“That’s just normal.”
A frustrated car buyer is feeling extremely skeptical about a major seller’s vaunted inspection process for used cars. And now he’s sharing why.
The clip from TikTok creator Donny (@donnylovescats) spills all the tea on what’s happened since he bought a used BMW M2 from CarMax, with what he describes as serious mechanical issues emerging almost immediately. Now, after several unsatisfying rounds of repairs and interactions with sales and service representatives, he’s faced with having to pick a different car altogether.
“They’re like, ‘Basically, it’s gonna cost more than the value of the car to fix it. That’s how messed up it is.’” Donny says in the post, which has been viewed more than 4,000 times. “That’s how destroyed it is. And then they said, ‘It probably won’t be fixed after we do those fixes. In a few weeks, it’ll get destroyed again.’ So it might be a totaled car, basically.”
Donny says that within days of taking the M2 home, a warning chime started coming on. The dashboard would light up and emit what he describes as a loud, repetitive beep. The engine felt “sluggish.” The brakes were noisy. And the air conditioning wasn’t behaving the way it had on the test drive.
In almost no time, he shifted from excitement to confusion and frustration over his purchase. Donny says he brought it back to the store for a quick fix under warranty coverage. What he claims he got instead was a ride-along with a CarMax technician, who he says seemed dismissive and unconcerned about the performance issues.
“That’s just normal. That’s just how a BMW is. You probably never owned a BMW before,” is his recollection of the conversation, adding that the technician laughed during this exchange, which felt to him like gaslighting.
The initial repair focused on the brakes, per Donny, but the warning signals returned almost immediately, with the chime returning and the drivability issues still very much present.
At one point, Donny says the car began lurching while he was driving a client to work, forcing him to bring it back in for a second visit, which resulted in it being sent to a BMW dealership for further diagnosis. Then Donny received a loaner car that he describes as several levels below his M2.
As he tells it, by that point, his excitement over the purchase had been replaced by repeated warning lights, confrontational service appointments, and a borrowed car he couldn’t get out of.
On top of the service issues, the troubled purchase took another turn when Donny says he got a call about an entirely different nuance of the acquisition process involving the paperwork for his trade-in.
Without sharing all the details, he says he was told he would need to come back in and effectively unwind and redo the transaction, selling his old car again and repurchasing the M2 he had already spent hours buying the first time.
Then he says what he expected to be a quick signature turned into a six-plus-hour visit to the dealership.
By the time the mechanical verdict came in, the entire ownership experience was shaky at best. Soon after, he received a call from CarMax, which told him the BMW was so compromised that repairing it would exceed its value, with the fixes alone running into the tens of thousands of dollars. And even then, he said, he was warned the problems could resurface weeks later.
At that point, a buyback was proposed, which clashed with CarMax’s marketing that emphasizes its rigorous inspection policy.
“Isn’t there like a 150-point inspection with CarMax?” he asks, seemingly confusing the brand’s 125-plus-point inspection with competitor Carvana’s 150-point branding.
CarMax offered to help him select another vehicle, he says, but nearly a month after driving off in the M2, he still doesn’t have a permanent replacement. Instead, he’s driving around in a so-so loaner car with a lot of unanswered questions about the car he wanted in the first place.
In the comments, viewers were quick to weigh in. Some urged him to escalate the situation to CarMax’s corporate office. Others said this is why they’d sell to large used car chains but never buy from them. And a few pointed out that at least the company is willing to take the car back.
For now, Donny says he’s waiting to see what CarMax ultimately offers as a replacement, and whether it resembles the car he originally set out to buy.
Used performance cars like the M2 can carry steep repair bills when something goes wrong, but the speed at which this one allegedly unraveled continues to bother him. After weeks of appointments, paperwork do-overs, and a looming buyback, he said he’s less focused on horsepower and more on peace of mind.
“I still want to get treated right,” he says.
Via email, a CarMax spokesperson told Motor1, “We are aware of this customer’s concerns and are working with the customer to see how CarMax can best assist.”
Motor1 reached out to Donny via direct message and commenting on the clip. We’ll update this if he responds.
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