Quote:
Originally Posted by eyedeez
Again, an extended warranty and VIP treatment seem like a pretty sweet come-up.
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The Subaru 100K mile warranty normally costs anywhere from $500 to $1500 depending on the dealer. It's really not that big a concession on the dealer's part. Some dealers have actually thrown it in to sweeten a deal. It's really the warranty the car should have come with in the first place.
But that doesn't really address the diminished resale value. If the owner tries to sell it, and he discloses that it was run with transmission fluid in it, he's going to have to discount it a lot more than $1500 to get it sold.
FRS Dad says that he should not disclose that to a potential buyer because Carfax won't show it, so who would know? That seems rather dishonest to me. If it were my car, I would be very uncomfortable putting the car up for sale and misrepresenting it as an issue-free car. That really sounds like he's advocating fraud. Again, I think the dealer should be the one to take on that responsibility.
I'll tell you what I would want in this situation. An even trade for a new car outright is almost certainly out of the question, but I would start by asking for that. You have to start a negotiation somewhere.
What I would ultimately want is for the dealer to buy the car back from me for the high end of what it would be worth on the used car market before they fucked it up. Then I would want them to make me a hellaciously good deal on a new car. I would be willing to bring money to the table to cover the 8400 miles of use I got out of it, up to about $4500.
This would be a win-win for both of us. I would get a car that I could have confidence in again, and the dealer could count that as a sale in their monthly numbers. Even if they lost money on the sale, they would make money back on their month end bonuses if they made their quota, and the overall cost would be less than the reputational risk they face if this situation goes really sour.
I think that's what they were thinking when they initially offered to sell him a new car, but it sounds like the salesman got a little greedy and wasn't looking at the bigger picture. I think I would have seized that opportunity to counter with an outright trade, then negotiate to a point somewhere in the middle. And I wouldn't hesitate to get a lawyer to make a call or write a letter to give me a little leverage on my side of the negotiation if the negotiation needed a little nudge in my favor.