QuestionMr. Paulsen,
My wife and I (couple weeks ago in Fayetteville, NC) traded our 2011 Mazda CX-9 Touring (FWD) with 9,500 miles. My wife never quite liked it so we traded-in for a New 2012 Durango Crew edition. She loves it and I like it and I'm very happy with that part. We did the research with KBB before going in. KBB reports that the Mazda (in excellent condition - and it is) as having a retail value around $30-31000.
It states that the Trade in value (in excellent condition) is just shy of 25,000. My wife and I decided that we would settle for 23,000 for trade. We figured 2k less than what KBB is reporting in trade-in would be more than fair. Black Book also states something similar. Trade in would be $20,300 - $25000 for trade in-value. That's a huge variance! I'm assuming it's based on condition, so we still expected to be very fair in asking atleast $23000. The dealer gave us $20,500 and absolutely would not take any less. That's a 10,000 difference from the suggested retail. That's pretty huge! We could have walked....yes, but bickered for a bit and then took it when they wouldn't budge. Did we get "taken" by this dealer? Or should we be comforted to know that the dealer probably gave us a fair and honest trade? They ended up listing the Mazda at $27000 (and they noted retail is $31000 on the sticker). $6500 profit? (minus the detailing and cleaning). I expected them to make a couple thousand profit , but this seems like they got the better of us and took advantage. I'm a "Golden Rule guy" and I would expect them to treat us fairly since we did the same for them. We did not haggle. Just took the few rebates they offered. Thoughts?
AnswerHi Michael,
I wish you would have made contact prior to shopping and I would have walked you through the process, the deal is done and I don't want you to feel bad, you got yourself a nice vehicle, yes you could have most likely saved more than $2000. had you followed some steps.
If the $20,500 allowed was deducted from the asking price ?,,, if that's the case then you really got taken to the cleaners,,, The dealer wouldn't budge ?,,, why should they unless you were trying to walk out ?
Did you have some free Internet quotes for the Durango in your back pocket so you knew what the best price would be ?,,, You should have negotiated best price on the new car first, and then brought the trade into the equation. I could carry on but the deal is done. For the future if yourself or a family member need to buy or sell please feel free to make contact, in the meantime please bookmark my website for some pointers, had you done some study on the site I somehow feel the deal would have been a little different.
Ray
http://www.usedcartips.org/
