[saturno_v]

Originally Posted by greaser2

KBB numbers are a joke. I always start with givemethevin.com and get the wholesale price. You should be able to get close to the wholesale value, if the dealer wants to put on their lot, you can get a bit more.

KBB is supposed to give you an average of actual transactions, in fact, it offers a range of prices.
I never had any trouble getting KBB figures for my trade.....a bit of back and forth and it usually settles.

[mdmoore23]

This isn't necessarily a folly of new car buying itself. If you want to swap cars often and care somewhat about depreciation, you have to be careful with what cars you buy. I've had many of the top American sports cars and have never had too heavy of a loss. Now, the one and most definite regret was one mental lapse I had in buying a BMW 428i. I kept that car for a month, so needless to say the loss was pretty bad. The one thing that did help was getting $6k off MSRP initially. I'll never buy another car in that segment of the market. I also never pay msrp.

[Chris C 1SS 1LE]

What I've learned,low to high:

Black book wholesale. What dealer offers on trade in
Trade in value. Basically a meaningless KBB number.
Private party sale
Retail.

Buck makes ten your 5 year old Q gets sent to auction and ends up at Smiley's used Car lot. Seems to me how it works.

[raptor5244]

Originally Posted by Chris C 1SS 1LE

What I've learned,low to high:

Black book wholesale. What dealer offers on trade in
Trade in value. Basically a meaningless KBB number.
Private party sale
Retail.

Buck makes ten your 5 year old Q gets sent to auction and ends up at Smiley's used Car lot. Seems to me how it works.

You got it and Smiley’s is smiling all the way to the bank when he sells that 19k Q as a buy here pay here no credit required to someone for 28k.

[1hprush]

Originally Posted by Deakins

I don't care what mental gymnastics you do, the OP is correct in his statement that it's a massive amount of money thrown away. I don't fault the dealer for trying to make money on both ends, but I feel that a great many people in America get caught up in the latest and greatest craze...and that leaves them with depleted bank accounts and minimal wealth accumulation. From iPhones to Cars, some people gotta have the latest at all costs.

Oh come on...live a little, hopefully you are in good health, otherwise you could be spending the same money on medical bills...now that would really suck!

[SienarSystems]

Research what the car you want is selling for, autotrader.com is pretty good. Find the maximum discount on what you want (not including rebates) and even email the dealership with the best online price. Depending on the distance, you can figure out shipping and some stores quote that too. So start with what you want to buy at your local store and the max discount not including rebates. See what they’ll do...Then do as others suggested, go to carmax and get an offer. Selling dealership matches offer or you sell to carmax. And, here in CA there is no tax break for the value of the trade. You pay tax on the full purchase price every time...

[Michael2000]

Originally Posted by saturno_v

So I sat down with the salesperson last night, he did pursue me very aggressively during the last two weeks to make an offer.


A white fully loaded automatic ZL1 stickering for 69K and change, they were asking off the bat 63.9 on their web page.

I showed them some dealers around the country offering similarly optioned ZL1 (more or less) as little as 56-57K.

Your going from 69K and comparing it to 56K, or 13K off? How are you getting that much off? That's way below invoice.


I agree with two other posters here. Take it to CarMax or Infinity, and see what they'll give you. I've heard of some people doing reasonably well at CarMax. By the way, you get much higher depreciation on options than the base car. You may get zero for many options.

[Chris Edwards]

Originally Posted by raptor5244

I get what you are saying but for that same money ($56k) now you can buy a Tesla Model 3 that will shove you in the seat just as much if not more than the ZL1 (I am not joking, even the base Model 3 will make you lose your stomach if you mash the throttle at low speed), it goes 310 miles per charge on battery and cost $27 on average per month charge it. As for the tech, you can summon the damn car to you. Things are changing so fast for cars. We are witnessing a huge shift in the auto market.

If you can sell your existing car for 26-28k then I would definitely do that since it will be hard to get a dealer to pay more than $20k for it on trade unless they are making up the profit on the sale of the new car.

Best of luck.

^this. I drove a performance model Tesla Model 3 this past weekend and it was awesome enough to make me unload all my gas guzzling, depreciating GM junk for something fast as shit and useable 24/7 365. Tesla is totally changing the game and 95% of the junk on the road is a relic that will be nearly worthless very soon.

[Gunkk]

Originally Posted by JonDaddy82

I’m in the business. Since their most likely into the holdback money on the new unit, they’re trying to stay too far out of the red by holding on the trade. So if they showed you 18K, their ACV in the system might be 19.5K. The “pot” is only so big. Since you opened up wanting to see a big top line selling price discount, they had no where to go on the trade. Had you opened up making everything about the trade, they would’ve stuck closer to sticker on the new unit and showed you 24K+ on the trade. Had you only mentioned trade difference, then that might be more of a 50/50 spilt. You as the customer tell us the managers how to sell you, and what’s important to you. Some people it’s OTD, some payment, some trade figure.

To recap what others have said:

- Options on the used end don’t matter like they did when you bought it.
- Infiniti’s don’t resale for shit compared to Lexus.
- They don’t care how much you love your car and think it’s special.
- It’s just another VIN to them, there was 100 before it and they’ll be 100 after it.

OPs mistake was not getting a baseline Carmax quote on the Q in the first place.

ALWAYS have all of the answers for everything you can control before starting a negotiation.

[JBsC6]

Sell the infiniti yourself and do an in and out at the dealer to save on sales tax..

Thats what i would do...

The zL1 is awesome!

[ICTsccaCamaro]

I like when people say "fully loaded" or "loaded to the hilt" and then list every option it is missing, making the car obviously not loaded

[DaveC113]

Originally Posted by JBsC6

Sell the infiniti yourself and do an in and out at the dealer to save on sales tax..

Thats what i would do...

The zL1 is awesome!

This is the way to go if you can find a buyer. Dealers call it a through-sale and will generally do it for $500-$1000 processing fee. This allows you to save on sales tax plus get your private party sale price minus the transaction fee.

I do think used car prices are down a bit. I think this is reasonable as in the past people have been willing to pay very close to new prices for a car 1-2 years old, maybe there are fewer people willing to pay that much now...

[BMWM.D.]

Originally Posted by max pl

So you got like 12 to 15k off on the GS but only 5k off on the ZL1?

Yes. I bought my GS at the end of the C6 model run when the discounts were very good. The 2014 Stingray was already out when I bought it. I didn’t expect to get that on a 2018 ZL1 purchased in late summer of 2017. I thought $5k was good all things considered. I wasn’t willing to wait for anything more. Life is too short.

[BMWM.D.]

Originally Posted by raptor5244

Corvettes tend to hold their value better. There is always a buyer for a Corvette, especially a good condition Grand Sport.

Yeah, that’s true. I guess it goes back to buying the right car if you don’t want to take a beating. I’ve typically bought lightly used and done very well. I don’t expect the same with the ZL1, but I don’t really care.