Carmax is not the company it portrays itself to be - Sales Associate CarMax Employee Review

2.0
1 Apr 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

if youre fortunate to work at a location that the LGM and other managers are personable and care then you can have a good work experience. The basic training is pretty good. Sometimes unrealistic but over pretty good.

Cons

Very cut throat no matter the position you are in. The better you are at your job the least likely you are to be considered for promotion. The "30 day warranty" is a joke. you are constantly expected to lie to customers about "normal" noise when there is a true problem. The 125 pt inspection is a joke as well. The technicians will recommend repairs however a manager will then say no and hope it gets by the customer to later then end up repairing it anyways during the 30 day period when the customer is pissed off and now has no confidence in carmax. Everything is based off of customer surveys. The scale you are scored on is impossible to make any sense of. When looking at the company from an outsiders view the level of professionalism is poor. No one knows what they are talking about but can talk sideways in carmax terminology. If you do know what youre talking about youre told you have "opportunities" in how you communicate messages. It is hard to work for a company thats managers have no prior knowledge of the department they lead. Service managers that dont even know how to check tire pressure or oil level on a dipstick are the ones who tell advisors how to properly explained diagnosis details to customers. All in all. It is a great entry level job but dont let yourself buy into the whole carmax career lies they feed you.

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Pros

You are your own boss

Cons

Slow days can be demotivating.

1.0
31 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

Remote work, first 2 weeks of the 2 month training, offers sick time before PTO rolls in

Cons

Little to no worklife balance, toxic positivity (like when they called the meeting about taking away our bonuses “exciting news” and tried to gaslight us as to why this was a good thing), extreme micromanagement, listening to our headsets constantly without us knowing, AI rating our metrics, unrealistic expectations, you basically do 4 jobs in one (at Carvana, appraisals / selling, financial applications and documents / EPUs, sales and customer service were ALL DIFFERENT DEPARTMENTS.

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