Jazzbass 1 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 A friend just traded a nice '97 328i with 82k on it and got $7,750. 6 months ago I traded my '95 325i with 140k on it for $6,500. The bastard car sales did nothing at all to my car, apart from a polish and sold it within a fortnight for $14k - not a bad profit. Moral of the story - don't trade in..... the bloke at the car sales told me he could land a car like mine from Japan for less than $4,500. Like he was doing me a favour ..... :thumbsdown: If you want to sell - just hang in there - eventually someone will take it away for a damn sight more than you'll ever get as a trade-in. In my case I can't be bothered with all the crap that goes with private sales, so I took the loss and got it over with. Its only money, after all. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
*sic 1 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 fool. everyone knows this. if you didnt HAHA... b u r n no offence intended, just pointing out stupidity. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BMW POWER 2 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 And we thought we were getting ripped off: $8000 for a 1994 320i with 101000 km on the clock 8 months ago. But i have to agree with Damian DONT trade up/in unless you want to get sh*t money straight away. Otherwise wait a while and get decent moolah. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nath 129 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 Having worked at a BMW dealership. i can say that the salesmen know what you are willing to take just so you can have the new car, sometimes it is peanuts and will move the car on for a few hundered more (moving comission is $250) , and often they wont mark the car up (if its a bmw) on the yard at all. Basically BMW treat trades as cash, so long as they can get rid of it for what they paid for it they dont care what they pay you. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
m325i 705 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 But i thought cars went up in value? Especially european ones like BMWs?? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
aliluya 0 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 hehe ... year and a half ago we got $10,000 for my 1995 E36 318i about 100k on it ... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
E30stz 0 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 it really depends onthe car your trading it in on to be honest... as well as the stingyness of the dealer but yeha. If you were trading it on a $180,000 7 series I reckon they would probably give you $16000 on trade in maybe. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jazzbass 1 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 I once worked out that I've lost close to half a million dollars on buying and selling my cars since my first motorbike in 1965. Its a mug's game for sure!! The guys who buy a new or low mileage car and keep it for 20-30 years are the ones who are playing the game far better than me. If I'd known then..... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shadowninja 0 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 (edited) Yeah but Jazz then you would be driving the SAME CAR for 20-30 years. How boring is that??? Edit: Case of good buying. Bought a 2000 model Nissan 200SX (S15, 2.0T) $31,500 in 2001 (brand new version was $45K) Traded it for $27K after 2 years & 40,000km later. (and no I didn't get burned on the purchase vehicle either). Edited December 12, 2005 by shadowninja Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kiwi535 538 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 yep buyin cas is money down the drain...MANY moons ago i bought a torana gtr had it for years sold it for the same money.I never intend to buy a new car.I will buy a near new one,let the first owner take the big hit.....nice huh. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dnz 0 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 (edited) I cant believe youre surprised. Who would accpet a tradein price without knowing the cars market value? Edited December 12, 2005 by Dnz Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shadowninja 0 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 kiwi535, thats what I did with both of my last cars. The only question you have to ask yourself sometimes is "Why is this car for sale with only 1 owner & 7,000km on the clock" Nobody wants a 6 month old lemon! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rxsumo 33 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 I not too sure if I'm teaching people to suck eggs here, but...... I've got a couple of mates that are car dealers, and these are couple of thing that havent been explained here yet. The trade-in value is really determined by the kms, number of owners, and how many of the same car are available. In NZ (and Japan), the 100K mark is still important as a sales feature (which is why a RHD BMW with just over 100K isnt worth much in Japan), in NZ the number of owners is better if it is less than 5. A dealer isnt going to give you top dollar on a Polaris Silver 328 4 door, when there are 4 other dealers down the road that have a similar car sitting on their yards. The dealer probably has to finance the car he's about to buy off you and has to determine how fast he can move the car. The car has a dollar value associated with every day/week/month the car sits on the yard. You will probably get top dollar for a car that will move quickly (with a margin off course), and you wont get much for a car, thats the wrong colour/model/kms too high etc, because its margin thats eaten into for every day its on the yard. If the dealers playing nicely, then he should "margin shift". This is where part of the profit margin of the car you are buying is moved onto the car that you are trading. This would be reflected in a high trade-in price or real discounting on the sticker price of the car you are buying. Unfortunately, I'm guessing that most dealers aint making that much money anymore so they will steal any money they can make on the deal, and double dip on the margins. SOme other useful information...buy on the last couple of days of the month, for the sales people they are usually trying to punch their monthly sales figures, and they are more likely to do a better deal for a confirmed sale. And if you dont like the trade-in price, dont do the deal straightaway, let them stew on it. When I did my first trade-in, the first offer on my car was $2500 (for a car that I had brought privately 6 months prior for $11K), the eventual settlement price was $9K. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jazzbass 1 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 You've highlighted one of the problems. There are a couple of million ex-Japan E36s around Palmy, so their trade value is accordingly low. The fact that there's so many of them around is one of the reasons I moved away from the E36. There's 423 on every car yard in town and there's even examples around with bloody awful chromies on. Totally cheapens the look and makes me feel guilty of bad taste by association. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jazzbass 1 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 BTW, rxsumo - good informative post. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Andrew Report post Posted December 12, 2005 If the dealers playing nicely, then he should "margin shift". This is where part of the profit margin of the car you are buying is moved onto the car that you are trading. This would be reflected in a high trade-in price or real discounting on the sticker price of the car you are buying. This is called writeback - done in virtually all deals. You only writeback to the deal what the trade is "worth" and effectively own the "rest" of the car as stock. Jazzbass: Car dealer was lying about what he can buy those cars for japan for. Sure there is the odd sh*t one around. Nice e36s (like mine was from Japan) are still bloody expensive esp. as the nicer ones still have shaken (rego in japan). Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jazzbass 1 Report post Posted December 12, 2005 Car dealer was lying LOL - well, that's a surprise!!! It really doesn't matter - its only money - I make it every week.... I never buy or sell privately, so I'm well used to getting screwed. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
