big kahuna wrote:
zed707 wrote:
big kahuna wrote:
mopdahl wrote:
BTW, that oxidation is an ez DIY fix and 75% of the time worth the trouble. You have a $5k car on your hands, give or take. At $4k it will be gone by end of weekend. To get $5500 will take time and some $$ and time and a high tolerance for CL shit-heels.
If you want to sell it for $4k I'll buy it from you, consign on a friendly dealers lot, they'll put $200 into making it pretty, sell it for $6995 and finance it thru me at 24% APR for 28 months.
Welcome to how the car biz works.
And that's exactly why it's so exciting, buddy! Holding gross. Beating up the trade. Closing a four-bagger or four-pounder. Keeping 'em off the be-back bus. Getting one over the curb. Spot-delivering a ride. Upselling and adding a three-way or four-way. Getting a spiff or a whip-out. Making $$ on the backend. Bumping the rate. It's a totally fascinating world, and there's nothing like it.
P.S. At one new car store I was at (strictly sold used... mostly because new was such a grind, heh), we sent everything to a detailing place that charged $130 and the rides came back looking so new it made you cry. They even spray painted the undercarriage areas and wheel wells black, and you could eat off the engines. "If it looks good, it must be good" right? We also added those 90-day Royal Purple warranties. That got a lot of people through the doors for sure.
I used to sell new and used cars on the line for a dealership, so I find this thread interesting. I wasn't in sales management or in F/I, but I understand enough.
The OP has a $5k car all day long. I'll never trade a car in and this is a perfect example. There's no way that it can get that on trade and some earlier posts indicated that selling it privately might gain them a little, but it will be more like 2k, at least.
And yes on buffing out that oxidation. That will make a big difference.
As a point of reference, I sold my 1-owner 2001 Civic LX with the same miles in 2013 for 5K cash on Craigslist. It sold quickly. And the OP has an Accord EX with the same miles. Hold your gross.
Yeah, you and I know we'd beat that car up on a trade-in situation. Do the walk-around, lightly touch the dents and run our hands over the oxidation (maybe grimacing a little and shaking our heads very slightly, heh) and so forth. By the end, we'd be pushing a $1,500 trade-in value across the table and seeing if they'd go for it. Some people do, others get offended and you have to peel them off the ceiling, others counteroffer. Or sitting down with them at the computer and running through the KBB.com valuation tool and always making sure it lands on the left side of $2,000 or lower. Like you say: maybe $2,000 or so, final trade-in offer, if we had to step up to get them into a new ride. Regardless, never more than a wholesaler would offer for it (and he may step up to help out his good buddy, the used car manager, which is a different situation) or what it would go for at the auction block (Manheim or Adesa, usually).
I'm with you: OP has a $5K private party sale all day long, especially out in a high-cost area like San Diego. NADA Guides says $2,800 on a rough trade (that's too high, in my opinion), $3,650 average trade (again; too high), $4,350 clean trade (ditto) and $6,450 clean retail (that might be a little low if it's sitting on a 'B' lot or at a franchise store, especially if it's a Honda store). I mean, it's crazy the kind of stupid money those used Hondas in decent shape will fetch. Usually from some parents with a college-age kid heading off to school or someone looking for a daily driver/commuter car that's reliable and reasonably priced. What 10-plus-year-old cars with more than 100K on the odo are fetching these days is wild.
We had a kind of fun time with the negotiation. She handled it all on her own (she's the family CFO and has her dad's finance genes - he's a savant and has made a substantial pile as such) while I hung out with our seven-year old wandering around the lot, playing among the parked Tacomas and Tundras. I then sat outside on a bench in view of the negotiating table, and my wife walked out to talk with me about something. The sales staff thought she was walking out on the deal, so the "closer" came rushing out after her and that's when the deal became significantly sweeter. She got everything she wanted, so good on her.
My staying away from the table was intentional and I'd like to think it served us well. ;-)
A couple random observations:
1. The new Land Cruiser's MSRP is $85k?! Dang. There's a black one on the showroom floor for $86k and change.
2. My daughter and I had a great time finding Tacomas whose bed drain holes were clogged by the detritus of the trees under which they were parked, and then clearing the holes so the gallons and gallons of water that had accumulated in the beds could drain out. It's been raining cats and dogs here this winter so the amount of water accumulated in each such bed was substantial on that lot. Holy mosquito breeding ground that I never considered, batman.
War is god