2003 Focus zx3 valuation

I'm helping my sister get ready to sell her Focus ZX3.

It's a 2003, 5 spd with 127,000 miles on it. It has a black cloth interior and has some paint issue shown in these photos.

Mechanically the car is sound, although it does have an oil leak from the valve cover and the parts store IAC seems to be a bit sluggish. It doesn't stall, but does occasionally sound like it's close to stalling. I may replace it with a ford iac to see if it improves.

The prices on Edmunds are lower than the local CL listings, so I'm leaning towards aiming high.

Ideally she needs to $3,100 out of it, which seems to fall in between the CL and the TMV.

Any suggestions?

Thanks, Joe

Location and rust status?

Not that it's going to help but up here that car is worth $500-$1000.

No one wants 2 doors and they also don't want cars over 200k kms (127k miles is approx. 205k kms).

I had a 2001 and we managed to put 197k miles on it before my son totaled it. We did 2 autocrosses a month with 2 drivers for 4 years, with a few track days mixed in. I replaced 2 RF wheel bearings before I gave up and replaced the whole knuckle. I managed to kill the OEM cat with a Ford Motorsports shorty header, and replaced one of the 1/2 shafts somewhere along the way. Otherwise it was fairly bulletproof. You may want to try focusfanatics to see if someone is looking. The only options that make an impact on price is if it had the 1-year only 2.3 Duratec, or the very rare stability management option that included rear discs in place of the drums.

To get top money, it will have to be in very good running condition which means that stalling will need to be cured.

I see in the pics that there is a dealer sticker from FL and plates from Mass. If you run a CL ad, I would hype the heck out of the rust free FL connection. I would go so far as to directly take a close up photo of the dealer sticker.
Retake a closer version picture and keep the bumper paint peel out of the new picture.

The photo you have given us show no interior. If you run a CL ad, be sure to include interior. If the interior is not prime, spend the $100 to have it detailed. You are looking for dealer type cash then you'll need a dealer like level of clean on the interior.

I just recently paid $2,300 for this at FL auction.

'00 ZTS with 69k miles. It was not perfect and I then added another $700 to make it closer to perfect including new tires.

She still need to get the interior detailed before it goes up for sale.

I would have taken photos of the interior, but she had too much stuff cluttering it up yesterday.

What is the concensus on a realistic price?

I understand the $3,100 is dealer type money and probably start with that as the asking price and go down from there but want to remain above what should be market value.

I live on a busy road, so I will probably put it in front of my house once it's ready and try to avoid the CL hassle. If it doesn't sell after a few weeks, then I'll put it on CL.

Thank you for the feedback.

I say get some touch up paint and do your best to fix the paint issues at home. Even if it's not perfect, it'll probably look better than scratches, rock chips and peeling bumper paint. The goal is to make it so that the prospective buyer won't immediately notice it on the walk around and you get dinged on the price. If they notice a week later at home once they've bought it, no problem.

Auction data suggests $1200-$1500 with your miles. I really don't see many people paying over $2500 for it, little details do go a long ways, so that means deep cleaning inside and out and put a metric ton of tire shine on the tires and a heavy coat of wax. Touch up may help, but rarely will it blend well enough for someone to over look it, generally when I touch up, I build layers of paint with wetsanding between each layer.

I didn't see it but has it had the timing belt done?

I don't know if the timing belt has been done, I'll have to look into it.

I have the same color Focus and I touch up my bumpers with Duplicor rattle can Silver Frost once a year. It makes a big improvement over flaky paint. Not perfect, but presentable. It will make an improvement to the sale.

I'm also doubting $3k (I'd guess more like 2000 tops) unless it's spotless underneath (the "Florida car" angle) and everything has been maintained per the schedule.

If the timing belt has not been done, I'd do it. Otherwise, a smart buyer is going to try to knock $1000 off.