Yesterday Dale and I traded in our wonderful 2002 Nissan Altima for a 2004 Nissan Murano. We really liked the Altima but wanted a bit more room with a baby on the way. A new Murano seemed out of our price range since the Nissan dealership didn’t want to give us much on the trade-in for the Altima, so Dale kept an eye on used Muranos on Carmax.com. Earlier this week he spotted one that was in Dallas and seemed to have all the features we wanted and was priced within our range. He was afraid it wouldn’t be available long since it was currently on the showroom floor at the Dallas store, so we hurried out to the newly opened Austin store.
The description on the web site only listed a few features, but some of them are only available through packages, which means that the car should have other features as well. We had a walk-around done at the Dallas store that confirmed the presence of the additional features. The car was listed as used, but it was a 2004 model and had only 1500 miles on it, so Dale figured it must have been a demo model. We really liked the car but then had to wait and see what Carmax would offer us for the Altima.
Fortunately, the Altima’s in great shape. No more wear and tear than you’d expect for its age, plus low mileage since we don’t have to do any commuting to and from work. Overall the Altima is a nice car anyway. They’re pretty popular, reliable, and nice-looking, and ours has the V6 engine. Still, we were nervous that we wouldn’t get offered much. To our surprise, after the inspection, Carmax offered us $16,500 for the Altima, which was $2500 more than we were hoping for, so we immediately put in the transfer request for the Murano. They said it could take up to 7 days for the Murano to arrive, but it’s usually less. I think Dale called Carmax every day this week to find out if it had arrived yet.
Finally, yesterday afternoon, we got the call. And, the salesman who called us said there was another customer already expressing interest in the Murano. Dale and I hurried out the door with our folder of paperwork and all the keys and remotes. We actually arrived before our salesman, Barry, did. First we got to examine the car. It had even more packages and features than we’d thought, so the deal was getting better by the minute. While we were doing the paperwork, a saleswoman came by and confirmed we were buying the car. Turns out she had a customer interested in buying it. Also, during the paperwork, Dale made a couple of trips to the Altima (getting our stuff, putting the owner’s manual in the glovebox), and each time he spotted salespeople and customers looking at the Murano.
Carmax has a nice trade-in incentive. If you trade-in your car for one of theirs, you only pay sales tax on the difference between the value of your trade-in and the price of the new car. In our case, the savings on the sales tax was enough to balance out the amount we still owed on the Altima (the trade-in didn’t quite cover what we still owed). We ended up spending almost 3 hrs at Carmax, but part of that was the inexperience of our salesman. He was nice and easy to work with, but he didn’t turn in our trade-in estimate at the start (which is apparently the longest part of the procedure to process) so we had to wait a bit on that. Not a big deal since we weren’t in a hurry. And overall, the Carmax experience was great, since there was no pressure at any point and no mind games or bait-and-switch tactics.
After we got home, I went to the Nissan site and went through the “design a car” program. I put in all the features and packages that our new Murano has and found out that the MSRP for that model with all those features is $38,000. (Features include leather interior, memory seats, heated front seats, chrome wheels, and a GPS navigation system.) Our price through Carmax was $28,000!! We still can’t believe it. Basically, we’ve gone from having a $24,000 car to having a $38,000 car, yet our monthly payments have only gone up $100.
We still don’t know how the heck Carmax does its pricing. The Austin dealership had a silver 2003 Murano with cloth seats and no extras, and it was priced the same as our fully-loaded model. The customer who wanted our car as soon as it arrived had arranged to have a black 2003 Murano shipped down from another location. Then she saw ours when she got to the Austin store, and discovered ours was newer than hers, had less mileage, more features, and was priced the same. I don’t think she was happy.
There were only a couple of strange little things that we have to deal with. The first was that all the keyless remotes were missing. We just had two ignition keys, so we stopped by the Nissan dealership this afternoon, paid $130 for a remote, and had it programmed. The other thing was that the owner’s manual was missing. I called and ordered a replacement owner’s manual, along with a manual for the navigation system for a total of $30, which will be reimbursed by Carmax. The remote isn’t reimbursible, but it’s cost was minimal in light of the awesome deal we got for the car.
I’ve uploaded a few pictures to our web site. You can see them at http://www.midnightgarden.com/gallery/04murano. Yes, it’s orange inside and out, and yes, my Mom will probably hate that, but it’s not so bad. And orange is one of my favorite colors anyway. 
Dale and I drove around for a couple of hours last night, and tonight we’re heading to Houston for the weekend. We might as well get Zoë used to riding in the very back. Now we just have to figure out how to get her in there, because the tailgate is too high for her to jump into the car.
