Took my car to Carmax yesterday and they offered me $17,500 for it. I am a little disappointed that is two years the car has lost nearly half of it's value. Oh well. For what it is worth, car is a '01 with 40K miles and all of the dealer installed options. Silver and Black.

Is this the going trade-in price that others are seeing?

 

Robert, you of all people should have expected that kind of price from CarMax. I think the S2000 deserves a private sale. More money can be asked for and received. I'm sure you could easily sell your S2000 for $22k+. That's a $4,500 difference. Better yet, DON'T SALE!!!

 

Yeah, I know. The Carmax option is just easy and I am lazy. The car is coming off of it's lease so I was just looking at my options.

 

Forgive my ignorance, but if it is a lease aren't you supposed to take it back to the dealer?

 

you can. You actually have a number of options. If the lease is less than 180 days away from ending you can just call the leasing company and have them pick up the car, however you are still obligated to pay the remaining payments.

If you actually go all the way to the end of the term you can just give the car back, however you obligated to pay any mileage charges.

You can purchase the car.

Or you can sell the car for whatever you can get for it, however you obviously have to first find out what the leasing company is going to want for it. If you sell it for more than what the leasing company is asking for it then you pocket the difference.

In my case the residual value of the car is 21,500 so the offer of 17,800 is well below the agreed upon residual value. So there is obviously no motivation to sell the car.

So the question that begs to be asked is what does the leasing company do with the car when I give it back? They wholesale it and they really don't care what they get for it on the wholesale market because they purchased gap insurance on the residual value.

Now, obviously they will have to file a claim to get the money, but basically they are assured of getting the residual value out of the car by selling it wholesale to a dealer and then receiving the difference in the form of an insurance payment from whoever they have the insurance with.

 

Nate, that is one looooooong sentence, cuz. Seriously, good info about Carmax. They offered me $3300 for my '94 Prelude and I sold it on my own for $6500. They're not being asses about it, its just what they have to do to keep making money.

 

taylor, Thanks for the clarification. I guess it shows I have never leased a car... :-)

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tigerfan
[B]
If we were really out to rip people off do you think we would have just won the BBB's Torch Award for outstanding ethics.

 

Ah what the heck... why not join in!?



<rant>

I can understand being upset if someone sells you something knowing it's broke, but I don't understand why everyone gets offended when CARMAX low-balls you on buying your car... When you bought your car, did you just walk in and say, "You know, that S2000 is a great car, worth AT LEAST $40,000. Forget the sticker, I'll give you $40,000 right now!" Of course not! You put on your best poker face, walked in and fought with the dealer for 3 days or weeks or months until each of y'all compromised a little (hopefully one party more so than the other ) and then you bought the car...

I guess I feel that if you want convenience, you've got to pay for it. You can't expect Ma & Pa Groceries to have the same sales that Walmart has! But since you can walk to Ma & Pa's, and not stand in long lines, you're willing to pay an extra .30 cents for your gallon of milk! If you want what your car is really worth, advertise it in Autotrader, local newspapers, etc. Spend a few weeks dealing with meeting people when it's really inconvenient for you. They'll come out, tell you your asking too much, waste your time and say "oh, nevermind." After a few weeks of that and paying $100 for all your "For Sale" ads, you'll realize you've wasted a lot of time and you'll reduce your price until someone buys it... Don't want to deal with all that? That's what CARMAX is for. They make selling a car easy for the people who value time more than money. Don't be mad at them for trying to make a buck... After all, they're not in it just to make YOUR life easier!

</rant>

That being said, I'm a cheap ba$tard... I'd waste all the time in the world to make an extra $20!

Good luck deciding what to do with your S taylor!

You CARMAX boys keep it cool !

 

Wow, I didn't mean to start this big arguement. I understand the difference between wholesale value on the car and retail and private sale etc... and I am not opposed to anyone making money.

I guess what I found surprising was the method by which they appraise the car. I don't think that my car is worth $25,000 but I do think that it is worth more than $17,800. Even when you compare it to other S2000s that are on their lot that they are asking $28,000 for. Again, there is a difference as those have significantly less mileage, but I wouldn't think that there is $10,000 difference.

As for selling the car, if anyone knows somebody that wants to buy it for about $22,000 let me know! Otherwise I will just give it back to the dealership.



Oh, and Carmax still sucks!






I just had to stir the pot a bit.