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Are dealerships offering decent trade-in values for low mileage cars since the used car market is still higher than pre-covid days? I have a 2018 Audi Q5 with 35k miles on it that I'll trade in with whatever car I buy at a dealership. Normally for a 2018, it should have around 60k miles on it.
Or do you all still go to Carmax or Carvana for a better trade in cash? I'm not going to do private sale as I don't have time for all the stupid texts, calls, scheduling a test drive and nobody comes and all the countless back and forth haggling.
Normally, I keep my cars until 10+ years and 200k miles or over, so it's almost worthless at that time so I usually would just trade it into the dealership and don't care what I get for it.
I doubt that a dealer will EVER be competitive in ANY market. A dealer has the most overhead. Plus their first assumption is that the customer is ignorant, and they go from there. I would just simply get prices from all your options, and you can be done with it in less than a day.
With your VIN and honest disclosure of condition, you can get online quotes on edmunds and kbb for carmax and bunch of other dealers. You can then get quotes from Vroom and Carvana. I will do this one day before the planned purchase/trade in and have the printed quotes in hand. If the dealer matches the quote, then you move fwd, otherwise, call the best offer and go from there.
After some sketchy interactions with FB marketplace and tons of tire kickers and no-shows, I will gladly take a loss selling to Carmax vs private. Last used car I sold the buyer tried to scam me into refunding money for repairs that didn't exist.
I'd lean toward Carmax particularly if you've got one nearby where you can get the instant valuation and then drive it down and they can look at it rather than Vroom/Shift or whatever that come out and pick the car up. The offers tend to be a little lower and then people just have this weird idea of what shape their car is in. They'll deduct off for your normal wear and tear like curbed wheels, dents/dings so not uncommon to get a couple grand less if you said it was in excellent condition when it's in average/poor shape. Carmax at least you know that right away rather than waiting a day or two for it to go back to get inspected.
Personally, I've never traded in. I'd probably have done Carmax with the Prius if nobody in immediate friend/family needed it. The insurance payout was about 1,500 more than the Carmax offer I'd got almost a year before though. That's how they stay in business. They buy a used car for 2k less and sell it for 2k more than it's worth.
Actually, last vehicle purchase, i went to carmax first and had offer in hand before going to the dealer. I figured i could use it to counter the dealer's lowball offer.
Dealer beat it by $1000 without saying a word. I gave them the car.
Actually, last vehicle purchase, i went to carmax first and had offer in hand before going to the dealer. I figured i could use it to counter the dealer's lowball offer.
Dealer beat it by $1000 without saying a word. I gave them the car.
That's only a part of the deal you negotiated, so without the rest of the context it doesn't mean much. For example, another dealer might have an ad that says "Push, pull, drag or tow your car in and we'll give you $x,xxx towards the price of a new car."
Actually, last vehicle purchase, i went to carmax first and had offer in hand before going to the dealer. I figured i could use it to counter the dealer's lowball offer.
Dealer beat it by $1000 without saying a word. I gave them the car.
At this point. We don't know if there was a trade-in. And price offered was off the MSRP of new car. If so, this is meaningless to this discussion.
If the dealer gave cash for the used car - then state so. Otherwise meaningless.
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