My Car Is No Longer Being Made!

kenboiler

What does that mean. I must be nuts. I like my car. 2006 Suzuki Aerio. Now I hear that they will no longer be made. What does that do to the value of my car? Should I worry about keeping it or should I get rid of it. I don't want to take a financial hit, but will it be less now to dump it?

carlisimo

How long were you originally planning on keeping it?

farout

I bought a 2005 Liberty CRD (diesel). They made 11,000 CRD's total for the years of 2005 and 2006. 8,333 were made in 2005 and 2667 for 2006. This makes us owners a :test market" for DCX. I like the CRD very much, it has 295 tk and 160 hp and 2.8 L 4 cyc, gets 22 in city and 26 on the road by my actual calculations.
Either these CRD's will hold a good resale value or sink like a rock. I think DCX should give us a coupon of say $2,000. to be used in 2 years for putting us in this position.

Farout

tncarman

well it shoudlnt hurt to much. I feel bad for those that bought a top of the line Monterey for 35grand, those are gonna sink like a brick when they want to sell. But your car is being replaced with another compact, so it shouldnt hurt to much.

andre1969

I don't think Suzukis hold their value all that well anyway, so buying a model that got discontinued is no big deal. It's not like the whole model line is folding, like what happened with Olds or Plymouth, or back in the day DeSoto and Edsel. And even in these cases, since the same basic cars were being made in other divisions, parts were no problem to find.

Now if you had something like a Daewoo or, back in the day, a Packard, Hudson, Studebaker or Nash, or a Kaiser/Frazer, you'd be pretty screwed.

Your car took the biggest hit the moment you drove it off the lot, so I'd say just drive it until you're ready to replace it, and don't worry about the fact that it's no longer being made. All models get replaced eventually. Usually after about 5 years. It's just the normal cycle of things.

Mr_Shiftright

Generally if the BRAND still exists, it doesn't hurt very much if the MODEL goes away. But when the whole company packs up or is staggering on its knees (Oldsmobile, Daewoo, etc) then you had better just drive it into the ground and squeeze every drop out of it.

Remember, your "orphan" will still do what it was built to do, which is get you around, so you haven't lost anything "real", just depreciation in people's minds.

andre1969

when Olds and Plymouth went under, did it really hurt their resale that much compared to say, a Dodge, Pontiac, or Buick? Seems to me that resale on the domestics is bad enough anyway that the orphan divisions probably wasn't THAT much worse. Besides, we all knew that Plymouth was at death's door since around 1990...it was just afraid to knock! And Oldsmobile died a slow, lingering death as well, so when the plug was finally pulled on these models, it didn't come as a shock to anybody.

In contrast, back in the 50's the automakers moved much quicker. For instance, the Edsel, introduced about a month earlier than normal in '57 as a '58 model, saw its final car roll off the assembly line in late 1959. So over the course of maybe 2 years and 3 months, the brand's whole life played out.

DeSoto had one of its best years ever in 1957. Yet the final 1961 DeSoto rolled off the assembly line on November 18, 1960, when all the brand-specific trim and interior parts were finally used up.

Hudson, Nash, Studebaker, and Packard also died relatively quick deaths. Even though the problems in the respective companies were deep rooted, and didn't just pop up overnight, it wasn't obvious to the public until almost the bitter end. For example, when the Hudsons started using Nash bodyshells, or the Packards used Studebaker bodies, the writing was on the wall. But soon after that, those names were plugged.

Back in those days, a strong loser image got associated with nameplates that fell to the wayside. Today though, I think most domestics have a bit of a loser image, at least when it comes to resale, so an orphan Plymouth or Olds might not be such a bad deal.

jchan2

I think you should drive it into the ground because resale wasn't that great anyways (you're driving a Suzuki, not a Honda, Toyota or BMW) and since it has been discontinued it might drop even further.

I think that the best deals are buying discontinued models that haven't been titled yet because you can pick them up for around the price a Certified one would cost, or sometimes less.

krony

Agree with Andre. You can still get parts and service so your depreciation should be inline with other Suzuki's.

When you can't get parts is when you're in trouble. As a joke I might go to Napa and ask what they have in stock for a Yugo.

anythngbutgm

As far as value goes, don't worry about it, drive it into the ground. Suzuki dealerships should still be able to get parts and keep your orphan running for a long time. Check out the SX-4 if you like the Aerio. It looks to be a viable successor.

lemko

...for Daewoo parts these days? I remember during Daewoo's death throes, a dealership called Imports Unlimited, (itself now defunct) was selling Leganzas in a two-for-one deal. I guess you could drive one and use the other as a "garage queen" from which to cannibalize parts.

carlisimo

Fortunately, Daewoo does exist as a company and keeps building the same cars (in Europe they're sold as Chevies). Since they're owned by GM it can't be too hard to get Daewoo parts, at least compared to a Yugo owner... for what that's worth.

nippononly

the Aerio will continue to be made, it is only the wagon that is going away, right? The sedan continues for '07.

Suzuki resale was always pretty poor, which I am sure will apply to all Aerios, whether or not the model is being replaced.

As for those Jeep CRDs, I can't say what will happen to resale. I am not sure it will be that strong, as it was called one of the worst diesel engines out there by most reviewers. I mean, all the new diesels from Europe will be out there next year, from which Chrysler Group will borrow heavily, and isn't the Grand Cherokee already set to get the "BlueTec" diesel from the Mercedes sedans for next year? Which engine makes the CRD look very slow and clattery by comparison. OTOH, the CRD should have good longevity, I would think. Which makes it an excellent bet to keep for as many years as possible and just drive forever.

rockylee

DRESDEN, Germany — The next logical step from the recent re-creation of the 1968 Melkus RS1000? A Wartburg-based gullwing sports car from East Germany.

http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=117192

Well it looks like this one is going to be made again. :surprise:

Rocky

michaellno

... as I happen to drive a car that was discontinued just a couple of model years after I bought it.

2003 Saturn L300

I bought my car in November of 2002 and production stopped in June of 2005. It has since been replaced by the Aura.

So far as I can tell based on the numbers available from kbb, edmunds or intellichoice, the trade in or resale value of my car hasn't dropped since the Aura was released a couple of months ago.

However, I do plan on keeping my car for another 3 or 4 years (if all goes well), so I suppose in the long run it doesn't matter to me. At that point I'll have a 7 or 8 year old car that will have north of 100K on it, so I don't expect it to be worth more than a grand or two.

nippononly

stopped in June 2005?? Wow, dealers around here are still flooded with them, I had no idea they had that much excess production.

Did you mean June 2006?

L-series resale is typical of Saturn, which is to say moderately weak - better than Chevys and Fords in many cases, but worse than most of the imports. I would not expect it to get worse just because they have replaced it with the Aura.

If the Aura becomes a lot more popular than other Saturns, as I think it might, the next-gen Aura will probably see a major improvement in resale.

Hey, my car is still being made, but they changed its name to match the rest of the world. Does that count? :-)

michaellno

Nope, 6/05 is when production stopped. The L-series was produced in the Wilmington, DE plant which was converted over to make the Pontiac Solstice and Saturn Sky. The Aura is produced at the Kansas City plant along with the Malibu and G6.

2005 was the last model year of the L-series ... though I'm not surprised to hear that some dealers may still have some left on the lots.

And, to answer your question -- No.

mellonius

I'm thinking of buying a used Lanos- 4 door, 2001 with 49k miles. I keep hearing that they dont make parts for these anymore. Is it a good idea?>

mellonius

so what are lanos owners supposed to do?

andre1969

I'm thinking of buying a used Lanos- 4 door, 2001 with 49k miles. I keep hearing that they dont make parts for these anymore. Is it a good idea?>

Personally I'd stay away from it. I dunno if they're actually unreliable cars, but I can't imagine that they're going to be easy to find parts and service for. As for current Lanos owners, I guess if something too catastrophic fails on the car, it just gets junked. Daewoo never did sell that many cars in the US anyway, so chances are there aren't many left.

The Daewoo company is still around in some form. They got absorbed by Suzuki and GM, and some of the the Suzuki models currently on the market are actually built by Daewoo, such as the Suzuki Verona and Forenza. There's a smaller one too, but its name eludes me.

Still, between sporadic service and poor resale value, I can't see much upside to it, unless the car's so dirt-cheap that it's worth it to just drive it till it drops.

Now maintenance stuff, like oil filters, belts, hoses, etc, should still be out there. But if that engine or tranny needs to be rebuilt, or the a/c fails, I'd imagine it would be pretty hard to fix.