Well, I have all these plans to mod my car. I'm making several posts on the modifications forum, and I think to myself, what if I traded my Z for a BASE new Yellow Z, and then started modding that car instead. I'd be going from an '03 performance (LSD, Xenon, TPS, VDC, TCS) to a base model '05 without all that stuff.

I know most of you are thinking that i'll be making a mistake, or i'm wasting my money, but what if I get the new Z for only 1K or less ontop of what I have now.

My Z only has 14000 miles, and it's a sumemr car. I figure if I get a good deal, why not pay the grand. The car IS depreciating, maybe I can slow it down? I have noticed that Z's depreciate to the base value anyways. I am willing to bet that I can get the deal I want.

When I sold my RSX-S for the Z, I got what no other guy got for his RSX-S.
I demanded 20.5k or I would walk. The car was 23,500 MSRP. I actually got what I wanted. Alot of the guys on clubrsx.com sold theirs for as low as 15.5K up to 18.1K (which I think was the highest).

Avg retail from NADA is 25,450 for the Z (which is not CLOSE to what most people get). I sold my RSX-S to the dealership about at the avg retail price point, and the reason they bit is because they knew they could turn it around quick. It sold in 3 days . Anyhow if invoice for the base model is 25,985, and I throw in an extra 500 or 1K, assuming they can turn around the sale, I think they may bite.

If I can get my way, do you guys think I should do it?

 

I took my 04 Touring back to the dealership to see how much it would cost me to upgrade to an 05 roadster. They told me my car was worth 23k on trade in with only 11,000 miles on it. The Z does depreciate fast so you're probably better off staying with what you got.

But if I had to do it all again, I would have gotten the base and saved all that extra money for mods. My Bose sucks, the wheels are getting replaced, and the only thing i really liked was the orange leather seats.

 

I'd be trading down for a base model though. The roadster is like 38K. Like I said, I got what I wanted for my RSX-S, because they knew I was serious. 23,784 is the average trade-in, so the dealer low-balled you. But I want around average retail. Since I am going to order the base model, which won't be on their lot, they don't have to incur the cost of having it on their lot along with having mine on their lot too. Plus, they make money on anything at or over invoice because of manufacturer rebates and such. It sounds ridiculous, but I acheived my goal last time, why not try again? What's the worst that could happen..I come home with my 03 Z instead of an 05 Z? hahah.

 

I traded in my 03 DB touring for an 04 SB enthusiats, only thing I don't like is the SB color hard to clean at times best decision I made. If you do trade in your performance get the enthusiasts model. It has the basic needs cruise control, Xenon, and TCS. I think that is worth the money!

 

I know after thinking about it alot, I'm waiting for the gt-r.

 

amallari, the enthusiast doesn't have the limited slip diff. right?

 

All models above base have LSD. That reason, combined with HIDs, would make me unwilling to ever drive a base heh. Not to mention traction control can save your ***!

 

You can demand anything you want for the car, most times you aren't going to get it. And sometimes even if you do, you'll find out later that you paid for it anyway in the price of the new car if you weren't careful about interrogating the finance guy. AFAIK the Enthusiast does have the LSD.

 

there will be financing involved. My car was financed, and about 2 weeks later I paid it off. I did that on purpose. Anything ontop of that - Cash, since my Z is all paid for.

 

So besides a new car with 14,000 less miles, what do you gain from the trade-in?

The Xenons are killer, VDC is a "nice to have" feature for bad weather days, and an aftermarket LSD is like $1k without installation. And if you're going to mod the Base, why not just mod what you have? They're the same car.

Given the extra accesories of the Performance, I would suspect that an 03 Perf would be worth about the same as on 05 Base a few years from now.

But if you get what you want for what you want to pay, go for it. It's all about being happy about your car.

 

paid off, i can't way to say those two words