-in based on condition it's in. The car lot in your example made exactly $0 off of that transaction when you take into account their costs. Except that they likely financed the car, and thus made money off the finance charges.

Carmax is a fantastic company, but there are plenty of cars that don't belong anywhere near Carmax.