Poor payment relative to the industry standard - Sales and Service CarMax Employee Review

1.0
1 Feb 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Non college educated sales person can make $80k if willing to grind out 70hr work weeks and put up with dictator iron fist style manaqgement.

Cons

Poor quality vehicles. Managers use intimidation and demeaning tactics on sales consultants. Appraisal process/crew/training is a joke. Inventory crew are 18yr old kids spending their whole time screwing off instead of cleaning cars. Tech bays have some great techs, but the TPM's and LGM's are too worried about budgets to approve paying for needed repairs. Techs get lazy because nothing gets approved. Cars keep coming back without getting fixed. Service writers take all the crap end of the poor front end and get paid 1/3 of the industry standard while working more hours. They burn out and the only survivors cheat and rob the newbies writers/techs. Customers return the cars as a result (5 day return policy) and the sales person loses their commission. Commission stucture is flat with no change since mid 90's (company inception). Sales people burn out and settle for $12 per hour (base in Cali). Sales people start snaking deals from each other to make ends meat. Rivalry begins and internal groups are formed. High school drama stems and lead to feuds. Management watches with no action and are all part of the evil mentioned above. Everyone sleeps with everyone. A majority of sales managers were just the worst of the worst and excelled at lying, cheating, sleeping or stealing from/with coworkers. This led them to high sales, popularity and promotion. They continue with clicks and hand deals to their cohort. The underscored triple bottom line: Poor quality vehicles sold after "CQI" Certified Quality Inspection.

Explore other reviews about CarMax

5.0
3 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You are your own boss

Cons

Slow days can be demotivating.

1.0
31 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

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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