Used car values > New car?? Trade in rediculously high? I thought cars LOST value?

[Synerbee]

Originally Posted by IROCanSS

I got to agree with him. Carmax pays top dollar.

I checked NADA (save it, I know it may be somewhat inflated) and they retail (not trade) value my 2010 2SS/RS with 30,000 miles at $32,575. I paid $32,610 for it in August 2009. Now, I'm not selling it, but it's nice to know it seems they hold their value.


Just sent... don't want to offend anyone.

Good luck getting that much. Even in California they don't go for that much

[DGthe3]

Originally Posted by upflying

The recent lack of good used cars was directly related to Cash for Clunkers.

And here I thought it was the fact that in 2008 new car sales went from about 16 million units down to 13 million (and went even lower in 2009). That deprived the US used car market of millions of lightly used, fairly new cars over the last few years. Then there's also the fact that unemployment, underemployment, wage cutbacks, and a simple lack of consumer confidence has caused more buyers to be interested in lightly used cars instead of buying new like they ordinarily would. Putting the two together and you have a substantial drop in supply, while there is a big increase in demand for those very cars. Classical economic theory would dictate that this should cause a very sharp increase in the price of lightly used vehicles -a result which just so happens to coincide perfectly with what has been observed on car lots

But, I guess that isn't the reason. Crushing a few hundred thousand cars worth $4,500 or less (with some worth barely more than scrap value) probably did have a bigger impact, due to some sort of upward ripple effect where instead of choosing one of the tens of millions of other cars in that sub $5000 price range, they instead buy a more expensive used car -which deprives people in the $5000 - $10,000 price range of a few hundred thousand cars (from a pool of tens of millions), who then buy cars in the $10k - $15k range, causing the next group to buy in the $15k to $20k range. During a recession. A very, very bad recession. I guess its possible