I've had my '05 Performance for about 6 months and put ~12k miles on it. I'm starting to realize I should be saving for other things like a house and retirement and the easiest way for me to free up some cash is to sell/trade in the Z on a cheaper vehicle. I currently owe about $26k on the car and it's worth about $27 (put a hefty downpayment), so how does it work if I trade it in on a car that costs $15-$20k?

Anybody interested in a SB '05 Performance with ~12k miles?

 

All haggling aside, if the *trade-in value* is 27 and you owe 26, then you'll get 1K out of the car, and put it towards the next one....so for a 15K car, you'd end up financing 14K. You're almost dead even to be able to just "give the Z back" and buy something else.

 

How it works? Bring some KY jelly!! Most likely if go to trade it in, they are going to give you a real low ball trade in value. Prob around 24-25K$. Then with that 25k$ you will have to then come up with another 1000$ out of your pocket, to pay off your loan on your Z. If you arent in need of some major doctors visits and need cash like today, I would just sell your car in autotrader or in the paper. You could get a decent amount back since you have low miles and it is an 05. You could prob get what you owe on it for sure. Maybe someone that knows more about this subject can give you some better advice. I tryed but I also like to talk out of my azz about things I really dont know nothing about. lol hahaha

 

So the price of your car is 53k? =\

If you just take it to a dealership, they'll take care of the loan and put you in a new car. But you won't get the best deal obviously.

Of course it is better if you can borrow money from a relative or something, pay off the balance, get the title from the bank, then sell the Z to a private-party. (Pay back your relative) Then go buy your Civic/Scion/whatever...

That's what I would do...

If you can't get a relative to loan you 26k, you might still be able to find a buyer who will pay off the car for you.

 

True, the part where you're kinda stuck is that your interest rate must've been pretty high to begin with.

 

Yep, if this isn't a time-sensitive sale, do it private party. Trade-in is never the way to go, especially on such a new car. Think of trade in value as a "wholesale" price, where if you sell it private party, you'll sell at the "retail" price. The difference between the two is always in the thousands, so private party is best if time permits.

 

Also, people will trust you a little more if you tell them you need to sell the car out of financial difficulty, otherwise they could assume the car is just riddled with problems and you're trying to dump it.

 

If you brought me a $27,000 car, and wanted to buy a $20,000 car, I wouldn’t be too excited about the trade. As a dealer, there’s little to entice me with a “trading down” deal.

 

Sure, you could trade it in and if you got +$1000 that would be good but the thing is you're losing all that money that you put down on the vehicle plus all the money you have paid in payments. It still works out to be a bad deal. The only thing that will change is that you will lose all that money you've already spent and then have a lower payment but a crappier (or less expensive) car. It's not necessarily a bad deal if you can come out ahead on the loan on your Z but it was still a waste of XX dollars for that less than a year of use of the Z.