78% of Car Buyer's Suffer "Why Did I Ever Buy That? " Remorse

Majority of Car Buyers Have Wanted to Return a Vehicle Within First Few Days of Purchase

RICHMOND, Va., Feb. 16 -- A recent poll of almost 49,000 car shoppers conducted by CarMax, Inc. on the company's Web site shows that 78 percent of car purchasers have wished they could return a car within the first few days of buying it. Only 22 percent of respondents had never experienced buyer's remorse.

When asked the question, "Have you ever wished you could return a car within the first few days of buying it?" visitors to carmax.com answered:

  Answer           Number of Respondents       Percentage of Respondents

   Yes                    38,421                       78 percent

   No                     10,553                       22 percent

"An easy way to prevent buyer's remorse is to check the seller's policy on returns or exchanges before purchase, much like you would if you were buying merchandise from a big box retailer," says Joe Kunkel, senior vice president of marketing and strategy for CarMax. "CarMax offers a five-day, or 250-mile, no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee. Traditional dealer policies overwhelmingly vary from no money-back or exchange policies at all to policies that only allow an exchange. This is just another piece of the car buying transaction where it pays to be fully informed before signing a purchase contract."

CarMax is the nation's leading specialty retailer of used cars. Headquartered in Richmond, Va., CarMax currently operates 48 used car superstores in 22 markets. CarMax also operates 12 new car franchises, all of which are integrated or co-located with its used car superstores. During the twelve month period ended November 30, 2003, the company sold 216,230 used cars, which is 91 percent of the total 238,118 vehicles the company sold during that period. For more information, CLICK HERE for the CarMax Web site at www.carmax.com.