Trading in my car question?
 

Hey, I'm hoping someone here might be able to give me an opinion to help me through the thinking process on trading/selling one of my vehicles. I got an 06 special edition tc a 2006 rs2. It has 47,000 miles on it.

The only issues with it are:
broken fog light (glass broken)
front bumper has minor bumper scrape
some hood chips you might expect from a daily driver through all 4 seasons
Minor curb rash wheels

The interior is like the day I got it- brand new.

Trade in offer was $6,500. Does anyone have an opinion if this is fair or too low? I see these cars go to like 150,000 pretty problem free, i just feel this is kind of low with how much is left in this car. I am not looking to get lucky on an incredible deal, but I would love some thoughts on what I should be looking at that is fair for me as well as the other party.

You will always get raped on trade in to a dealer. Sell it private party and you'll get a couple thousand more.

you should get 8500-11500 private party on that. Don't waste your time at the dealer. I think even carfax will beat that.

also, post pics..... someone here might want it.

Trade-in offers is where a car dealer makes a good portion of their profits. They pay less for your car, they attempt to sell that car for quite a bit more. I find trading in is only valuable when you got a poor conditioned but running newish car where you know its got problems...but they're not noticeable right off the bat. When you got a good conditioned car...trading in is often terrible for your bottom line. Same thing with a good conditioned old car.

For a car like yours, you're definitely better of doing a private sale. I'd probably replace the fog lamp and then sell as is. The rest of the damages on the car are normal wear and tear for the most part. The reason why I'd replace the fog lamp is only for presentation purposes. The better your car looks the more value its going to get from a willing buyer. If it doesn't look as great, you'll take a hit for it from someone who wants to lower your car's value for any reason, so don't give them a reason to. Getting the car detailed prior to selling also helps.

I sold my Impreza 2.5RS before getting my FRS. Dealer said the maximum value I could get was $2000 assuming it was in pristine condition. My car had 240,000 km on it, so it just wasn't going to be pristine even though to the average buyer its in excellent shape. So I sold it privately, got $4000 for it.

I got $7,500 for my 05 tC with 87k on it. Sold it privately. You should get around 9-9.5k

At that low of a price the possible sales tax savings of trading it in are not going to make up the loss of selling it privately. Take good pictures, write up a solid description of the car, price it fairly and lower then the competition on sites like autotrader and cars, and it will sell very quickly.

Did you even check sites like kbb or nada?

When I traded my vehicle I had already had it appraised at Carmax the day before. They upped their trade in offer to match the Carmax price when I brought the appraisal form in.