Originally Posted by
Danny F
Hi all,
I came to this forum back in April or May under the name of Danny. I forgot the pw, couldn't seem to figure out how to find my account, etc. I did the thingee to get a replacement, and not sure what happened.
Anyway, I sold my Mirage, but wanted to thank the members who's info I used to buy it in the first place. Before I came here, pretty much everyone said to not get it. In buying it, I lost (I think) $2,000 on a Fusion I had bought a month or so before. Might be $3,000. Either way I took a bath on it.
Financially, this car turned out to be the best vehicle decision I ever made. I got lucky in that the chip problem caused a shortage. Still, the end result was I bought my car new for $13,500 in April or May. I sold it back after putting 29,000 miles on it for $12,500.
In addition, I saved almost $2,000 in fuel over the Fusion in that time. Each fill up I figured my MPG, then figured in what it would have cost me in fuel had I had the Fusion. Then took the difference and put it in my savings. Each fill up was $17.38 here, $19.51 there, and so on. At the end of 7 months it came out to not quite $2,000. To be exact, $1977.86.
Other than checking the oil a couple of times to make sure it could maintain the 7500 mile change interval without having to add any, I did no maintenance on it. Wiper fluid and checking the tires I guess might count, but the car was new, and nothing went wrong.
The dealership on both ends were great. They're sister dealerships. I bought from one, sold to the other. Those dealerships are Grand Blanc Mitsubishi and Waterford Mitsubishi. Anyone in Michigan can walk into either dealership and be treated well. I hope they do well for themselves when they sell it.
They had actually called a couple of months ago to see if I wanted to sell it. I thought I might, but wanted to make sure I had another vehicle lined up. When I looked at HHRs, they wanted $8,000 or so for cars with north of 100,000 miles. Skip that. I'll just keep what I have.
Then around the New Year, a friend wanted to sell me his car for $2,000. I was thinking it might be worth it to see if they still had any interest, so I called them back. This was on a Tuesday. We set up the inspection for Thursday. On Wed I drove my friend's car for work. All that did was drive up the price for what I was willing to sell the Mirage for.
After driving his car for a day, I appreciated the Mirage more. Especially when it came time to fill it up. Uggh!! So I went down there thinking I was probably going to keep the car, but I guess I should keep the appointment. I'd already cancelled on them once, after I had looked at other replacement cars. At least I'd get an idea of what they thought it was worth.
When the manager came to me and said I was about to get the deal of my life, my immediate reaction was to roll my eyes and think "yea right." I'm almost 60 and have heard some form of that comment for years. I said something along the lines of "I guess we'll see."
When he told me what they'd buy it for, I immediately said "SOLD!!"
So I no longer own the Mirage. In my job we put so many miles on our vehicles, it's probably better to get older used vehicles that ya drive for 2-3 years. Having 2 vehicles is almost a must, because there's going to be times when they need service. Buying new probably isn't the best idea because under normal circumstances they depreciate so fast.
Again, I'd like to say thanks to the people who posted when I was in the looking stage. The information was very informative and gave a perspective I didn't get anywhere else. I bought it because of what was stated in these threads. Had I not gotten the offer I did, I'd still be driving it.
You all be well and I hope your year is a prosperous one.