i also find it interesting how emotion enters into the car marketplace. A skilled seller can use that to his advantage. I just did with my 2008 Infiniti G37S 6MT. Sold it for 13,700, higher than Bluebook or many other sources would suggest. But it is a rare color, low miles, and manual trans, otherwise good condition but not showroom. I knew there were people out there seeking that color in a manual trans, quite hard to find. I advertised nationally and sold it in a month to someone looking for exactly that and didn't want to settle for anything else.

But the LS430 is not that. 60k miles LS430s in great shape are not hard to find. 100k versions in great shape are a dime a dozen. Very few people are willing to buy 100k cars no matter what they are. I bet I could put mine up for sale and it would take months to sell at 7,000 and it's a very solid car, excellent maintenance history, UL version. So it's a no brainer to keep and continue using as reliable comfortable transportation, as smooth and quiet as my boss' S550.

 

Thanks for your response,to answer your question I will replace the LS with another one.I will wait for the one owner near mint with all maintenance docs and must be dark blue.It may take a long time to find it tho.Here is a link to my 93 sc400 totaled in 2017 which i received $6500 and like you i would rather have both undamaged.https://poctra.com/1993-LEXUS-SC/id-...V/ELLENWOOD-GA

 

2004 Lexus LS 430 135,181 miles - asking $4,999 CA 578 days for sale (price drops of $3000) still not sold
2004 Lexus LS 430 154,765 miles - asking $5,500 CA 48 days for sale, still not sold
2004 Lexus LS 430 159,000 miles - asking $5,995 CT 59 days for sale, still not sold

The market is what it is....

 

I like the LS 430, think is is a fine automobile, and think it can be a very good choice if purchased at a good low price. I have not had issues with my LS 430. But, not everyone agrees with me as can be seen in the first 52 seconds

 

But, here is his 2002 Lexus ES which he bought 6 years ago for $3000 when it had 60.000 miles on it and he still likes it very much. Perhaps many of those good points he mentions in the video go for the LS 430 also....

 

These are solid references! People like me will poke holes at your pricing methodology, maybe consider the following:

• Provide Source file/site - this will help others determine for themselves if the info. is from a valid/credible source
• Include a date infomation was pulled - for all the reader knows, the data above could be from a car buying season, where car sale prices are lower across the board
• Include a comphrensive list - looking at this, leads me to believe this is all that is available, however other sites have more vehicles listed

It appears a subjective bias is applied and there is an attempt to prove a point by providing limited information to lead the reader to believe that your opinion is accurate, when in actuality is just missing details that provide and objective view of the market.

When providing "insight" or an analysis, be thorough or risk losing crediblity, as past behavior through writing in other threads has shown to be inconclusive, misleading, and generally biased.

 

What methodology would I employ to price some dealer's inventory? That is their business. I simply observed auto dealers ads on the interweb offering LS 430s at retail prices. I observed them as current offerings on the interweb within the past 24 hours, as you or anyone can easily do, and listed the first 3 I saw with similar miles to an auto one of our members listed in a post with a KBB price. I would expect that dealers are pricing inventory based on supply and demand. Just as every seller of an item does. Waning demand is likely why the LS 430 sits on many dealers' lots unsold until the dealer either finds a customer who may pay the asking price, or negotiates a lower price with buyer. Often a dealer will cut the advertised price, such as the dealer listed as one of the examples who has dropped his price by $3000 over some period of time. A local used-car dealer told me that they are not good property and he will not carry them because they sell too poorly and his business's success depends on him acquiring inventory he can move. (Sorry. But, he would not be happy if i gave you his name so you could verify this fact.)

There are plenty of examples of LS 430s for sale by dealers at full retail prices anyone can observe on the interweb firsthand, in seconds, with a few key strokes. Car Gurus has about 500 LS 430s listed for sale. Autotrader has about 300 LS 430s listed for sale. Cars dot com has about 250 LS 430s for sale. True Car has 180. And there are many other sites listing LS 430s for sale. Plenty of LS 430s are listed on those sites below $3000 full retail by dealers. Plenty of low mileage examples are listed on those sites below $6000. Plenty of LS 430s are listed at $12000 and above on those sites (I know from observing some of those still for sale month after month without selling). Right now, Ebay has a 2006 LS 430 in a no reserve auction ending in a couple of days with a current high bid of $2247.99 as of 9:10 AM PDT Tuesday, July 2, 2019. There is also a pristine 76,845 mile garage kept 2004 Lexus LS 430 with Ultra Luxury Package and a current $10,500 bid on EBay.

As observed prices of LS 430s are very soft, an opportunity may exist for someone wishing to acquire a LS 430, considered by many to be one the finest production automobiles ever, at lower and lower prices. A buyer is in a very strong position to negotiate lower prices with sellers as prices continue to drop.

 

The one with 135,181 has 2 accidents reported
https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/link/192667459

the one with 154,765 looks pretty messy, front and rear bumpers scratched, and front seat likely ripped - and the looks of that rear seat belt belies how it has been treated
https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/link/240763888

the one with 159,000 miles has no record of timing belt I could see in the Lexus or carfax history, but either way no Lexus service in the last 60k miles, and it's a 3 owner car.
https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/link/236461999


the market is indeed what it is, and prices are logically coming down as time marches on, but for a 12 year old car at its newest prices for low mileage well kept examples of an ls430 are still much stronger than other cars of this vintage, and at a minimum stronger than what you are portraying.

You will always find anomalies but sites like car gurus allow you to see that a car priced at $6k is $1-2k below average, which by definition means the average price is higher than copying info from the first three cars when you sort by 'best deals first' or 'lowest price first'. Every car is different, price alone means nothing without condition, service history, location, etc.

 

The average price of the LS 430 keeps dropping like:

 

again, not sure I agree. The prices of course vary based upon what's for sale at the moment, but they seem fairly stable over the past quarter.
Year over year you're looking at approximately $7-800 a year decrease in value by model year, which us favorable against other cars of the same type and age (Acura, Mercedes, BMW, etc.)

 

How about a report of all actual retail transactions?

The report you show is of listed retail asking prices, as you noted. And, asking prices may be stable. However, asking prices do not tell us at what prices transactions occur. Actual transactions may take place 20% or more below a listed price and only in the few listings where a transaction occurs. So the many other over-priced listings where no transaction occurs further skew results.

The average prices in the CarGurus price trend listing are not remotely close to the average prices at which transactions are actually occurring. If one really wants to know what a LS 430 is worth, one may take it to a Lexus store and ask for the used car manager what amount he will give for it in cash for a straight deal involving no other transaction. One should not be surprised when the used car manager offers to pay maybe 1/2 of the dollar amount of the index price of average retail asking prices where no transactions are actually occurring. (If one is test driving a LS 430 for sale from a dealer, may I suggest driving it to the nearest CarMax, asking what CarMax will pay you for it, then using this knowledge to negotiate price after you drive it back to the dealer.)

What is interesting in these forums is that when actual, bona fide, irrefutable results are reported of the May 2019 auction sales of LS 430s occurred between $3500 and $6000 with ready buyers buying at these prices and ready sellers selling at these prices, these actual transactions are rejected by some here as not being a legitimate factor to help determine what someone should be willing to pay retail. But, a listing of average retail asking prices where no actual transactions occur and where average actual transactions would not have a prayer in hexx to even come close to the prices in this skewed report, should be of help in determining what one should be willing to pay for a LS 430?

I think it may be much better to rely on actual transaction prices when trying to determine at what price to pay for a LS 430.

 

I think this thread has ran its course.LOL

 

So, what did those auction cars sell for at retail?

 

Well, prove all the transactions for us to see. And I don't mean cherry pick 2 or 3 clapped out high mileage cars off ebay.

You are ridiculous. That's NOT what a car is worth. They will turn around and sell it for thousands more than they gave you for what it is really worth. Completely clueless.

 

Thank you for bringing some data driven sanity to this cluster. As demand wanes, retail prices will creep down, but I don't see any reasonable evidence that the gap between asking and selling suddenly increased. And if it did, asking prices would quickly adjust downward to reflect the market. And that CLEARLY hasn't happened in the last 18 months that he has been watching.