Krozi

12k is total bull. The reason the price is so low is because they don't actually re-sell the traded cars on the lot. They bring them to the dealer auctions like the one I was just a week ago. The prices at the dealer auctions are significantly less than retail so the initial trade in has to be very cheap. I wouldn't do it.

Take the time and list it on a car sales site. Vehix has been doing a lot of commercial campaigning recently so you could list it there aswell as Autotrader.

The dealer where we bought our older Jetski offered us $1000 for our 3 year old GTX with only 80 hours. We sold it on eBay for $6000.

v_therussian

I don't know... if you get it for 12k, you can put it on the lot for a while

Krozi

I guess but if they give you a price THAT low, they are most likely planning to bring it to the auction or make up the loss they would make by bringing the 525i with 80K to the auction. They don't bring every car to the auction but they get SOOO many 525i's most of them will go.

Rislar

Thanks v_therussian

Like said above, you really need to know your market, and play hard ball, and if you dont push you wont get anything, salesmen like good banter and deals, its why they do the job, IMO car sales are still strong especially in the UK!!!!

e6t

13k bid for your car.

seriously though... i just sold a car to a dealer... they ROLLED me, but i didnt want to mess with selling it to a private party. They had the car on their lot, asking 180% of what they we had agreed to before they had even sent me the check. the twist: three days later, the engine in the car blew and cost them $8,000 to fix.

You will get beaten up if you trade your car in, BUT the immediate transfer of risk (without fear of someone kicking your front door in) is a beautiful, tangible benefit.

bars_sun

Just to get real facts. Here is what dealers pay on the auction for your car (2004 525 with 50k miles)

For Week Ending Jul 1
Above Average Below May 2009 Jan 2009 Jul 2008
Sale Price $17,872 $15,118 $12,364 $15,120 $14,114 $18,446
Mileage 37,721 74,438 111,155 76,011 71,902 54,335
Total Sold All 37 28 28 39

As you can see average price on the auction for the car in the average condition is $15k. Yes, car prices went down end last year, beginning of this year, but trend is that prices on used cars are rising

v_therussian

Yes. And no. I've made many fair deals when I was the GM at the small lot. We let cars go for what we paid at auctions and took trade-ins at just what the auctions brought - in essense we did deals where we only made money of financing. But I always peddled extras to stay above water. If you want my honest opinion, the entire car sales business is in a huge need of an overhaul, because it is not setup for customers that know their prices - it is set up for people that have no idea what things cost. I have a pretty good idea how that could be done too - in case any venture capitalists are looking for a consultant

Howitzer

The power of the Internet has educated consumers beyond belief. You can't bullshit people like you used to if the customer has any sense to do some simple research online.

v_therussian

I'm far from car business now, so its quite irrelevant to my career, but you're right - information is out there: you can get the dealer invoice price on a Bentley with "a little bit of luck" of the internet. You can see what your car would get bid on eBay approximately before trading in, you can see what the dealer auction price is and you can guess that the price you have to get for it is somewhere in between, fairly speaking

mnmike

I also sold cars at one point in my life and I can help straighten some of the facts out.

1) KBB values are useless. I wish I could call up KBB and say, hey your site says my car's worth this much, I'll be in tomorrow with the keys!! KBB can be very inaccurate (in both directions) so just ignore it. Keep in mind the dealer is buying your car today, right now. They have to clean it and possibly do some things before they sell it, then try to sell it, pay to advertise etc. etc. And if they can't sell it, they'll take a loss, so it's a gamble on their part. They are a buyer right now, if you don't like the value, go sell it yourself.

2)The dealer comes up with a trade in value based on a real-time (meaning today, now) value of what your car is worth to them. If they can buy your car at an auction literally right now for 12k, they won't give you more than that. Why you ask? Because they need to keep the lights on. If they give you 14k for your car and other dealers have the same thing on their lot which they purchased for 12k (and probably listing for 14-15k) they're screwed. The hardest thing is to sell a car which doesn't have any room in the sale price, because you have to give the buyer real numbers for their trade in (not inflate it, described in #3).

3) So why the inconsistant values you ask? Because dealer A is offering you 12k for your trade-in and selling their car for 40k. Dealer B is offering 14k for your trade in and selling their car for 42k. Of course it's a bit more complicated than this, but generally they're all similar, just working a different angle. A dealer may of course give a better deal overall though, but probably not by much.

3) If someone above used manheim or some current value and found about 15k, and they offered 12k then they may be trying to screw you. But honestly, an 04 525i looking at some cars for sale (remember the cheapest ones online sell, the most expensive one's don't) is likely worth mid teens if you sell it privately. It doesn't surprise me what the dealer is offering. Again, they put money into a car, pay everyone on the lot, pay to keep the lights on, pay advertising etc. It is a business and they have to make money.

4) If they have an 04 525i with 80k miles advertised for 25k, that is hilariously optimistic. You can buy an 04 545i auto with 50k for $20,000 right now.

It all depends where you are in the country, but a quick search gives:
http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?ct=p...;standard=false
http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?ct=u...;standard=false
And others.. Keep in mind, what you see listed is not a sale price, but what they're asking.