Blue Book Trade in values are a hoax, they're going to give you auction value, period. Don't forget, you are dealing with a business and they will shaft you for the trade and for the new car deal. They will never lose. The best that can happen is that the salesman works for pennies, but the dealer (sales manager and above) will always come out on top. You are best selling privately, on your own and then think of buying a new car. If you are desperate, then pay the up-side downness as part of the sale, meet the buyer part way to make the sale. Put your negotiating skills to work on a private sale. Good luck

 

Let me play a little "Devil's Advocate" with this :

I am the Dealer: Of course I'm only going to give him wholesale for the car. If I give him retail, what am I supposed to do with his trade then? Let's see...If I want to wholesale it or take it to auction, I'm only going to get wholesale auction money for it. That means I loose possibly a couple thousand dollars on the car and compared to the $600 front end profit plus the hold back, minus Salesman's commission, utilities, proprty insurance, benefits for my emplyees, Workman's Comp insurance, Mortgage on land and building, maintenance on land and building, Honda franchise fee, rental fee to Honda on all Honda signs, (didn't know about some of those did you?) advertising...etc.

If I want to retail it to someone else after giving him retail for it as a trade, I will have to recondition the car first (complete detail inside and out including engine and under car). He mentioned struts being bad, axle going out and other little stuff that will need to be replaced. Don't forget new tires all around. No one wants to buy a used car without it having new tires. Then I need to advertise the car as well and hope I can sell it asap. If it doesn't sell right away, I have to pay insurance and floor plan interest on it till it does sell. Oh wait...who is going to buy it since I have way too much in it now? I can't ask full retail + reconditioning & repairs & tires & insurance & floor plan interest & advertising and a mark up for discounting purposes, because the guy they price it to will say "your way too high" and then walk out and bad mouth my dealership to everyone they know, especially if I can give him more than wholesale for his trade AND a big discount on my car too.

"Put your negotiating skills to work on a private sale." Does this mean try to snooker someone else into paying way more than the car is really worth considering all the reconditioning and repairs it needs? Why is it wrong for a me the Dealer to ask for a profit, but not a private party?

No offense intended to the OP or any of the previous posters. Just a few thoughts that came into my mind as I was reading this. BTW, I am NOT a Dealer in real life and while there are thieves in all walks of life, not all people or Dealers are.

You have been given some very good advise in this thread. The moral of the above posts is very simple. You can't borrow your way out of debt. Good luck in what ever you decide.

 

Dealers make little effort to give the fair value of dealer wholesale as specified by Blue Book. Even for great condition, enthusiast kept cars that would need little if any work at all to put onto the lot. Take for example if car X has a fair market retail value of say $50K, and the fair dealer wholesale is $40K, the dealer would probably offer you $30K for the car irregardless of its condition, because the dealer would rather either make money off your trade on top of the car they are selling you for profit. They will do that at the cost of losing the sale initially. If you negotiate well, then the dealer may choose to make nothing on the trade and take the profit from the sale of the new car. This is irrespective of what it would cost to recondition your car. Did I fail to mention, it is very often the case that cars that are resold receive little more than a quick detail and glaze to hide the true condition of used cars. Dealer makes money on basic services in their service centers, not on reconditioning used vehicles, they rather stick the cost of reconditioning the vehicles' mechanical condition onto the next buyer. How many times buyers get a certified preowned vehicle only to find that it needs further repairs. Then they play the warranty game with the manufacturer on the certified preowned warranty. Buyer beware, listen to those who have bought many cars new and used, and who are enthusiasts, you can't go wrong with that experience. Yeah, sure the dealer has overhead to cover, but the buyer has the overhead to cover also when he buys a used car with problems, or buys a new car and carries forward additional debt that is not reflective of a fair transaction. If dealers did their job diligently, cars in good condition would yield close to blue book dealer wholesale, NOT Auction wholesale. Mr. dealer Quasi you may or may not know what I'm talking about. If the dealer really reconditioned their cars with the profit made on the trade-in, then the undervalued trade-in would be justified, but you and I know that the dealer is in the business of moving cars, not recondition vehicles.
NEXT!

 

I wouldn't trust VW, either. Their build quality is inconsistent.

I would stick with Toyota, Honda, and Mazda in the used market. As for your willingness to write off all domestics, let me remind you, your current car is a Dodge. That has probably put a bad taste in your mouth for all domestic cars, but it is not a representative sample.

If you don't mind saying, what has your car been appraised at? I'm assuming since you talked to a dealer, they only gave you trade-in value, if that high. Use kbb.com to see if that appraisal is even close to what your car is worth. I would trust hard numbers over conjecture. You are better off selling to a private party if you can swing it.

I've heard of some people getting rid of their cars if someone just takes over the payments, but I have no experience in that area or even how and if it works.

 

Loan = $12,1XX

Trade in = $6,000 (black book), $8,000 - $9,000 (all other sources)

= negative equity

 

Just save your $$. As much as you may want a Fit, it isn't worth it if you can't afford it. Wait a couple years and get your finances in order before purchasing one.

 

First of all I didn't intend to make this a p1$$1ng match. If you have any ill feelings toward a specific dealership or purchasing experience in the past then there is nothing anyone can say or do that will change your mind until you get what you deem to be a "Good Deal" somewhere.

What makes you think the KBB GUIDE is the ultimate authority on what a trade is worth? You could probably count on 1 hand how many dealers in the US (slight exaggeration since I couldn’t possibly know) actually use KBB to establish a trade value. Nearly all dealers I've talked to at various Ride & Drive events, Car Shows, Walk Around Competitions and Trips, use the National Auto Research Black Book as a GUIDE to a vehicles valuation. KBB has traditionally been used as a GUIDE by insurance companies and lenders to establish a loss or lending valuation.

I'm sure there are dealers that would actually try to get away with that. In today’s world of internet valuation sites like KBB, Edmunds & NADA, as well as the numerous publications and reports available to the general public, there is no excuse for any consumer to not have a pretty good IDEA what their trade value should be within about $400-$500 either way.

Here is what I found on the valuation of a 2007 Honda Fit Sport AT with 12,000 miles in my local zip code 72116:

KBB.com
Excellant condition (Their highest catagory - less than 5% of all cars fall in this category per KBB)
$15,000

Edmunds.com
Outstanding condition (Their highest category)
$14300

NADA.com
No condition categories (assumes vehicle needs no reconditioning)
$14125

NARBB (I don't have a subscription to the site, but from 18 years experience in the car business there valuations are usually pretty close to NADA & Edmunds, almost NEVER under any circumstance closer to KBB.)

KBB the publication is updated once a month, the website ???

Edmunds is web only and they also update ???

NADA the publication is updated once a month, the website ???

NARBB the publication is updated every 2 weeks, the website to download the same information as in the printed publication, so it is also every 2 weeks.

No argument there except for there being no consideration of needed repairs/reconditioning. They are both REAL costs and WILL be taken into account unless the car is extremely old or rough and they intend on wholesaling it, taking it to auction or to a salvage yard.

The dealers in your geographic area must be true scum. In my 18 years of local experience we never sold junk or rough cars. If they couldn't be brought to front-line ready inside and out as well as mechanically, they went to auction.

The dealers in your local are also criminal and could/could loose their franchise and be arrested for fraud. "Caveat emptor" ("let the buyer beware") is excellant advice.

All Used Vehicles regardless of the source should be checked out by a Certified Technition of the Buyers choice. Goes back to the "Caveat emptor" ("let the buyer beware" phrase.

Not all additional debt is brought on by dealers. In fact most are brought on by consumers that buy on emotion without reguard to financial good sense, such as purchasing with zero down, or financing for an extended period, like 5 or more years, expecting to be able to trade out in 18-24 months (this is highly dependant on the product purchased BTW), or continuing the cycle of carrying negative equity from vehicle to vehicle expecting it will all just magically disappear.

There is that Holy Grail Blue Book Value again. If a dealer can buy 07 Fits (used as an example only) all day long at any auction for $14125-$14300 what measure of good business sense would make them want to jump up and down enthusiastically about paying $15000 for the very same thing. That puts them at a market disadvantage against their main competition which is all the other dealers who did buy all the 07 Fits at auction for $14125-$14300.

As stated above, I am not a dealer, let alone a Quasi dealer and unlike quite a few of the younger and more impressionable members of this forum I do know exactly what you are talking about.

It is obvious that where you are located the dealers are apparently everything you claim them to be. I am proud to say that every dealership I have ever been associated with has been 180 degrees from what you describe. My local competition for the last 18 years has been the NO 1 Cadillac and Lexus dealer in the US for customer satisfaction. You are correct, the dealership is in business to sell as much of their product as they possibly can (as do ALL businesses) and some actually recondition what is worth reconditioning and wholesale or take to auction that which is not worth it. My advise is to do business elsewhere. Believe it or not (I'm without a doubt that my opening statement above is correct) not everyone in the buying public has or will experience, what is resoundingly obvious, that you have in the course of purchasing a vehicle.

Peace

 

Thanks for stating your counterpoints to my rant. Thanks, really! I appreciate your time and your points have taught me some good things, that in a place like Los Angeles, it can be a pool of sharks when it comes to the auto business.
IMO Auction cars are often of dubious quality. Many trade-ins can be as well. Many auction cars were formerly trad-ins. If dealers weren't getting trade-in for so cheap, there wouldn't be so many auction cars so cheap and often of dubious quality and in need of work.

Answer me this. If any one of us brought our fit to a dealer to trade in, one with a couple thousand miles. How much work does the dealer have to do to get it back on the lot to sell? How much would they offer you for a 08 Fit trade-in with a couple thousand miles? I know they can sell near MSRP, especially with a Fit that is still in new condition. I bet you'd be lucky to be offered 13K from the dealer for such a Fit that originally costed 15K even if they can sell it back out at 14K with no more work than a car wash and transfer of ownership. I say this in California, anyways.

I have had many car transactions, and none better then when I was living in Chicago. I bought a VW Cabrio, about the third day later I realized the fuel guage was stuck and need repair. I brought it back to the dealer and they simply put me into another brand new Cabrio even though I have driven it 240 miles already.

Thanks

 

In the words of a very good friend of mine from Australia, "No worries Mate!'.

As for an 08 Fit with only a few thousand miles, that's a good one. I always hated seeing something so new coming back because it was usually under dire circumstances. My best guess would be to take Invoice of the car and subtract the holdback amount and then another $500. That would allow the dealer to give a buyer reason to consider it over a new one. An honest dealer, I know it sounds like an oxymoron, wouldn't be looking to make much on it since you could easily take it elsewhere for the same or maybe a few hundred extra. Since the Fit only caries about $600 front end profit (MSRP - Invoice) and another $450 - $500 in holdback, your looking at about say...$1500 back of MSRP. They would most likely put it out and start at a invoice considering the new ones are going for MSRP or more in some instances. The recondition in this case would be most likely as you described earlier since it is esentially almost new. They would also most likely at least change the oil and reset the Maint. Minder back to 100%. They could also take another approach, they could run it through the shop and do a CPO on it and ask original MSRP or a little more due to the better warranty. This wouldn't make the sales dept any more $$, but it would generate a larger shop ticket and count as 1/2 a new unit sold as far as Honda is concerned and will assist them in earning additional allocations of new product the following model year. The money in used cars is in the 2-3 year old range that is the current body-style. They tend to take a bit more of a hit once the body-style changes because it doesn't look "new" anymore. That is how it would go around here, in SOCAL ???

BTW, 23 years ago I was in the Navy stationed in Long Beach. I used to drive from my house in Simi Valley down the 405 every morning and going home I would go around east up to Pasedena and then due west to get back home. It was 2 hours each way that route.

 

You have a fairly sought after car, but the ones people are looking for are the low milage Garage Queens that were bought and rarely driven by middle-aged men going through their mid-life crisis. Kind of like me. Based on your description I think they are pretty close. Remember, regardless of what any book or website says it's worth, it's only worth what someone will pay you for it. In the end, it is a end of it's life cycle Neon that isn't produced anymore. Albeit a bad ass one. This kind of car screams dogged out! If it were mine, I'd drive it like I stole it every chance I got. I am pretty anal on preventative maintenance though. That's how I've driven my 97 Miata for the last 160K miles, although I do most of the dangerous kind of stuff on the AX course, honest officer. But 6500-7000 RPM shifts are a sweet sound through the Borla.

Seroiusly Miguelangelo, unless you have a large chunk of coin to put down to eat up almost all your negative equity, or can sell it to someone that is aware what the issues are and will still give you closer to payoff + cash from you to obtain a clear title, you are going to have a hard time getting financed. Lenders are under the microscope as of late and are being much more conservative in their lending practices. If you don't have the cash and have to trade it in on a big rebate car, your going to be in even worse shape. I know it's tough man, I've been there. Being married with a young son living in the LA area on E-4 pay back in 1985 was impossible. We made a go of it for 6 months and I swapped duty stations with a guy in Charleston, SC so he could live near home and we could just live.

I used to listen to a radio talkshow host 10 years ago or so named Bruce Williams. He had some fantastic advice for people that needed financial guidence. I know this sounds hokey, but try to give him a call and see what he thinks you should do. He will give you some sound fatherly advice. Seriously.

BTW, I used to stationed at NOB Norfolk and went to OS "A" School in Damneck back in 1982. A couple of buddies and I rented a sweet house at the end of the Boardwalk at 45th & Atlantic. Man, those were the days!

 

Yeah its a shit hole down here now.......it gets really dark if you know what i mean.

 

I think its generally pretty nice around here.... and naw i don't know what you mean

 

I always said to those enthusiasts that slobbered all over the srt4 to wait a few years and 100k and those things would fall apart....fast. Now it looks like I was right.

It's ashame your experience with that junk has led you to believe that your car of 6 years and 80k miles is "getting up there" in age and mileage.

A honda will change your perspective on that.