I've seen several posts in here regarding the great deals folks made buying their RX. I assume they were "clean" deals, ie, no trade-ins. Tell me about the kind of deals you made with a trade-in.

I'm seriously conisdering swapping my Outback winter/hauling car for an RX350.

EdP

 

Definitely no trade it. But I have to sell my Camry for the RX350. I got great deal on my RX but thousands less for my Camry.

RX350 - Navi, Premium Plus, 18" wheels, heated seats & rain sensor, etc. $45.6K MSRP. Buy it for $40.8K, tax, title & reg. extra.

2003 Camry SE - Fully loaded, clean, 32K miles, KBB price for trade it was $14K, traded for $10.8K. Sucks!!!!!!!!!! But I've saved couple hundreds on sales tax for trade in.

 

Hmmm ... I apologize for not understanding your post.

Are you saying that they knocked the price down from 45.6K to 40.8K and then allowed 10.8K for your Camry?

OR

The RX price *would have been* knocked down if you didn't have a trade-in and you were allowed a 10.8K trade-in amount against the MSRP of 45.6K.

EdP

 

We agreed on the $40.8K price for the RX. I didn't mention trade in before I signed the deal. I knew the trade-in is suck but I needed to sell my car quick for the RX.

 

There's only one Lexus dealership in my area for hundreds of miles,so no competition. My RX with an MSRP of $45,683. cost me $41,500.

I wanted to trade my 2004 Rav4 with only 11K miles in on my RX350. They offered $16500. for it. The offer was too low, even with my trade-in tax savings.

I'd never sold a vehicle myself before but if I wanted the RX350, I needed to try. Just to get a feel for the interest in my Rav, I ran it through the car wash, vacuumed it out, washed the windows and put an ad on Craigslist on Saturday afternoon, a lady came Sunday AM to look at it and made an offer close to the asking price. She was also willing to wait to complete the transaction until my dealership found the color combo I wanted. She had cash. Sold.

I imagined selling my car to be a huge hassle, but all in all it was a very simple thing. A few hours of my time, a test drive. it cost me nothing to advertise and I spent 15.00 for a car wash. May not be the typical story but it worked out that way for me. Even paying the additional sales tax, I still came out nearly $2700.00 to the good.

Also, prior to purchase I opened a Lexus Pursuits VIsa card. You get 50K bonus points when you buy a car before the end of the month (according to the Lexus website) That's $500.00 to use at the Dealership towards Maintenance accessories etc.... In addition, I charged $7500.00 of my vehicle's purchase price on the card which equaled and additional $375.00. Add those to the 5000 points for the first use, I will have a total of $925.00 I can use at the Dealer. Going forward, we plan on using the card for all the purchases we typically pay in full every month to keep the credits coming. Hopefully that will cover most of my maintenance needs in the future....

 

I did that for my last two old cars (Accord and Corolla). I just put on the "For Sale" sign, no eBay, no Craiglist. It took me them before I sold them, in cash. But they worth more (way more) than dealer. I'm kinda regret that I didn't do that for my Camry.

 

ms350 ... what a great outcome. I wish I had had such luck in the past. I tried to sell my cars for years and had success with only one; my '57 Ford ragtop, back in '64.

 

I had an '02 Mercedes ML320 with 65K miles to trade. Lexus dealers use Kell Blue Book for pricing, which in my opinion is very low. The dealers must own that price guide. The dealer offered me $13K, so I decided to sell it myself.

I based the price on the private sale amount using the price guides at www.edmunds.com. I just added all my options and provided the milage, the website gives you the price for your area of the country. I printed off a window sticker and parked my car in a office type parking lot on a busy street over the weekend.

My car was pretty well kept and did not need any maintenance. I noramlly fix anything that is not working before selling. My tires were pretty bald, so I bought new tires too. The first person that looked at it gave me what I was asking, which was $17,500.

I have sold several cars over the years and they always have sold right away. The key is pricing it right. Too many peole have unrealistic expectation of what their car is really worth. I just try to be fair about the price and I wanted to sell it right away. The little bit of extra effort was well worth the extra $4,500 I made. The dealer will always offer you much less than what it is worth, they have too much overhead to give you a good price and still make money.

 

I had some things in my favor:

1) It was a Toyota - Everyone knows they are reliable.
2) Low Miles- average was just over 4K per year!
3) Popular Model Plus, I had the top of the line version. It's an SUV but not a gas guzzler.
4) Well Kept. I didn't do anything special to it, but I was the only one in it 99% of the time. No kids, no car seats, no spilled drinks etc. Just to work and home again.
5) Extended Warranty- I had intended on keeping this car long term, so I added a 6yr 75K mile extended warranty at the time of purchase. I had say no to the finance guy over and over then he finally offered it to me for employee price of $550.00 so I took it. This was transferable.
6)Prepaid Maintenance Package Again, I was thinking long term when I bought this. 4 year maintenance package. I wanted to have all work performed at the dealer so I did this for convienience, it was also transferable.
7)Luck Right buyer at the right time. It was what she was looking for, and it was going to be her retirement vehicle. Had Cash, wanted as new as her $ would get her. The warranty & maintenance were icing on the cake for her.

Like Jorge said, I priced it fair. At least I thought so. I used Edmunds, Kelly Blue Book and NADA as guides. I did a nationwide (not many local for sale) search for 2004 RAV4 with under 15K miles @ Autotrader.com to see what others were asking. I had additional value in the low miles. Since I had the additional benefit of the warranty & maintenance packages, I asked the high end of the Private Party values for a vehicle in excellent shape. I might have gotten more,it I wanted to hold out, but not enough to give up a instant sale, for cash to someone willing to wait up to 3 months for me to find my replacement vehicle!

Give it a try...you never know!

 

[QUOTE=JorgeGVB;2191132]I had an '02 Mercedes ML320 with 65K miles to trade. Lexus dealers use Kell Blue Book for pricing, which in my opinion is very low. The dealers must own that price guide. The dealer offered me $13K, so I decided to sell it myself.

Many dealers, not just Lexus dealers use the Galves book for trade in prices. They are the lowest prices possible. Bunch of savages.

 

My dealer tried to tell me they give KBB trade in values, but their offer of 16500. was about 2K lower!

 

They offered me top dollar trade in on my prevous S500, but they didn't drop a single dime on the RX, instead they gave me like trunk tray, hood deflector..

 

I had a 2002 Pathfinder, dealer offered $7500, trade-in Kelley blue book was the following:
Excellent $10,100
Good $9,200
Fair $8,100

I sold it for $10,500 to a small used dealership so I guess I did ok. It turns out these are the same dealership, Major brand (Lexus, Toyota,etc) dealership sales to when they don't want to go thru the CPO route....kinda like a middleman, than these companies put it in Autotrader, etc... I see my car marketed for about $14,000-$15,000 so I guess they can sale it pretty quick for $12995... no big deal I got my RX350 for $38,100 before TTL

 

Sounds like some small used car dealerships are doing better than the one you are going to buy the car from.

 

lok888 and Ms350, can you refer your car dealers and the sales people you worked with to me. I am really in need of purchasing a car and my Lexus dealer is knocking off about $2500 off of MSRP $45.7k so about $43.3k. These deals sound much better and it's worth my drive to save $2000. Thanks,

Kan-O-Z