Trading in my car and this deal looks weird - help!

thedean786

Hello,

I’ve been trying to buy a new 2018 Honda Accord 1.5T for the last three months and the last 3 dealerships I’ve gone to keep doing something odd with their offer which has left me frustrated and scratching my head.

This is how it goes - they offer me $4300 for my trade in, subtract that from the new car price, add in TTL + negative equity and just when things looks good at the very end they end up rolling the entirety of my current loan back into their offer essentially pushing the out the door price to at or above MSRP/sticker. Is this correct? It’s happened so many times now idk if this is standard business practice or the dealer is trying to get my trade in for free. Could someone review the attached offer sheet I received recently and let me know if it makes sense? Thank you in advance!

***Some notes $7482.98 is the total amount of my current loan - this sheet was also put together before the negative equity was rolled in but even then the out the door price including the entirety of my current loan seems odd***

Mr_Shiftright

That looks right. The selling price is $23,374.

They have to give the bank $7482, so that's rolled in.

Then, they give you back $4,300

Then there is the tax of $1349 (I don't know your state's tax rates or laws so can't say if they did this exactly right)

Then there is this "fee" of $200 which I'm guessing is a doc fee and you can complain about that to a point. Some states cap the doc fee, most states don't. So you might not get anywhere with this. Offer then $75.

So the math is:
$23,374 + 7482 - 4,300 +1349 +200 + $196 t&l = $23,300 (I just rounded off the pennies).

Negative equity deals always look bad because they are bad. If you can't bear this loss, then you'll have to sell your car privately, and you'll get more money for it. You are trading in as a convenience, not because it makes good financial sense.

If you sell privately, you might not in fact have "negative" equity. It's only negative because you are trading it in.

thedean786

Thank you! This really helped.