Bopper

I'm in the market for an RX330, and I just can across an '04 being sold by a private party -- 35K miles, with nav and DVD, asking 24K. I checked values, and there's a HUGE discrepancy between KBB and Edmunds. KBB private party value is just over 24K (right on target, probably what seller based the asking price on). But Edmunds TMV is only a little over 17K -- a 7 thousand dollar difference! I've gone over it several times, didn't enter anything wrong. NADA has clean dealer retail at around 24K, doesn't give a price for private party.

So why the huge difference? And, more importantly, does anybody have any insight into what the private party value of a low mileage '04 RX should be?

Rainbird

Check out what similar vehicles are selling for on: http://carsforsale.com

The 2004 has low mileage but 24K is too high a price in my opinion. For that price you could buy a newer RX. It would most likely have higher mileage, but because of the reliability of these vehicles, the odometer reading is not that critical.

RX330inFL

For just a little bit more than that you could get an '07 RX350 with 50-70K miles on it and AWD. No NAV or DVD, however, how important are those to you?

01LEXPL

iTrader: (10)

That's a bit much. High'er' milers' are selling for 10-13k... [~80k miles+] Almost all being AWD.

Carver

Average values are just that. At some point you have to look at the individual car and decide what it is worth to you. It that car ticks all the boxes for you right down to the color then "overpaying" may be the way to go. I think 19k is a reasonable "overpayment" price.

24k is not a good price because you can get an 07 350 in very good trim for that much, on the other end 17k will get you a very nice 04-05 330 so to me an extra 2k for a dream car becomes reasonable.

Bopper

Yup, confirming what I thought. I may talk to the seller, but more likely I'll just watch it on Craigslist for a while.

It brings up an interesting question too -- older car with low mileage vs newer car with lower mileage. I've always been inclined to consider mileage before anything else, and in my ideal world would like to stay under 40K. But maybe newer with higher miles for the same price is worth considering as well.

Carver

Here's 900 of them to play with...

http://www.carsforsale.com/find_a_ve...eage&curpage=1

RX330inFL

If you move up to a 2007 RX350 or newer you also do away with the need for a timing belt change as you would have with the RX330. The RX350 uses a timing chain.

If you get an RX with NAV, you will want to check to see what version of the NAV DVD is being used. Personally, the extra $$$ involved with the NAV system is better allocated to your cellphone data plan with GPS or a standalone unit like a Garmin.

AWD RX models do seem to have a tendency for the wheel bearings to fail more frequent than one would hope and more so than the FWD models. You will see that by searching the forum. The dealers here in FL do not see this problem as most down here are just FWD. However, talk to dealers in north and you hear a different story.

Bopper

Good to know. I have grown very attached to the nav in my Murano, because I'm a real estate agent and it's really helpful to be able to look at the dash and get a birds-eye view of the neighborhood, and which streets will lead me through it or out of it. I really don't care about all of the bells and whistles of a state-of-the-art nav system -- my '04 system has never been updated, but it gives me most of what I need just by getting an arial view of my location. That's really all I care about. So I've been hoping to find a used RX with nav (blue book for used vehicles values it WELL below the thousands that the nav option costs in a new vehicle), but I'm open to the possibility I may have to find a way to mount a Garmin into a nav-less RX. Not my first choice, though.

Carver

One thing you may not be aware of is the 04 did not have blue tooth with the factory nav, that started in 05 and in your business I imagine BT is almost a requirement.

If you find a really nice car with no factory nav, all is not lost, click the Kenwood link in my sig for an alternative.

Bopper

Nice set-up, Carver! Can I ask you how much it cost?

Carver

My unit isn't available any longer so pricing is moot but I would think from 700 up to 1500 is a reasonable estimate for a NAV/BT/DVD set up. Remember as you are shopping, just about any unit you look at will be on youtube to give you an idea of how people install and use them.