I broke down and traded in a car to a dealer. I cannot believe it. Family was totally shocked.

The wife wanted to buy a new Honda.  Since they were out of Civic Type R's last Saturday she had to settle on a Pilot.

I decided to trade in the 2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer LS 4X2 and take the hit.  I am 55 years old and have never traded in a car - I always sell them outright and scoff at those that trade in cars.  What was I thinking?

There are 90+ Trailblazers on Craigslist Chicago - there are 30+ Trailblazers under $3,500.  I might have gotten $2,300 but I let it go for $1,250 - it felt odd and made me sad but then again I didn't have to deal with the crap I needed to do to sell the Trailblazer - it needed tires, front end work, old battery, heat came out of dash only, and a slew of original parts that might need looking at (rubber brake lines, ball joints, shocks, tranny/rear axle fluid).  

Some days you don't want to dick around - this was one of those days and even though I probably tossed $1,200 out the window I am glad I don't have to deal with it.  

You ever feel this way?

I totally agree with the choice you made. 

When i got the Ram i traded in the Avalanche because they gave me 4500 and i owed about 3800.  I didn’t have the lack of conscience needed to sell that truck to a person face to face 

That's my normal routine when buying a new car. I usually keep cars till they aren't worth much and I really hate selling myself. Just not a salesman and hate messing with selling so trading in gets it out of my hair.

The last vehicle I sold was to a fellow forum member and I didn't really advertise it, just mentioned I need to get rid of it and we came to an amicable deal. The one time before I tried selling a vehicle myself failed miserably. I wanted to sell the K5 Blazer I had at the time as it was 14 years old and needed work. Guy came over with an even older Chevy truck with an engine swap that wasn't running right and a rusted out bed. My K5 had a little rust bubbling behind the rear wheel wells but not even close to the extent of this truck. Could see the ground through the bed. And he wanted to trade even. Didn't take much to figure out who was going to come out ahead on that deal. Even considering the K5 needed an engine rebuild. I politely told him go away. Decided to rebuild the K5 myself then someone ran a red light and put it in the junkyard. Didn't have to mess with it anymore.

The older I get the more willing I am to trade money for time.

Don't forget you saved a little on the sales tax this way. 

In reply to mtn :

Correct - about $95 savings.  

Adrift said:

The older I get the more willing I am to trade money for time.

That is true. 

Adrift said:

The older I get the more willing I am to trade money for time.

Very much so. 

That said, I have traded in only one vehicle in the past 15 or so years.  And if you know how often I change cars, you know that's saying something.  It was the 2011 F-150 that I traded when we bought the Expedition.  After perusing Autotrader and considering what they offered me, I decided the difference wasn't worth the hassle.

I've done it every time since I sold my last E30. 

For instance, I just traded the BRZ in on a 135i. Dealer gave me $16,200 trade in. '15 BRZ Limited with 39k miles, 1 accident on record, but other wise a very clean car with a lifetime warranty on the repairs. With the way those cars are getting beat up on the private market, there is no guarantee I would have been able to get much more, if any, for the car. 

Then I would have had to deal with people that just want to drive it, people that don't already have their financing in order, multiple phone calls, emails, going to their bank, people asking stupid questions that are right in the ad, and on and on and on.

I'm willing to pay for convenience and less stress. 

Datsun310Guy said:

I decided to trade in the 2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer LS 4X2 and take the hit.  I am 55 years old and have never traded in a car - I always sell them outright and scoff at those that trade in cars.  What was I thinking?

Some days you don't want to dick around - this was one of those days and even though I probably tossed $1,200 out the window I am glad I don't have to deal with it.  

The older I get , the more I realize that time is more valuable than money.  How much per hour would you have been able to pay yourself by investing the time and cost and effort to get that $1200 back?  Unless that $1200 makes the difference between solvency and bankruptcy, I'd absolutely say you made the right choice.

I’m in commission sales so a better effort can gain me $1200 in no time.   

I traded in my '06 Cayenne Turbo S for my '15 Cayenne Diesel.  The 06 was maybe worth $13k privately, but it was going through 1qt oil/500 miles. So it's debatable if I would've gotten $13k for it.  Dealer gave me $9k, I saved $1k with taxes, dealer moved my trailer brake controller over for me $600, and I kept my 20" techno twists with like new tires $2500.  

Added all up, I basically got private party value out of it, but I didn't have to deal with trying to sell it.  First time I've traded a car in, ever I think!

I think you made the right choice. I did my first ever trade-in last November,  and it felt a little weird.   I could maybe, after days and hours of dealing with Craigslist sourced no show lookey-loos,  gotten $500 more.  Avoiding the hassle was totally worth it, especially since 15 year old Volvo wagons don't have a huge buying audience.

 I was sad for about 5 min when I thought of old faithful sitting forlornly at the wholesale auctions, but then I imagined her being shipped overseas and having new adventures in interesting wide open places with an owner who loves her like we did. 

Easier to trade in.  Generally, I look at trade in value when it's peaking.  Then I look at how much in maintainence, repair costs.  Usually, it offsets each other.  Plus no PIA trying to sell it.

We all spend money to avoid hassles and save time.  It's really a question of priorities.  I used to live in a cabin in the Adirondack mountains and I spent about $200.00 a year on firewood to heat the house.  I'd spend hours cutting and splitting wood and when it got cold in the house I'd go outside and get more wood.

Now live in a real house on the outskirts of the city and spend at least twice that for natural gas.  Thanks to programmable thermostats I don't have to do anything to keep the house warm.

Heck, indoor plumbing is expensive compared to a hand drawn well and an outhouse but few of us would be willing to give that up.

I think the important thing is to make those decision consciously.  Yes, this is more expensive but this is what I'm paying for.

Oh, my usual solution to the trade in vs sell outright dilemma when it comes to vehicles is just run them right into the ground so they're not worth anything to anyone but the scrap metal guy and then I haul it to him.

Dealing with Craigslist buyers gets harder all the time. Am I getting old, or are they getting worse and worse?

I found this before CraigsList even existed.  Back in 04 I was trying to sell our 01 Escape.  Six weeks on AutoTrader with what I thought was a reasonable starting price, not the highest or lowest and inline with what the on line estimators said it was worth.  I expected to knock off $500 and would have easily dropped $700.  Zero real offers, just scam's even back then.  Gave up and went to the dealer and was offered my asking price, let alone the expected $500 off.  Never bothered trying to sell a regular car privately again.  Next car I traded was an 04 Highlander (Shudder, ugh ugh) and their first offer was higher than I expected right off the bat. 

If you truly could have gotten $1200 more for the car then it would have totally been worth it to me to sell on Craigslist even at 42 with two kids and a huge house to take care of and a job. $1200 is worth a lot of annoyance and time to me, and I've never had a Craigslist vehicle sale take anywhere near enough of my time and attention to make it worth losing $1200.

HOWEVER, I am shocked at what dealerships can offer on trade for some cars. You may not have gotten any more money at all selling it on CL. Sometimes I've heard of Carmax paying as much or more than someone had a car listed on CL for. And especially once you start a laundry list of things that need done to the Trailblazer, the CL buyers start dropping like flies.

I had a virtually perfect 2007 KLR650 and it still took a number of lookers before I sold it. But after turning down a half dozen lowballs and gun trades I finally got 100% of what I wanted out of it and the buyer was happy and enjoying the bike. I've met a ton of interesting and good people through CL while selling car parts and oddball vehicles. Don't know if that would hold true with a run of the mill 2wd Trailblazer but it might.

STM317 said:

Dealing with Craigslist buyers gets harder all the time. Am I getting old, or are they getting worse and worse?

They're getting worse every year. I can't believe how many people old enough to use Craigslist don't even know how to read. I can understand not knowing how to spell, but how the berkeley are you an adult in this country that can't read?

Quite a few years ago we bought my wife a used minivan to replace her even more used minivan. The dealer offered us next to nothing on our trade in so I decided to sell privately. The transmission failed the next day. Lesson learned.

SO.. you got $1250 for a car that needed $1250 worth of work and would only be worth $2500 once repaired.  I think you did just fine!

I only got $1,600 when trading in my 2005 RX-8 in 2015.

It was super clean looking in and out and I had just dropped $1,200 on consumables (tires, struts, clutch, etc.) but it had an accident history and the engine was going (only ran well for a few minutes before warming up) and it had 227,000 miles (I know, I know, shut up) so I was in no position to throw the offer in the dealers face and storm out.

Actually, they initially offered me $900 but after yelling “why are you insulting me” right there in the showroom, they dragged me off into a little side room and bumped the offer up to $1,200…again ”oh, why are you insulting me-he-he-he” with an unmistakable yet not overplayed element of pitifulness in my tone this time got me to $1,600 and I decided to not push my luck any further.

Shouldn't this thread have devolved into, "Derka, derka, derr, you are stupid for buying an new car, derka, depreciation, derka, derka, I bought a used Chevy truck for $2 derka" by now?

In reply to Appleseed :

Bobzilla hasn’t arrived yet. Give him time.