Dealership Trade In Question

[SiNNO]

Sorry if this has been covered and i missed it, couldnt find anything about it..

Anyways what do dealers ask/look for when you trade in your car?

[GTR-N1]

Firstly: Year/Make/Model of your car (so forget red/black/white/blue Book)

Next: Resaleability of your car (based on supply or demand ie. market value) OR whether it goes off to auction/wholesaler. Jan/Feb is hard.

If it's near the end of the month and the yard hasn't made many sales, you may benefit from this.

3rdly: Plusses and Minusses that vary the value a little bit upwards OR heaps downwards

Plusses =

1) Logs and services done

2) low kms

3) great condition of engine/running gear/no leaks/brakes

4) body perfect

5) interior perfect

Minusses =

1) damage

2) rust

3) high kms

4) lack of logs/services done

5) condition of engine/body/interior is past it's heyday

It's nearly always best if you can sell your car privately first.

Exceptions are...

1) if it's a classic or collectible then it may be better going to Pickles Exclusive car auctions (with a reserve price in mind)

2) you need to offload urgently (eg your new baby's due haha)

3) you know that there's something wrong with your car that you can't or don't want to fix and of course you wouldn't pass the sh/t on (eg. to an SAUer)

The win/win is that from a better price off your private sale, you can push for a discount price on your next purchase!

[c-gtst]

^ great post, much better to sell privately if you can!

[Iron Chef]

Work out whatever the very lowest figure is that you'd be prepared to take, subtract 20% of the car's value from that, and that's what you'll probably be offered...

[KezR33]

Work out whatever the very lowest figure is that you'd be prepared to take, subtract 20% of the car's value from that, and that's what you'll probably be offered...

Yep.

Bought my Skyline for $8500. Dealer offered $3000 trade in, not even cash.

Threw it up on carsales for $7500 (needed it gone quick). Sold within 24hrs. Literally.

[Sm!ddy]

Just remember... In the long run car yards will look to fist you first... help you 15th.... What they do in the middle only god knows...

I took mine back where I bought it less than a year later and they offered bout 9,000 less than what I bought it for (no mods and had only 8,000 more kms on it )

[ceejay77]

Just remember... In the long run car yards will look to fist you first... help you 15th.... What they do in the middle only god knows...

I took mine back where I bought it less than a year later and they offered bout 9,000 less than what I bought it for (no mods and had only 8,000 more kms on it )

road worthy certificate

Is it up to the dealers to provide a current sticker for the car even with second hand cars?

[NZM.031]

dealers dont want stuff they cant sell... they will ring the whole saler and find out the what its worth, and then take it off your hands for less than that so that they make something out of the whole thing, even if its only $50.. most dealers wont touch a skyline as the kind of people that buy skylines, dont go to car yards.. or more over, the people that go to car yards dont buy skylines..

they dont care about modifications, how many thousands you've spent, they just care if they can move it.

[Iron Chef]

^^^ Exactly - I could go into more detail about trade-ins, but I've written about a similar topic in my new column for HPI magazine, so I don't want to ruin it