Grateful for any advice as in a bit of a conundrum here, and apologies in advance for the length of the post!
Decided we would part exchange both of our cars for one family car, and went to a garage this morning to try to get a good deal.
The cars we want to part exchange are -
55 reg Honda Civic VTEC Sport with 56000 miles
56 reg Nissan Micra c+c Essenza with 9000 miles
Both in very good condition, especially the Micra.
We were looking to buy a new Honda Civic Type S, and had the Parker/What Car etc baseline valuations to hand for our old cars - about £5000 for the Civic and £7700 for the Micra.
So we were a bit shocked when we were offered £9500 for the both of them - indeed, we were shown the guidebook which apparently confirms these prices (though I am pretty sure they could do better than these!). Furthermore, Honda didn't want to budge on the price of a new Type S, saying they may be able to knock a couple of hundred quid off the exchange cost (which would be £7500 to start with).
I realise it's not a great time to be buying/selling cars (particularly for Honda!) but I am pretty shocked at the part exchange prices being offered - particularly offering only £5450 for a car which is less than 2 years old, which was worth £15000 new. I would have thought that Honda would be prepared to compromise on the cost of a new car if they are offering such low part exchange prices, but they didn't seem bothered when I said I'd go to other garages to see how much they could undercut the price.
Possibilities are:
- Keep both cars, which seems pointless since one of them is seldom used and is apparently devaluing at £375-ish per month, according to the guide Honda used..plus I could really do with a diesel given that I do around 18000 miles a year
- Take the deal above - just does not seem good value to me though!
- Try a different Honda dealer - though are they just going to say the same thing?
- Perhaps part exchange the Civic and try to sell the Micra privately to get more money - although that may take some time and I'd rather not have it sit there for another 6-12 months waiting for a buyer
Any other options? Drivethedeal has good deals on new Civics (e.g. 5 door EX down from £19k to £16k) but would need to sell both cars privately, presumably.
Does anyone else think it unreasonable to offer such paltry part exchange prices while refusing to budge on the price of a new car?
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They made an offer,its up to you whether you accept or not.The dealer has to find a home for both cars,not an easy job at present and as you say you can always sell your cars yourself but do you want the problem?
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I fear you would be buying in one market (the pre-crunch one) and selling in another (the new realism). Keep both and enjoy them on different days (what's the saving on diesel going to be compared with 7,500 pounds up front?) or, if you must, sell the Nissan, keep the Civic for a year and see what the market looks like then.
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Well, to be honest I'm not a fan of the Micra (OK, so swayed in part by the Top Gear review of the car, with Richard Hammond wearing a paper bag over his head for the duration of the test drive!) and rarely use it. It's hardly been used for the last year due to my wife's medical problems, and she's unlikely to use it again for at least another year, so it seems a false economy to keep it in any case - even though she's only just finished paying off the finance. Yesterday we had to call out a breakdown recovery service to jump start it (wouldn't work when we tried from mine). I know I should have disconnected the battery etc but have had other things to worry about!
As for keeping the Civic - it's a possibility but I do drive a lot of miles and often get called into work at ridiculous times of the night for emergencies (it's 20 miles away along very windy roads!). I know Hondas are reliable but I'm not sure how long I dare keep it..how long before something major goes wrong? And from my last tank of petrol I only got 31mpg - hardly brilliant economy.
All a bit of a conundrum really! I did consider part exchanging 9 months ago (was offered £7300 for the Civic, at 43000 miles) but wasn't really in the financial position to do so - I am now, but would rather not wipe out my savings if possible!
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You could try another dealer and see what they offer.
Other choices are offer one of the cars as px and see if they can improve their offer, play the gentle waiting game, walk away if the sums don't add up and if they still want a sale they'll contact you after a few days with a new deal which you can then haggle over.
Also consider selling one or both cars via an auction, if they don't reach your reserve price you just bring it/them home with you.
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"auction, if they don't reach your reserve price you just bring it/them home with you."
Must be a cost for this isn't there?
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Varies with auction, usually commission upon sale, entry fee, service charge type of stuff.
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I wouldn't try to p/ex two cars in one deal. I'd have thought it's difficult enough now to get a deal with one. I'd have a go with the Honda and see what you can do privately with the Micra which sounds like a car that'll sell to the right buyer or at auction. Who's this Hammond bloke with the paper bag fetish, anyway?
Good luck!
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The dealer has got to move them on somehow. The Micra they're not going to retail as it is the wring make. The Civic they may not want to with mileage. Therefore they'd need to sell them on at auction or to another trader.
The prices offered reflect the fact that they may not get any more than that moving them on. They are not going to offer £12000 and risk that they may lose £4000 on the px deal just to shift a Civic.
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Just for a bit of trivia. If you have a petrol car averaging 30 mpg or a diesel car averaging 40 mpg over 20,000 miles the difference in fuel cost at current rates is £336 a year in favour of the diesel. Or £28 a month or less than £1 a day.
Not really worth shelling out a lot for a new or newish diesel unless there are other reasons to change at the moment. Would have thought the Honda was barely run in at that mileage. Sell the Micra and keep the Honda would be my advice.
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>> I know Hondas are reliable but I'm not sure how long I dare keep it..how long before something major goes wrong.
8yrs and 100k should be pretty easy for a 55-Civic.
The newest model, funnily enough, is far more UNreliable than the 96-01 (Rover 400 lookalike) and 01-06 models (the breadvan look).
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Parker valuations are meaningless in today's market and bear no resemblance to the values offered by the trade.They tend to build hopes up that come crashing down.My own experience was looking to sell an 18 month old MX-5 roadster coupe the one with the electric roof.Parkers suggested px of £13300 was so far off the mark.I was offered £10000.That's one of the supposed more reasonable cars for depreciation and yet it had halved in value to the trade.Thats the way it is I'm afraid
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Dereksn51
Off tangent I know, but my fiance and I are thinking of buying a folding hardtop MX5 as a wedding present to ourselves!. Have you had any problems with leakage? Thankyou
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Legacylad
No problems with leakage -no problems at all in fact.Pretty well screwed together and the 2.0 sport is the one to go for.But don't whatever you do buy new.That's a great wedding present idea though.Congratulations.If you need to know anything else e-mail me and I'll try and help.
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to be honest I'm not a fan of the Micra (OK so swayed in part by the Top Gear review of the car >>
>>
You own the car - can't you make up your own mind about it!
Why did you buy the Micra?
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The parkers guide etc is exactly that - a 'guide'. The dealer would have priced the cars on what he would get back at auction or if they don?t send to auction and deal with a trader then thats the price the trader has offered him. It used to really annoy me when I was a car salesman and people would come in with various guides such as What car etc(not having a go at you R1ckw) and say my car is worth this much etc. The sales manager would always say to me 'well go and ask them if What Car will buy their car off them for that price then'!
Or another classic...Your What Car price guide has cost you £3, I have a Glass's Trade book that costs £300. Which price shall we believe
I think in these times you are not going to get great prices for trade in's as nobody wants stock they cant shift sitting around and most of the traders i still speak to want cheap fuel efficient cars.
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No dealer want's your PX - the world is awash with new/pre-reg cars they can't sell.
Next year they will start dumping these onto the market - see what second hand / px prices are like then ;(
MVP
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I've fully accepted that in the current climate the (poor) p/x being offered for my wife's Getz is a fact of life.
However, it's rather annoying when those same dealers have retained the screen price of their cars at the same level over the last three months. The ones I've approached just aren't interested in any sort of deal and have a 'take it or leave it' attitude. If I had a V8 4X4 I could understand it. But it's a small hatch I want to p/x.
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Although I never thought I would see myself writing this, I kind of feel sorry for the dealers at the moment.
If the present circumstances mean you can't make money at dealing, whatever you try, you might as well sit back and do nothing at all.
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Just p/exed wife's 03 plate Yaris T Spirit for a 55 plate Yaris; the dealer allowed us £3600 trade in, it's now for sale with a screen price of £5290.
Seems like a hefty margin but I very much doubt they'll get that much for it.
(I'm not complaining, by the way, I think I have always had a fair deal and good service from this dealer)
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>>I know Hondas are reliable but I'm not sure how long I dare keep it..how long before
>>something major goes wrong?
It's a far cry since the 70s when a Maxi needed a rebore after 25,000 miles. Keep the Civic, it's got 7 years left in it yet.
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>>Does anyone else think it unreasonable to offer such paltry part exchange prices while refusing to budge on the price of a new car?
They may have over allowed i.e. used margin from the new car to over inflate the PX prices.
Ask them whats the best they can do with no PX then you can get an idea what if any discount you are being offered.
Personally I would PX Micra CC (very tricky car to sell) and sell the Civic privately.
Have you tried Honda 2 Mills near Chester ... the forum was praising them last week for some very keen deals.
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Re: drbe - I didn't want a Micra, it's something I've virtually never used; it's my wife's car which she was using as her own car, but circumstances dictate that she won't be able to drive it again for a long time (and has barely used it in the last year - although we weren't expecting for it to remain unused for so long, otherwise we'd have got rid of it months ago!)
Re: niceguyeddy - I actually bought my Civic from Honda 2 Mills, back in the day when dealers were flexible, and I got a very good deal. Unfortunately I live several hundred miles away now so it's not really an option!
Still not convinced of the best course of action (other than that I need to get rid of the Micra somehow!), but it does seem that this problem really isn't specific to one dealer (though I didn't really think it would be!)
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