Originally Posted by
7milesout
Very accurate. I've had a few cars in my time. I've bought a few new ones from dealers. I have never in my life traded a car in to a dealer.
Why? Because they want to. They want to so bad. From day one of me ever talking to a dealer, the hair stood out on the back of my neck when I pulled, in and in the process of pulling the door handle to get out of my car, they're already asking me, "you trading this in?" And, "you gotta trade?" is a phrase that is probably spoken 1 million times a day at every car dealership. They make so much money with trade ins ... because they are stealing cars is what they're doing. So I refuse to ever trade a car in.
My MIL, in 2005, traded in a VERY NICE Ford Ranger. As I recall, it was a club cab, V6, and was a 5-speed manual. I can't remember for sure but I think it was a 2WD. It was very nice looking, ran perfectly fine, was clean and low miles. She traded it in on a 2005 Honda Odyssey EX, not the top of the line Odyssey. They gave her $900 for the Ranger, and she paid $42k for the Odyssey. One year later, I bought a 2006 Honda Odyssey Touring (top of the line, 2005 was the first year for that generation and I never buy the first year). I paid $38k for the top of the line van, and sold our 2000 4Runner for I think it was about $11k.
Should could have got $3,500 for that Ranger pretty easy if she sold it privately. And overpaid on the Odyssey in my opinion by at least $6k. In my opinion, that dealer stole from her. But my MIL does those kind of deals ALL THE TIME. Which is why she is now broke as can be, lives in a single wide trailer (nothing wrong with living in a single wide trailer), doing so so she can have a few extra dollars per month. I'd help her. Have offered many times. But she just got through exploding on me a couple weeks ago so I'll just leave her alone. If she wants ANYTHING from me, now she'll have to ask, and ask convincingly.