Comment by unstrafed

You'd be surprised how much "old boy network" stuff is involved in used cars. Calculating taxes is a giant pain (and no one except CarMax has even solved this problem as far as I can tell). Some states have extremely draconian laws, especially those relating to the environment (which are arguably in the public's interest) and those relating to state inspection (which are arguably just a glorified protection racket). Not to mention, having a full lot with reliable used cars is quite capital intensive. And a used car company needs pretty solid knowledge about which cars to actually turn around and which to dump, so they don't actually sell a lemon to retail consumers.