6th Jun 2010, 12:12

I wonder if the car sales guy used Kelly Blue Book at all. My mint trades were met with auction prices they buy every week. Also Carfax issues in the dealers hands. Even with no issues, I hear every flaw, even acid rain issues. Still my Honda was the worse resale ever over the multiple trans issues.

6th Jun 2010, 15:50

Point is you will get more value out of a Honda then a domestic car, even after the big discounts on the domestic car.

6th Jun 2010, 18:16

You may ignore Carfax, but why lose later on a devalued car from the next savvy person that uses it. Even my warranty service and oil changes pull up. What if you bought a car with serious damage? It's a bargaining chip if you are a buyer and not overpay. Is it just me or is it fine to have multiple trans replaced in low mileage Hondas? They are not better in my opinion. Broken down on a back road in a low mileage car stinks. No trans and not able to move. Resale values are not any plus with an undependable car.

7th Jun 2010, 07:05

13:18 so you buy a late model car and do not care about its history? So what if you buy a car that was repaired somewhere (and you do not know where) that cannot hold a wheel alignment anymore due to an accident. You buy new tires every 1000 miles and go in for another and another wheel alignment that does not hold. The windows perhaps were replaced and leak in short order. Doors that sag or bind. Maybe the great looking new car has been in a flood and has never ending electrical issues, or you are breathing mildew throughout your ownership. Or hail damage and paint has issues shortly thereafter from Bondo issues.

I saw a car with a repair at the firewall, and under closer inspection we noticed small cracks in the frame.

Even when you have windows replaced, it can devalue a car and lose the factory safety aspect when replaced. If you go to a dealer, do yourself a favor and ask for one. I will ask for one even if the car has 100 miles on it off the lot. When I sell privately, I get one again as I keep mine up and accident free.

I use the dealer in my town for scheduled maintenance, which always reports to Carfax. I bought a used car once, and in short order paid out $3400 in repairs. Carfax is a lot cheaper and helps indicate if cars were maintained; what, when and where. A seller with receipts can be hiding damage and serious repair. The receipts show some... Carfax shows history.

7th Jun 2010, 09:08

You're right in that most dealers use wholesale prices, but if you are a smart negotiator you can get around that with any mint car. I've talked to many private dealers around here and they say you can't usually find mint cars that are up for auction. Auction cars are usually repos, higher mileage cars and less than perfect cars with little or no service record history. Mint cars are sold at retail not wholesale, and they definitely aren't auctioned off. Dealers make you think they can stroll into an auction and find perfect low mileage cars just like yours. This is how they get really nice cars for not a lot of money. Trust me, they would be fully stocked with fine used cars if it were that easy to find them and pay thousands less than book value for them.

If the dealer won't come up to at least KBB value on your trade, then walk away and sell it outright. Tell them you'll be doing this and shopping around while you are in the process of selling your car. Don't fall for the old "tax difference savings" argument either. Figure out what the tax savings would be. It is usually only $hundreds, while you are going to lose $thousands by trading in for wholesale. If they let you walk, then you probably wouldn't have gotten a great deal anyhow.

If more people would research pricing and take the time to sell a car outright, dealers would be forced into offering more to get the trade in and immediate sale. They make most of their money on used cars. I have made the mistake of getting talked into a wholesale price, and then driven by only to see my car sitting out front for many thousands more than I got for it. Of course, the dealer said they would be wholesaling it and they supposedly called around to wholesalers while I was there, so they could "dump" the car as they couldn't sell it.

I usually sell mine outright nowadays. Are you really in that big of a hurry to buy a car anyhow when you are still driving a mint used car around? The last car I sold outright I was offered $8,500 by the dealer and got $13,500 for the car when I sold it outright. $5,000 for a bit of extra effort was well worth it and got me into my next car with nothing extra down and a much lower payment. Had I gone the trade route, I would have been seriously upside down in the new car. Of course, I also went to a different dealer after the insulting trade in offer...

Also, people keep commenting on how their cars lose value because of transmission issues or similar things. I have never had that experience, and my last Honda only dropped about $1,000 off of MSRP in its first year when I traded it in... to a Ford dealer. Don't get duped by dealers using the Carfax route. If you have no problems with your car, they can't penalize you for it. If that happens then again, walk away.

7th Jun 2010, 09:14

No way would I buy a car that has been in an accident. So many issues can come from an accident even many miles later down the road. Sure it could feel fine now, but accidents usually misalign certain things, causing them to wear prematurely. You could have all kinds of drivetrain issues if things were knocked loose. Even if it feels perfectly aligned now, there still may be hidden issues that could be costly down the road.

I do agree that Carfax is ridiculous in saying that a particular brand of car has transmission failures common, which lowers the value. If EVERY car in a line had the same issue, it would be recalled and fixed. Who is Carfax to speculate that any given car should be de-valued because of a problem that may or may not occur.