ES350Bob

Private party UL is the price he is being asked to pay as long as it is in excellent condition, 29,800 but that is decked out to the max...UL/ML/NAV/Park...the works.

You can thank Consumer Reports for that or Lexus depending on perspective and also for the next round of value drop about to happen in April.

That is why you never hear of "wheel estate investments" associated with new car purchases unless the person speaking lisps

MD350

Being my first Lexus purchase, I will say my previous 3 Acuras held their value much better. My last 04 TL, bought it for $30,500 and traded it on this Lexus for $24,500 with 45K miles on it. It was 2 years old.

Yeah, I know all about deal structures and inflating trades and throwing that onto the purchase of the new car. I work in the business, I bought this Lexus from a client of mine. No games were played.

I may run my ES by carmax and see what they say. I will be very disappointed if it dropped over $10K in 1 year. Poor ROI.

ES350Bob

This may be something you can help me understand or tell me I am right in advice I had recently given.

I had a friend who had been told by a salesman that the certified pre-owned vehicle would allow a more attractive finance rate and as well more loan amount on the car. To which I advised that had to be total BS since any car still under warranty otherwise represented as having had all it's services could also be viewed as certified. Meaning it should be in as good a condition under it's warranty as one where asking more for the words certified pre-owned.

As to value of cars the instant you drive the suckers off the lot they lose big..I just got used to it...

MD350

Well, Bob, the dealer is actually correct. If a car has had 2 or more panels painted, it cannot be certified under many manuf. certified programs. Also, once certified, the unit's powertrain warranty is usually increased. Most captive finance companies will offer subvented interest rates on certified units. Also, depending on the program, the advance on the loan can be higher if the lender feels the collateral is strong. But, you really have to look at each manuf. program.

codex57

Has anyone had a dealer actually offer KBB's trade-in value on an actual trade? I've only had it offered at Hyundai. Anyone else (Honda, Toyota, Lexus, BMW, etc) offered below the KBB rate.

What Car Max offered was even worse. I'd check the retail prices on CarMax and Craigslist to get an idea of what's the actual going rate of that car in your area. It doesn't sound like an Ultra Luxury vehicle either so it shouldn't be that rare. Especially since it's a pretty high mileage vehicle.

ES350Bob

thanks MD...I did not think about the things you mentioned.

toneman

I think OP stated that the $29,800 figure quoted to him was dealer trade-in value, not PP?

FWIW--the figures I had quoted for my own ES were KBB dealer trade-in values; KBB PP values are $35,580/$33,655 excellent/good 13K miles (and $32,105/$30,180 if it had 29K miles like OP's prospective vehicle)...so, roughly $4K higher for PP vs. dealer trade-in. For comparison, MSRP for my vehicle (purchased 8/06) was listed at $44,288...so the value of my vehicle has dropped roughly $10K (give or take) if going off PP values over the course of 19 calendar months.

toneman

More often than not, once you are quoted an appraised value for your vehicle by Carmax, you will find that their offer is almost always (i.e., there are exceptions but those are few) in the ballpark of the KBB trade-in value for a vehicle similar to yours that's rated in "Good" condition. Now maybe things have changed since I last sold one of my vehicles to Carmax but what I said was pretty much spot on when it came to their appraised value of my car...which I did not dispute, if only because Carfax did not report the vehicle damage (minor but not insignificant) that my car had sustained in an auto accident a few months prior, when Carmax ran a Carfax check against my vehicle.