Adventures In Selling A Car

Kristin and I have been thinking about acquiring a new car. Both our cars are six years old. They both work. But they are requiring a little bit more in maintenance costs every year. Both would need new timing belts soon (or "training wheels," as Kristin calls them). So when all was said and done (car payment minus lower maintenance costs), it wouldn't be all that expensive to lease a new car. Plus, the joy of driving a brand new shiny automobile. But first, we'd need to see what my car would fetch.

On Sunday, I checked Kelley Blue Book, and the trade-in value of my car was $6700. This was a little disappointing, but not altogether unexpected. The private resale value was around $8-9k. This still wasn't what I wanted to get for it, but no big deal. I then went to the Infiniti dealership to look at the G35's. While talking to the salesman about my current car, he indicated that they could do a trade-in, but Carmax would give me a better deal, probably closer to the private-party resale value than the blue book value.

So after a little more car shopping that day, we went to Carmax. We went through the whole process, then waited while the appraiser did his thing. After an hour, the representative came back to the office where we were waiting and told us that the car was in great condition (great exterior, great interior, great structurally, great engine). So I expected a solid offer well above the $6700 quoted by KBB. He then proceeded to offer us $4000. I was appalled. Kristin was ready to throw something at someone's head.

Anyway, after getting an explanation from the appraiser, we left and drove to the Audi dealership. After talking with the salesman, and after he had "his guy" inspect my car, they came back and offered us only $2600 for it. Who knew I was driving such a jalopy?!?!?

(This isn't my actual jalopy, just a picture of one found on wikipedia. A picture of my car has not been included so as to protect its identity.)

Anyway, to commemorate my jalopy, please go here. This is an oldie but goody. It's uncensored, so if you don't like bad words, you shouldn't watch. If you do like bad words, you should watch multiple times.

To end, a decision has been made to keep my jalopy (I really like saying that word) for a little while longer and completely run it into the ground.