I have purchased two vehicles from Maximum Deals in the past two years.
The first was a 2001 Toyota Celica GTS back in May of 2008. Living two hours from the dealership, it's a bit of a hike for a used car, but the price could not be beat. I called to confirm the vehicle was still there and that it was ready to take for a spin. When I showed up, the car was pulled up front and freshly washed ready for me to drive.
The buying experience was rather brief, but they let me pay it all up front via personal check and I drove it out that day. The whole process of buying it took maybe 30 minutes, but I had to take care of MD Tax, Tags, and Title myself. No big hassle, just a trip to the DMV, and to sweeten the deal they dropped their Dealer Fee. Passed MD inspection with flying colors, and two years and 40k miles later, nothing other than routine maintenance.
The most recent time was in August of 2010 looking for a car for my girlfriend. Still living in the boondocks of MD, Northern VA is the best place for used car deals. She was dead set on a Scion Tc, and after looking at a few clunkers at other dealers (I'm talking about you Alexandria Sheehy...) we saw that Maximum had 8 Tc's in stock. It seems that they specialize in 'sportier' cars, as they carry a lot of manual coupes. We found one that was automatic, and called them to make sure they still had it in stock, then planned another road trip.
There was a little confusion in that the price advertised online is the cash price, if you plan to finance you have to pay the 'lot price' which is consistently $1k more than the online price. They also seem to be going through some growing pains. The place has almost quadrupled in size in the past 2 years, and so has their inventory. With that, it's almost expected to be some confusion in getting the right car...
So when we arrive we are greeted at the door and told to go browse the lot and find it. Kind of strange compared to the other dealerships we went to where we were hounded by salesmen as soon as we pulled into the lot. It was almost kind of refreshing to browse the cars without someone trying to up sell you on something. They did not have the Tc we were looking for on the lot that we could see, so we hunted down the salesman and was told that it must be in another lot. Long story short, the car they had advertised online already sold and the guy we talked to apparently got confused, but they had one other automatic in stock that was listed online at 14k (4k more than the one we wanted...)
After taking it for a test drive, we noticed it had a grinding sound coming from the brakes (nothing major, just should have been taken care of). I'm ready to walk away at that point, but George Ortiz said they would fix it. The price was way too much since we had to finance through, but George got us a great deal with us walking out for 11k including MD tax, tags, and title. With our good credit, he got us an interest rate I KNOW no other bank could have competed with for a used car. So I get him to put the repair order it in writing (I know how dealers are...), and we agree to leave it there to get fixed and pick it up the next day.
Next day, we pull up on the lot to a freshly detailed Tc sans brake noise, and we are on our way. Very painless.
Summary: The dealer is going through some growing pains in regards to inventory management and some employees, but if you have patience and know what you are looking for, they will work with you and the prices / car selection they have can't be beat. Also, as a word of advice, either be mechanically savvy or bring a mechanic friend when looking at used cars. It will save you quite a few headaches in the long run.
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