New car, do you trade in or sell yourself?

[Mr Nice]

Virtus_Probi,

Why didn't you ask service writer what exactly they will do for 90K service ?
Yes, dealers are scum. Don't get mad but you are partially to blame.



Nick,

Put that $800 in QQQ, a great ETF with lots of growth.

 

[Virtus_Probi]

Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Virtus_Probi,
Why didn't you ask service writer what exactly they will do for 90K service ?
Yes, dealers are scum. Don't get mad but you are partially to blame.
...

Heck yeah, it was my own fault...like I mentioned, it was a great scam and I fell for it. That's one reason I was so mad, because I felt stupid!
I saw the price of the 90k service and the recommendation to replace the timing belt at that mileage and made an assumption...one that cost me a lot of bucks.
I don't think it's a total coincidence that the owner of that dealership ended up going to jail.

 

[exranger06]

Originally Posted By: Nick1994
Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
Originally Posted By: Nick1994
I've only ever sold privately, I'm only 23 so it's not like I've been doing it for countless years.

Last year I bought my Sonata and parked my Camry. 14 months later, it's still sitting in the street in front of my house... I don't know what to do with it. It's such a good car, but not worth much so it won't really benefit me to sell it.


Sell Camry and put money into your IRA.
It's only worth maybe $800 so

Put the cheapest liability insurance you can on it and drive it to work once or twice (or 3 times!) a week. Use it until something major breaks and junk it. In the meantime, it'll keep some miles off the Hyundai and make that car last that much longer.
That's basically what I do with my Accord - I don't really need that car, but it's not worth selling. So I drive it back and forth to work (it's actually the one I drive most often), rack up the miles on that instead of the other cars. It's dirt cheap to insure and gets better gas mileage than the other cars anyway. When it finally dies, I simply won't replace it with anything and just drive the other cars. The car is in fantastic shape and is perfect mechanically though, so I'll probably still be driving it for a long time lol.

 

[Mr Nice]

exranger06,

You do know that generation Accord is like a Timex watch and you'll be driving it for another 25 years.

 

[exranger06]

Originally Posted By: Mr Nice
exranger06,

You do know that generation Accord is like a Timex watch and you'll be driving it for another 25 years.

LOL I know. I remember when my parents bought it back in 1995. I was a seven year old kid riding in the backseat of it. I took my driver's license test in it when I was 16. Now I carry my 2 year old daughter around in the backseat. Maybe she'll take her driver's test in it in another 14 years?

 

[NewEnglander]

Privately sold my 88 Subaru and then got a 99 Impreza when I went off to college.. Found out years later the student that bought it got through almost all of college before an axel starting cracking and had to junk the car, but it lived a much longer life than I thought it would.

Gave the Impreza to my sister as a gift for her starting college, and bought a 2005 Mazda3.

Loved the Mazda3 but was in a near total accident. Fixed it, but never road the same. Traded that in for the Kia as there was some other bodywork that needed to be done along with a new AC system put in, so did not want to bother, but got them to give me more than they initially offered and it worked out.

Still rolling with the Kia and wife lovers her Accent. The big question will be what do I do with that as it's 15 years old. My guess I'll do a low cost private sale to help out someone but we'll see.

So I guess in my experience, depends on the situation!

 

[SeaJay]

Originally Posted By: gogogo
I hate the idea of getting raped by the stealership by trading it in but also hate the hassle of selling.

Therefore my single self has 4 cars in the driveway right now just sitting and I only drive one. Meanwhile I’m procrastinating.


Its not rape if you trade it in voluntarily. Given that quite a few buyers of new cars don't mind trading it in rather than the hassle of selling it themselves, it is probably a fair price on the open market. There are probably a few things that a dealer will overlook when taking a trade in that an astute purchaser from a private seller would object to.

 

[Mr Nice]

Originally Posted By: BJD78
That is a good point, my uncle tried to sell a vehicle once and within a few days his garage was broken into and a bunch of his tools were stolen. He always suspected that it was some local idiots who had came over to look at his vehicle and he had his garage door open and had many nice tool sets. This happened in Sioux Falls SD about 3-4 years ago. He ended up trading it and never tried to sell a vehicle privately since. He said he had a strong suspicion after they left that they were more interested in casing out his place rather than buying the vehicle. No proof but he had his suspicions.


Yeah. Most likely it was the people looking to buy vehicle that did the crime.

Never have strangers come to your house to look at the vehicle you're trying to sell.

The last car I sold, I met the buyer in a shopping center.

 

[Jett Rink]

I don't want to deal with a bunch of sketchy dudes coming over to my house trying to give me some lowball offer. I see ads on Craigslist saying don't waste your time trying to buy this car for $500, or whatever.

If I want to sell a car, I will float the idea to family, neighbors and co-workers. Usually someone happens to be looking for one. If not, I will just trade it in.

 

[BJD78]

Usually my trades are at least 10 years old and by that point I figure I have gotten more than my money's worth from the vehicle. I just want to get the old vehicle off of my hand and ownership.I would let my trade go for free just to get rid of it at that point.

 

[MNgopher]

I've done both. It depends on what the dealership offers on the vehicle being traded in. I negotiate the entire purchase price before we even discuss the possibility of a trade in. That way, there is no playing with the numbers to skew the value of the trade in - you can see it if they change things.

On my last truck, the dealership offered exactly what I was going to be able to net on Craigslist, so it was a no brainer to trade in.

 

[JTK]

I've only sold 3-4 of my daily drivers myself over the years and this was the pre Craig's List era. It was painful enough then. I could only imagine what it's like today. I'm referring to relatively late model vehicles that are worth a bit of money yet.

For the past 18yrs or so, it's always been trade-in, because I typically have a balance owed on the loan, so the title isn't cleared. Balance gets taken care of in the transaction. If I ever had to 'roll' an old balance into a new loan, a new vehicle wouldn't be happening.

I've sold a few toys like personal water craft and snowmobiles. Again, late model, relatively high dollar items. WOW was that painful.