Study Shows That 1 In 4 Cars Sold At Carmax Have Unrepaired Safety Defects

More than 25 percent of used vehicles sold at eight CarMax locations across the U.S. contained safety defects that weren’t repaired, despite being under recall, according to a review by car safety advocates. Some of the cars included unrepaired Takata airbags, which have been linked to numerous deaths.

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MDarringer - 9/28/2017 6:42:27 PM

0 Boost

It's very hard for a lot that carries cars from multiple brands to make sure that all of them have their recalls done. The task is gargantuan. I'm not a fan of CarMax because they sell some pretty defective garbage as barely used cars. They've been caught cheating more than a few times. But it would be hard for a lot to literally have its pulse on every recall in every brand and to be able to have them repaired before going on sale.

mre30 - 9/29/2017 6:21:24 AM

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CarMax is a big used car lot, so the bar is set pretty low. Like anything else, you need to be a savvy customer to avoid getting screwed.

Perhaps the best thing about CarMax are the extended warranties they sell - if you think you got a good deal on the car and you are the kind of customer who has a low margin for error in your financial life, its probably wise to give back some of the money and buy the extra warranty.

MDarringer - 9/29/2017 8:18:46 AM

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The problem with that kind of thinking is that the CarMax price ISN'T brilliant in the first place and selling the insurance is a racket.

TomM - 9/30/2017 8:58:57 AM

+1 Boost

Years ago - I sold a car with a safety defect - the Decal that told of how to use the seat belts was not affixed to the Sun shade on the drivers side. A lot of these Safety defect are not particularly exciting things. Others have no solution - the fact is not ALL Takata airbags have been recalled - and they still do not have enough replacements to solve the problems.

I would believe that there are a lot of cars on the roads that have such defects - that we will NEVER even know about. ANd if you think this is bad with Carmax - you have probably never seen how some shady used car dealers actually "fix" their cars for sale. I actually ALMOST worked (I refused) on a Lincoln that had been in an accident -and they WELDED the exhaust pipe to the bottom of the gas tank! I have seen frames that were pieced so badly that they could not survive hitting a curb.

What you need is an honest mechanic to look at the car - AND you need someone with computer skills to look up these re-calls - not every good mechanic can.