[00:02] today I am going to tell, looking back on it, the full story of my famous CarMax Range Rover. The CarMax Range Rover was a really big deal and
[00:14] honestly, it was where a large portion of my success on YouTube really started. It was the CarMax Range Rover and the Ferrari 360 that I had kind of at the very, very beginning. The 360 was huge on YouTube, but the Range Rover really
[00:30] was writing. Sort of my first taste of like real popularity and some viralness. It was the very beginning and it kind of became a symbol of me, of my writing, and of my channel. And in fact, to this day, it is my channel intro. Let's do it
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[01:31] you've ever wondered why there was a L322, that's the 2003 to 2010 Range Rover, in that space on my intro, it's because going way back, OGs will remember, to the very beginning, it was the CarMax Range Rover that really kind
[01:47] So, I'm going to tell the whole story start to finish because there's a lot of who don't know it. I think at the last, probably the last real post I did on this Range Rover was almost 10 years ago. It was 2018, I think, that warranty
[02:02] expired. Um probably early '18, so it's been more than 8 years now, 8 and 1/2 Um and I want to tell the story from start to finish for those who don't know. So, first first first, contrary to popular belief, I did not buy my CarMax
[02:16] Range Rover for content. What happened was it was a 2012 and I was 24 and I had like five needy cars at the time that were difficult to own. They
[02:28] were all kind of challenging and and as a single 24-year-old, that's what you should have. You At that age, you should have a headache. Like you should have it's a it's an amazing learning experience and it was for me. But, at
[02:43] the same time, I was pondering quitting my job to uh move into content. To move into at the time it was writing about cars. You two jobs. I was working day job for Porsche in Atlanta at their headquarters
[02:57] and I was kind of moonlighting writing articles primarily for autotrader.com really a good life. It was a stable life. I had a stable job and I had a lot it was great. But, I realized if I was going to quit the day job, I really
[03:10] needed to whittle this down to just one reliable car. And so, I had to get rid of kind of the needy fleet that I had, which was more or less at that time, I had an old Range Rover, a '95 Range Rover Classic, which was always giving
[03:23] Rover Classic, which was always giving me problems. I had an 07 E63 AMG wagon which had the head bolt thing that God knows when it could blow. I had a 996 reliable but had its share of issues. I had an old Prius. I had a Nissan Cube.
[03:37] They all around this time, I kind of had them all and they all kind of came and they had to go so that I could focus on making writing. Like get get the money of these cars and focus on content cuz I was leaving behind some of my stability
[03:53] and I didn't really have the time to pursue all these cars. So, I remember to this day one night when I was in bed in Atlanta where I lived at the time on Avery Drive there. I remember I was sitting in bed. I still remember this
[04:07] and scrolling and I came to this page on Carmax's website where they found out I found out that they have they sell warranties on every vehicle that they offer. And that was an amazing experience because it was like wait a
[04:19] minute. Like all these unreliable cars suddenly I can get a warranty. And there were even at that time there were these third-party warranty companies that were sketchy and there were all these stories online about them denying claims. But
[04:33] when you would Google about Carmax that wasn't the case. Like Carmax had this sterling reputation that they wanted to maintain and their warranties were actually effective and good and people there were only positive things about
[04:46] them online. And it was like huh, so I can buy a car from Carmax buy this started looking specifically at unreliable cars that Carmax had thinking hey, I want I've been an enthusiast. I want to have something fun and cool, but
[04:59] I need something a way to have it all. I could have something fun and cool, but it's covered under warranty. At that time Carmax was
[05:11] a lot more experimental in the vehicles that they offered. At one point an Audi R8 came through. They had a several BMW 1Ms. At any moment they had BMW 1Ms at Carmax. There were E63 AMGs, there were E63 M6s, there were E60 M5s, there were
[05:27] Audi S6 V10s, all of that stuff. Like this was in 2012. So, anything that old, but for the Germans and the the unreliable kind of European stuff they would kind of cap it at 5-6 years old. But that meant anything '06, '07, '08
[05:42] kind of that period and up they were were at Carmax. And so any of that stuff that is now come to be kind of known for being tremendously unreliable was there. And in fact, one thing I'm not sure I've ever ever mentioned, but um I was
[05:55] looking at Range Rovers. I really wanted a Range Rover. However, I very seriously a Range Rover. However, I very seriously considered a really clean V10 Audi S8 that CarMax also had at the same time. It was like black with a with a very
[06:08] beautiful sort of brownish tan interior. It was a nice car, V10, and I thought really did want a Range Rover. I had been a Land Rover guy. I had had this wanted a Defender. I was into Land Rovers. And so, I still remember the day
[06:23] it listed um the one that I wanted. I was looking nationwide cuz CarMax had this thing where they would sit ship cars to you your local CarMax. And so, I was looking nationwide, and then it just so happened that one listed at my local
[06:35] CarMax. I was in Atlanta at the time, and and one of the closest CarMaxes was in Marietta on Barrett Parkway. And it was silver, with a little lower miles because I knew the warranties went up to 125. And so,
[06:49] miles, and it was a 6-year warranty. But, doing that math in my head, it only year to play with. And I was driving a lot more than that at the time. lower miles, but this was perfect. It was well priced. It was silver, which I
[07:04] wanted. And it was the car. And so, I bought it on December 7, 2012, a date which will live in infamy in in automotive uh journalist infamy. And to
[07:16] this day, I above my desk in my office, I have the framed buyer's order and warranty uh framed above my desk uh my my my office desk. It was just that important of a moment for my career. So,
[07:32] never written a word. I had never published a video. I had done nothing. I had only bought this car because I needed to focus on something reliable while I when I quit my job to focus on making content. So now I had a reliable
[07:45] car in the sense that it wasn't going to break the bank when it broke down since I had this warranty. I quit my job uh pretty much immediately. I still remember driving home from the CarMax and calling my dad that night. I was
[07:58] going the next day on a business trip to Germany in the winter that for Porsche remember calling my dad and kind of talking through the mechanics of extended that business trip and I drove to like Como,
[08:11] returned to for solitudinal thinking and um made the decision that week that I would quit my job. Uh came home, my car still had paper plates, my temporary plates, and I was like, "I'm going to do this." And so
[08:25] I started writing about cars. And uh you know, I started on The Truth About Cars, stuff, and pretty soon, maybe 6 months in, I decided to write an article about my Range Rover. It It had suffered its first minor breakdown, and so it needed
[08:38] write a story about this." And it absolutely went viral. And people were life hack that CarMax is selling these cars and offering these 6-year fairly these cars is unbelievable." People didn't know about it, and it really blew
[08:54] up and went viral. And so after that, I started to root for the car to break time, I had actually bought a Range Rover from the best years. There were basically three versions of the L322 Range Rover. The original '03 to '05
[09:07] models were utter trash, unreliable, terrible. The later 2010 to '12 models are wonderful cars, but had some real engine flaws that caused them to have some expensive issues. I couldn't afford one of those at the time. But it was the
[09:21] '06 to '09 models that were the most reliable. And yet mine still had various would break down, I would write a piece about it. And every time I wrote a piece about it, it would break down. To the point where then I started writing lists
[09:35] for Jalopnik. You can buy these eight crazy cars with a CarMax warranty. Like is when enthusiasts kind of really started to get at this, "Wait a minute, CarMax warranty." It all started to blow up with these things. And then,
[09:49] obviously, once I started doing videos, I started making videos about a year was a 6-year warranty, and I had it for 5 and 1/2 years. The videos started to happen. And then I my the virality of the CarMax warranty then moved on to
[10:02] YouTube. And so then it really reached an entirely new audience and of people could have these uh this CarMax warranty on these cars. And it really started to blow up to the point where at that time it was it was
[10:16] having this Range Rover and having this CarMax warranty for it. In the end, I Every time there would be a breakdown, even a small one, I would write an article about it. Uh I would make a video about it. Every video blew up.
[10:31] Every article blew up. And this really became kind of the way that these CarMax warranties really got out there in the world. In the end, I kept the car for just under 6 years. I gave it The last 6 months I gave it to a friend of mine. Uh
[10:43] and at that point it had just about reached the 125,000 mi cut off of the warranty. It had just about reached the 6 years. It was 12 years old. Uh and I just gave it to my buddy. And it was probably worth at that time maybe $6,000
[10:56] mine who who lived on Nantucket where I like to spend a lot of time. Uh and I when I would come back and forth, which I did for a little while. My friend, interestingly, I gave it to him in 2018. He still has it. And he still uses it.
[11:11] And uh Nantucket is a small island. He has not driven it a lot of miles. But uh owing to the closeness to the open air, the ocean, uh you know, it's rustier. it's no longer covered under warranty, so it's not getting take care taken care
[11:24] of quite like it once was. But over all that time, the warranty paid out around $25,000, and it cost about $3,900 to buy when I first bought it. And so it was a huge viral story for that reason. Like it was
[11:37] obviously going to have a massive, you know, the warranty was never going to obviously a great investment, a great buy, and it was a sensation. Here's a way for car enthusiasts to get these unreliable cars. And to this day, a lot
[11:50] did you have any effect on what came next?" Which was CarMax shortened the warranty period. They started selling fewer unreliable European old cars. So, back then they would sell eight, nine-year-old European
[12:05] these cars would be covered when they were 15 years old. And these days they've If you go and look at Cayenne Turbos and Porsches in general and Range Rovers, they've really started to cover much more modern cars. So, they're not
[12:18] as exposed on the warranty purchases. And people have always asked me, "Hey, made the warranties more expensive. And so, I still think there are better than the cost of the warranty. I
[12:30] cars that you could still do that with CarMax, but it's harder now. They win. one of these older cars, you would probably win. These days, they win most ask me, "Did you have a big effect on this?" And and actually, yeah. I think I
[12:46] did have an effect on making some of having CarMax kind of re-evaluate the way these warranties work and make some of the changes, but I was undoubtedly not the most expensive warranty customer. And I remember even in period
[12:59] after I started publicizing it and it kind of got around, there were posts that people bought E60 M5s with the CarMax warranty and got full replacement engines or engine rebuilds when the E60 M5 would do E60 M5 things, and that
[13:14] the time, that was a 30 or 40,000 dollar job just that. And so, needless to say, I don't think I was the only reason why CarMax started to re-evaluate their warranty policy. And I have a suspicion, especially by now, all
[13:28] these years later, that would have much definitely happened by this point. Another thing a lot of people asked me was, "Did CarMax ever reach out to you?" And the answer is yeah, actually. CarMax for the first year or two I didn't hear
[13:41] for the first year or two I didn't hear much. And then in '15, so about 3 years into it, I had I had exchanged an email or two with the head of PR for CarMax. I think he just introduced himself. I don't
[13:53] think he wanted to control the story. I think he just introduced himself. It just so happened that I was coming to Richmond, Virginia to buy a car, which was my R32 Skyline GT-R that I then had for a year on my channel. I was coming
[14:05] was and still is headquartered in Richmond, and I sent a note to their PR guy. His name was Casey Warderman, and he was really nice. coming to Richmond, do you want to have dinner?" And I still remember at the
[14:19] very peak of this CarMax warranty saga and all the interest and attention on it, one night in Richmond, in a dark corner of a restaurant, Doug DeMuro and the CarMax guy actually met up, and we had a long dinner and kind of chatted
[14:33] through everything. And um Um and I remember, you know, he didn't try to buy me off. He didn't try to do me any favors, but he did admit to me like it was an unbelievable viral story for CarMax that
[14:46] they never could have bought the PR that that story provided them. And even though it resulted in them losing money on a lot of warranties, it also had a huge effect on raising their profile and probably selling a lot of warranties on
[14:58] Toyota Camrys and Honda CR-Vs that, you know, they they would have they made a ton of money on. And so it had a big positive net effect for CarMax. And And that after that night, that dinner, I never really spoke to the
[15:10] CarMax PR people in any substantial capacity again. I remember when I was considering a Cayenne Turbo, and I reached out to them to ask to like look for one for me, and but I never got one. They They never really took that all
[15:22] it. And after the Range Rover ended, it sort of went away. And of course by that point, now it was 2018 and I've moved on to really doing the car reviews. I was reviews on my channel. And the CarMax thing was was in the rearview mirror.
[15:35] And you know, two, three, five, six years later, most people don't even know get people come up to me on the street and say, "I was I was watching you during the CarMax Range Rover days." Um which is an incredible honor to me.
[15:49] Um but most people don't know about it. And so that's why I decided to make this fact, maybe you'll find it amazing, I still to this day browse CarMax's website and consider buying CarMax cars with a warranty. To this day I consider
[16:04] it. But the truth is, again, Car- CarMax has kind of figured out which cars to warranty has gotten more expensive and modern cars are generally more reliable than the mid-2000s European stuff, which was sort of a unusual era of
[16:19] unreliability. And I don't think that uh the story would be as good and I don't the money back on the warranty like you did back then. But that's it. That's the story about CarMax Range Rover, one of the early things that blew up the Doug
[16:32] DeMuro into the car world. Uh it really was a huge, huge deal for me. And who remember it all. Uh thank you. And if you benefited from a CarMax warranty, if you benefited from a CarMax warranty, you're welcome.