Advice for Trading In a Car

[clarkflower]

Originally Posted By: Tdbo
My advice:

Also, you may want to go to CarMax prior to this


I agree but I have to give CarMax the words the deserve.

My friend lived with her daughter and was laid off from the fire dept. They decided to move and just take one car. Her 80k Ford Focus just had 1000 worth of work. She said she was taking it to CarMax to sell.

I looked it up on these auction fiqures and saw a sold $3200.
I told her to retail it for $5,000 and so she would feel confident as a backup I would give her $3200 cash on her last day if it didn't sell.

Those B's at CarMax offered her just $1800!
She was almost crying

I put pictures up on Craigslist and she got $4200 in a week.
I would never do any business with CarMax after that.

 

[Dave Hess]

Of course they wanted to give her a low-ball offer on her 80k mile Ford Focus.

*ANY* car dealership would want to steal her car for peanuts.

 

[refaller]

That is why they make money, right? If you don't want them to make money, you do the work to sell it yourself. Carmax makes good money because it attracts people who don't want to negotiate. I have never seen a used car there that was priced cheaply, but people like them cause no negotiating. If you are willing to negotiate, you can beat their price at any dealership on similar used cars.

ref

 

[Tdbo]

Originally Posted By: clarkflower
Originally Posted By: Tdbo
My advice:

Also, you may want to go to CarMax prior to this


I agree but I have to give CarMax the words the deserve.

My friend lived with her daughter and was laid off from the fire dept. They decided to move and just take one car. Her 80k Ford Focus just had 1000 worth of work. She said she was taking it to CarMax to sell.

I looked it up on these auction fiqures and saw a sold $3200.
I told her to retail it for $5,000 and so she would feel confident as a backup I would give her $3200 cash on her last day if it didn't sell.

Those B's at CarMax offered her just $1800!
She was almost crying

I put pictures up on Craigslist and she got $4200 in a week.
I would never do any business with CarMax after that.



The bottom line is that you almost always are better off selling a vehicle yourself. The only times that I haven't is when I either didn't want to hassle with it or there were so many potential problems with a vehicle that it wasn't worth the hassle of preparing it for resale or I couldn't in good conscience sell it privately to someone.

CarMax merely buys cars for wholesale prices just like anyone else, sometimes you can do a little better there, particularly if the car is something that is in demand. You can KBB, NADA, etc all day long, but in the end the car is only worth what someone is willing to give you for it at that particular point in time.

CarMax simply provides another option or opinion as to the value of the car.

 

[dishdude]

If you have a late model, clean car that Carmax can put on their lot, you'll get a decent offer from them because they are buying it from you at wholesale and selling it for retail. They have less risk because they can inspect the car, and don't have to pay for transportation from the auction.

If you have some old high mileage bomb that they are going to auction off, they will offer you much less than wholesale, because they are going to end up selling it at wholesale.

Most people with bad credit can scrounge up a couple thousand dollars, so you have a pretty hot market on Craigslist to sell these $4k cars that are in decent condition.

 

[Cujet]

Dealerships will rip you off.

Sell it on craigslist, for a reasonable price, don't ask too much.

Then do a transaction for your new vehicle.

What ever you do, consider them separate transactions.

 

[demarpaint]

If the vehicle is good sell it privately, you will always get more money. If you plan on trading it make sure its clean and running well. Don't mention a trade until you negotiate the very best possible price on the car you plan on buying, once you've done that then talk trade. Keep the two as separate transactions, if you don't you'll end up getting higher quotes for the car you're going to buy. Then they can try and play you as a fool so they can up the price on your trade a bit and make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

 

[clarkflower]

Originally Posted By: dishdude
If you have a late model, clean car that Carmax can put on their lot, you'll get a decent offer from them because they are buying it from you at wholesale and selling it for retail. .


On my friends car, with her miles there was sale after sale at the wholesale auction for 3200 and up. 3200 was wholesale the lowest wholesale.
Carmax offered 1800 hoping she didn't know better.
I don't call that a decent offer.
I'm with LT4 "steal her car for peanuts"

As I said I offered her 3200 and I didn't want it (ot to be stuck with it)