Hi Guys,

I have a good understanding for car values but the LS seems to be a tough one to grade. Here is what I am selling:
2001 LS430 with Navigation, Mark Levinson, Dark Blue with Tan Leather, Moonroof, front and rear heated seats, and all the other standard and optional luxury options. The car has 84000 highway miles, serviced at Lexus only, garaged, and overall perfect. Looks better than most 2 year old cars with 20,000 miles. The Kelly Blue book for Private Sale Value is $29,440 with the options, mileage, and excellent condition plugged in. For Retail value, the price jumps to $34,270. I understand most people pay less than blue book so I priced it at $26,900 and now I am lowering it to $25,900... If my goal is to sell within a couple of weeks, is this a realistic plan? I posted an ad in the Clublexus Classifieds as well as Yahoo classifieds. Perhaps I will try autotrader.com.
Thanks in advance.

 

....to advertise. I have successfully sold 3 cars very quickly using them. Your strategy seems very realistic, because usually, people buying from a private party will expect to pay close to the "trade in" value of the car ......also the fact that you have such high mileage (even though they may be highway miles, people just see the number) will have a much greater negative effect in the REAL WORLD as opposed to what the websites (KBB, Edmunds etc.) will deduct for it. Since you're pricing is around 3K or so below the KBB private party value you should be OK

 

Your pricing seems reasonable. As a point of reference, I purchased my '01 LS with Nav & Levinson in Jan of 2005. It is CPO and had 50,000 miles. I paid $30,800. I'm not sure what the CPO is worth, but I believe that the dealer said that he paid $750 to have it CPO'd.

Good luck.

 

Sounds like both of you are very knowledgeable folks. I agree, say all you want about "higway mmiles" I just look at the odometer. Having the service all at Lexus is a plus. You can ask Lexus to print out the sevice hisoty and any Lexus dealer can do so with a nice printout just by using the car's serial number. Good luck.

 

Thanks for the advice guys. I lowered the asking price to $25,900, this should help....

 

It really depends on the kind of bites you are getting on your car as to be able to know if you are pricing it correctly. If too many dealers call, you are too low. If you don't get any calls, it's obviously too high. Tricky, I know. I would take the Trade-In value from the 3 main auto pricing web sites; NADA KBB Edmunds and then take the Private-Party value from those sites, if available, and average the prices to see what you get. Also, just go on to sites like Autotrader and see what a 2001 LS430 is selling for with similar mileage. If you would like to use eBay, you can do a search for your car and click the choice for "completed sales" and the ones that are green are the ones that successfully sold. Best of luck!

I would say your car is priced perfect, especially if the car is being sold with servicing up to date.

 

Thanks again for the advice. The car actually sold for 26900 from an add that I ran before I lowered the price. Judging from the amount of calls and offers, the car is worth $27000.