vital

Just got a call from someone at Lexus offering to buy my car after bringing it in for service. He said there is a shortest of used cars and they're giving out good offers.. Anyone else get offers from Lexus to buy their car?

Maxximus

they want you to buy a new car from them. so they'd take your older car off your hands, sell you a new one, and resell your old one for much more than what they bought it for.

all comes down to you wanting a new car

DenIS250

ive also heard of this. but i was told that at the dealership that this is also because of the shortage in production of new cars due to everything that happened in Japan recently and in order for the dealer to make money they need to offer a lil more for your trade-in to get you to buy a new car/or resell you one of their used ones.

kuuqi

regardless if there's a major shortage or not from japan, they will offer to buy your old vehicle regardless. lexus sells mostly IS, RX and ES models (and now a lot of CT's) as their major source of income. also they don't necessarily need your vehicle. three years ago, lexus started to lease a large number of vehicles to businesses. well that means their leases are about to end so the dealers are going to get a huge number of vehicles returned to them which gives plenty of inventory.

If you bought your vehicle for $40,000, buy it back from you for $25,000 and sell you another $40,000 car, they'd make $55,000 in revenue just from you. then they could sell your $25,000 car for $30,000 and now they have their $85,000 in revenue. which if they made a profit of $2000 off each $40,000 car and $5000 of your car, that's $9000 in profit as well as any back end payouts that Lexus offers to the dealers due to their volume of sales. Sorry if this sounds confusing

It's a numbers game really. I wouldn't ever buy into any type of "story" that a dealer will tell you. The story's part of the pitch to make you feel like it's a good time to buy from them.

The best financial decision right now is to keep your car unless its breaking. It is a depreciating asset after all. Lexus hasn't changed their vehicles significantly in the past 6 years except for maybe the GPS, lexus enform and little things. But if you must buy a vehicle from them, always wait til the end of the month where dealers are willing to break even on a sale just to get a largest back end payout from Lexus. Even sales guys make more by selling more volume in some dealers. Understand that as a business, they want and more importantly, need your sale. As a consumer, you only want their product (not need).

And just one more thing: Lexus dealers still had a supply of vehicles good for another month and week as of April. Yes they were affected but they have plenty of vehicles except for the CT and HS. CT being new and a higher demand than expected and the HS is a vehicle many people don't want. I believe Audi has a shortage of about 15 days supply. And the last time I went to my local dealer, they had so many vehicles on their lot that I literally had to squeeze my car by to get to the service bay for that fuel gasket recall. Just fyi

jadu

iTrader: (42)

same deal with my gf and her tc.. we got somehting in the mail with a really high buy back number. Then reading the fine print, they deduct a ton a money for each 1000 miles it has on it.

laobo979

iTrader: (5)

The fact is the "stealership" told you. This practice has been done for years by every dealership. When i had my bimmer same letter was sent to me. My gf mother altima same thing they want to buy it. I dont there a shortage of altima around the world hahaha.... I dout they will give you much more then what there gonna make off you on your new car with the interest.

kurency

Its different this time. The great recession in 07-now, had very little car sales. That's why there is very low supply of used cars and why the price of used cars is at a all time high. Japan slowdown would be related to current sales, not used car sales.

brociouz

iTrader: (65)

In general, if you're looking to sell a used car now is the time to do it.

WHITE93GT

x2 There is NOTHING "differrent" this time. NOTHING

Just because the values of used cars is going up does not mean the prices of new cars is going down. As stated earlier in this thread, it is simply a numbers game.

kurency

the fact that you can get your used car for more than you would before is "something" isn't it?

not saying you should trade in your car, but if you wanted to - now would be one of the best times since your used car would be worth more.

KillaIS250

iTrader: (1)

My friend at the dealer told me the same thing, they are giving out more money on trade-ins because there's a shortage of these cars. The only problem is, your not gonna get much of a discount on a new car either. They are less willing to cut the price of the few new cars they have left.

Gville350

iTrader: (10)

If you think it's time for a new ride, then go for it. If it's not good timing for you right now, then wait. Heck, you do own a Lexus...so regardless of right now or 5 yrs down the road, it'll hold its value.

micel

Some parts are getting hard to find and prices on current models are going up about 1% a day(black book)since quake,correlation?

WHITE93GT

Are you saying that my $20k car is INCREASING in value at a rate of $200.00+ per day?
AWESOME, in about 3 months I can trade it even for a new $40k car. lol.

JayRo354

I've also received those buy back offers in the mail, but I believe KUUQI hit the nail on the head. The dealer makes out regardless. IS's are holding their resale value better than even I expected though.