Real-World Trade-In Values

woodyww

Have you asked this on the accord-buying forum? Or checked it out to see what deals others are getting?

I do remember the idea expressed by someone who knows hondas that, if you're springing for a totally loaded accord EX with lthr., etc. should get the V6--no sense chintzing out when you're buying every other possible option on the car. And the 6cyl. seems more in character with a car w/leather, NAV, etc.

Personally, I'd go for the 4cyl. if buying a less heavily optioned model......

cccompson

I''ve never really understood the appeal of six cyliner Accords. They cost more and get worse mileage compared to what is among the best fours on the planet (and one that has adequate power).

kyfdx

I understand the appeal.. Just stomp on the accelerator, and you'll see why..

I agree with your cost/benefit analysis, however.. The Honda 4-cylinder is amazing..

regards,
kyfdx

woodyww

The V6 has 244 hp. vs. 166 for the 4. And it looks like the V6 EX-L lists for about $2400 more than the 4 cyl. EX-L, but you also get very nice looking 17" wheels instead of 16's.

Of course the 4 cyl. EX, no lthr., stick, S/R, lists for only $22,500. I wonder if a more basic Accord like that wouldn't retain more resale value than a fully loaded V6 EX-L?? And 4-6 mpg more.

OTOH the OP who got a $25.5K quote on a V6 EX-L with NAV? That sucker lists for $29,400....seems like an awful lot of car for the $$.....

gooserider

Location: Nashua NH
Year/Make/Model: 2005 Toyota Matrix XR (2WD)
Body Style: Wagon
Engine: 1.8 Liter Automatic
Driveline: FWD
Mileage: 64500
Color: Cosmic Blue
Major Options: Alloys, 6 CD changer
Condition: Car is in great shape...few rock chips here and there but nothing major...few scratches on lower spoiler and on rear right bumper other than that looks fine

No Insurance claims, oil changed every 4-5K miles(per Toyota's maintenance schedule)

Looking for trade value on 2007 HHR

Thanks!

qbrozen

i just registered a bit shy of 28 mpg on my last fillup in my 6-speed V6. I have ABSOLUTELY no problem with that kind of mileage in a car that can hit 60 mph in under 6 secs!

What's the 4-cyl get? maybe 3 mpg better? That would save me around $160 per year. Not nearly worth it, IMHO. But, of course, everyone has their priorities.

kate5000

any suggestions as to what should be the bare minimum to get for this car in private sale?

$6500 was suggested as potential high end, $5900 as a reasonable but still high price, but what would be the price at which I just should say no and wait for the better offer? I'm in absolutely no hurry to get rid of a car.

volvomax

LOTS of miles on that car,not good.
Most of the cars going over the block are 30-40k mile cars.
They are $12-13k cars.

Yours is probably an $8-9k car,given the high miles.

qbrozen

Personally, even in no hurry, if someone showed up with $5k in hand, I'd take the money and run. If I did get in a hurry, $4k would take it.

woodyww

I think the prices you've gotten here have ranged between $4k, & $6500? So you have quite a price range as a guide.

With older, really high mileage cars, it can possibly depend on who shows up, the phase of the moon, etc.; it's not like appraising a 2 y.o. acura. I'd suggest checking prices on fee-bay, including "completed listings", for similar Foresters.....& think about how much time & effort you're willing to spend, possibly turning down offers, etc.

I agree with qbrozen: $5K in green cash, folding money wouldn't be my lowest limit for a 165K mile older subie, but for around $5K I'd be pulling out the title & signing as fast as possible....."Don't get greedy", with this one, is my advice.....

mrbt

I'm about to trade in my wife's RAV4. It's a 01 2WD model with 65000 miles on it - all power, 16" alloys, running boards etc. Perfect condition. We are 2nd owners and have all records. We recently replaced all tires, serpentine belt and battery. What you guys think would be reasonable trade-in we could expect. Thanks

kate5000

Is there a particularly good time of the year to sell car privately? I was thinking, may be June will be good because of graduations, and many kids getting their first used car as a gift?

morton22

Los Angeles
2001/Mercury/Sable
LS Wagon
Duratec 24v V6 FWD
97000 miles
Silver
Every option: sunroof, leather, prem. 6-CD stereo, chrome wheels, etc.
Interior: Reasonably good shape, no tears in seats, a few carpet stains
Exterior: Good shape, few scratches & little dings here and there
Tires: 50% tread left, Brakes: 50% left on pads, All maintenance up to date

Only problem is electric antenna is frozen in the up position, will that hurt trade in value much?

Thanks!

cccompson

Maybe. Obviously, it's harder to sell privately in the winter. Sports cars and convertibles sell good in the spring. I've always had fine luck selling (just about anything) in the spring and buying (just about anything) in September.

Then again, things might be changing. My son sold his car on craigslist in less than 3 hours on a cold Sunday last January.

verdugo

Hi. I was wondering if you could give me a trade in value for my Passat wagon. I love it, but I need something with higher clearance for some off roading. The details are:

Location: Sacramento, CA
Year/Make/Model: 2007, VW, Passat
Body Style: 4dr wagon
Engine: 3.6L 4Motion with Tiptronic
Driveline: AWD
Mileage: 9900
Color: exterior: Arctic Blue Silver Interior: Gray leather
Major Options:
* Luxury package 2 (wood trim, 17in Akiros wheels. 12 way power and memory seats, multi-function steering wheel, dual-zone climate control, fog lights, auto lights, rain sensing wipers, Home Link, auto-dimming rear view mirror, front/rear park distance control, sunshades on rear windows).
* Navigation
* Dynaudio
* Bi-xenon with AFS
* Headlight washers (very rare)
* rear side airbags
* Mudflaps, front and rear
Condition:
Interior: Excellent
Exterior: Small swirl mark on hood. Nothing else.
Tires - new. Only about 3k on them (had snowtires the rest of the time)
Brakes - Excellent
Maintenance - Service done at VW dealer.
Other: Lojack

Thank you in advance.

Angel

volvomax

the only time that time of year matters is for convertibles or other specialty cars.

volvomax

Antenna?
In a word,no.
Sounds like a $2500 car.

volvomax

No idea on this one.
No cars going thru Manheim.
No value on KBB.

verdugo

Thanks Volvomax. Do you think this could work for/against me?

volvomax

Yup.
Because the only source for a real number is the local VW dealer

verdugo

d'oh. I think I will pay Carmax a visit as well.

Thanks for your time.

mpaschen

Could you give me a realistic trade-in value for my van?

Location: Modesto, CA
Year/Make/Model: 2006 Honda Odyssey Touring w/o NAV
Body Style: Minivan
Engine: 3.5L V6 FWD
Mileage: 10,000
Color: Green w/ gray interior
Condition:
Interior: Excellent
Exterior: Excellent, no dings
Maintenance - Wasn't due for service besides oil change

Thank you.

veganthug

i know that i'm fudging by posting here, but i'm looking to buy a car for under 2K. please tell me what you think about the two cars and their value. i'll test drive the grand am tomm. other than the a/c, the camry ran smooth. the only thing that i'm concerned about is total cost of ownership.

i'm guessing that someone will say if i can get the grand am for anything around 2k, i should take it, but the grand am is simply an inferior automobile (the '96 model was recalled 4 times). any thoughts about the '98 model?

i'm also test driving a '96 accord w/ 200k miles (engine was replaced) tomm.

thanks for any thoughts,

nate

p.s. if you have any questions on computers, i might be able to help.

Location: hilo, hawaii
Year/Make/Model: 1998 pontiac grand am
Body Style: 2dr?
Engine: auto
Driveline: ?

Mileage: 74,000
Color: red/black
Major Options: standard?; dual air bags; abs
Condition: between avg. and clean
Details of interior and exterior, including dings, scratches etc.
Tires - 15% worn
Brakes -?
Maintenance - regular tune-ups
Other: owned for two years by a student who's going back to japan in a couple of days. she started the car; it didn't make any weird noises. she said she hasn't had any problems with it whatsoever.

Location: hilo, hawaii
Year/Make/Model: 1992 toyota camry le v6
Body Style: 4dr
Engine: auto
Driveline: ?

Mileage: 154,000
Color: gold/tan?
Major Options: standard?; driver's air bag
Condition: a little below avg.
no a/c; significant stains on back-seat; broken antennae, a few scratches; average paint-no rust
Tires - 45% worn
Brakes - okay?
Maintenance - ??recent tune-up; starter was fixed
Other: owned for 6 months by two ladies who were staying temporarily.

ateixeira

Out of curiosity, what did you pay for it new?

Normally you lose about 10% the minute you drive off the lot, and another 10% per year (or 10k miles) after that.

Sounds like you're right about 20% below the price you paid, if I had to venture a guess.

Catch is, it's hard to find a buyer for a used car priced that high. Aren't those $40k cars, or close? Not a lot of used car shoppers in the $30k plus range.

kyfdx

I think you'll get killed on that wagon.. That is as loaded as you can go, and they've been running incentives on the cheaper models, as well.. Seeing brand-new '07 wagons with leather and the 2.0T engine, FWD, going for under $28K..

Even though your model stickers for $8K-$10K more than those.... that is your competition.

Do you have to sell it?

ateixeira

Yeah, keep that (it's a nice wagon!) and get an older Jeep project.

The best Jeeps are built, not bought. :shades:

verdugo

I don't *have* to sell it. If I don't get a good price for it (trade-in or private party), I will keep it. My garage is not big enough to fit another car

I paid $300 over invoice for it. If memory serves me right I think it was $38k and change plus the Lojack.

Thanks to everybody for the replies.

kate5000

Normally you lose about 10% the minute you drive off the lot, and another 10% per year (or 10k miles) after that.

I like this formula! My Forester (bought for 24K) has dropped already 42K in price: 2.4K off the lot, then 16.6*2400 for 166000 miles. It's in a negative territory now!

Does it mean, *I* have to pay $18K (42K-24K) to the buyer of that car? :P

featherz

Been thinking of trading or selling this one and was curious about a real world value. We've also considered donating it to charity :)..

Location: SoCal
2003 Subaru Baja "pickup" AWD
MANUAL transmission
Mileage: about 110,000
Color: Yellow/grey
All standard options (they come standard with leather, A/C, moonroof, cruise, etc). Also has a bed cover, but that's in only fair condition so we might take it off.

Here's the nitty gritty - was rear ended a few years back with about 1500 in damage to the back bumper. Haven't pulled a carfax yet (not sure if it's worth the money to bother unless it's worth selling). After the damage was repaired, hubby scraped bumper on a rock. So minor but noticeable scratches on one side of back bumper + a minor door ding and a few rock chips. Oil changes all done, new brakes but tires do not match (good tread,but two different and rather low end brands). A/C was non functional but we are getting that fixed now. Interior is in good condition but we would need to get it heavily detailed to get it in selling condition. Few scrapes here and there in the interior. New radio/mp3/cd player.

I looked on KBB and marked it as 'fair' and ended up with around 5-6K if I remember correctly. Any chance in heck of getting that from a dealer or will they just laugh like crazy? AWD cars are popular around here as there's a big mountain community and we do get snow.

joe131

If A/C is important to you in a $2000 car, do NOT buy a car unless the A/C works. If you do, and you get it fixed, you will no longer be driving a car for anywhere near $2000.

ateixeira

It owes you nothing, kate.

It's just a rule of thumb I've used for newer cars, up to about 4-5 years old.

A few cars do better, for instance a car with great resale might maintain just over 50% of its value after 4 years.

Most cars do far worse, though.

joe131

No, your car is not in negative territory according to the formula.
You could lose 10% every year for 10 years in a row. At the end, you would not have a car with $0 value according to the formula.
You could lose 10% for 20 years and you'd STILL not be at $0 value according to the formula.
The percentage loss is calculated from the prior year's value, which itself was lower than the year previous to it.
It goes down each year a percentage of the then current price, not from the original purchase price each time.

ateixeira

She was using the 10k miles alternative that I mentioned. Her car has 166,000 miles, so that's how she got over 100%.

Generally, you'll see a trend like this:

$20,000 new
$16,000 one year old with ~ 10k miles
$14,400 two years old (10% off $16,000 is $1600)
$12,960 three years old

etc.

kate5000

If I use formula 10% off when drive off the lot (brand new car) then 10% off _current_ value (not original value) each next 10K miles then indeed I can only asymptomatically approach 0. In fact, for my Forester this formula (if you believe excel) gives a current value between 3 and 4K which is not too far off real market value.

If I've disregarded the mileage and went just by years of use, formula would have given me 11K value for my Forester, but I'm afraid I'd have hard time finding buyers for it at this price

ateixeira

That's a target, an ideal resale value, if you will. Good luck.

Having said that, I price my '98 Forester at $5550 and I've gotten 2 nibbles so far. I'm showing it to someone here at work tomorrow.

joe131

I know how she got it, but it doesn't matter if she used years or 10k miles for the 10% reduction in price. It still would NEVER reach a value of 0, much less a negative value.
The problem was she took 10% off the beginning price it had back in year one each time, instead of deducting 10% of the car's decreasing price each year or every 10,000 miles.

kate5000

Joe, I was just making fun of juice's formula :shades:

kate5000

how many miles did you get on her?

joe131

Here's another rule of thumb which illustrates value going down by a percentage of previous value:
An average car decreases in value, starting with its MSRP, about 50% every 3 years. So, beginning its 7th year it is worth about 25% of the original MSRP, not 0% of it.
This rule probably works better for private party sale expectations rather than trading to a dealer.

joe131

It's a good formula, so long as you use the (current) reduced value each year(or 10,000 miles) to calculate the 10% to be taken off the prior period's value.

ateixeira

Almost 94k.

The extras help boost the value. I have snow tires, a bike rack, a trailer hitch, etc.

I'm also including a clean CarFax report and have all the maintenance records in a 3-ring binder.

That should help ease concerns of buyers.

Of course it's all for naught until I have money in my hands.

kate5000

94K over what, 10 years? Holy cow. Are you stay-at-home dad or are you taking public transportation most of the time?

kate5000

I've used this topic 2 times before, in 2001 and 2003 when selling old Loyale and then hubby's Honda. At that time Terry (rroyce10) and Bill (its_brentwood ?) were prominent posters in this topic. Terry was actually 100% on the mark predicting what my cars will sell for (private sale). Just curious, are they still posting around Edmunds somewhere?

But it's nice to see volvomax helping out in this topic these days!

volvomax

Same problem as the Passat,not alot to go on.
My guess would be high $26-28k

ateixeira

Remember, I have 2 cars. I've put 41k miles on the Miata during those 9 years.

So it would have had 134k miles had I not purchased the Miata. :shades:

The Miata was a great decision. I only paid $7800 for it, it was way underpriced, and it's still probably worth 3 or 4 grand easily, in the great shape it's in.

robr2

At that time Terry (rroyce10) and Bill (its_brentwood ?) were prominent posters in this topic. Terry was actually 100% on the mark predicting what my cars will sell for (private sale). Just curious, are they still posting around Edmunds somewhere?

Nope - both fell off the boards some time ago.

british_rover

I had this 1999 Lexus RX300 today that had nearly every strike against it

- Bad color kind of a copper/turd brown
- Dents all over
- Scratches all over
- Bumpers scuffed on all four corners
- Filthy, Filthy, Filthy
- 142,XXX miles
- Needs Brakes
- oh NEW TIRES one good thing

Ok so after all that any guess what it was worth real money???

-

-

-

-

-

And the answer is...

6,000 DOLLARS

That is insane.

kate5000

Lucky you! :surprise:

british_rover

Lucky owner I guess. I couldn't belive it was worth that much.

erics6

You might be surprised at what you can get for your Miata. Good NA’s seem to be appreciating now. Not that you want to sell.