Depreciation and trade in value

That same car that the dealer would give you $11-12K for, they would try to sell for $18k. No reason to trade to a dealer, nor probably to sell it. Don't let yourself feel bad about it. You have a great car!

 

I agree. resale value sucks!! I had a dealer Dodge dealer ask me if my 9300 mi Pri had the traction batt. replaced. I asked why. He said he would give me 500$ more because it was a risk and due!! Non toyota dealers do NOT know Priuses. But,he was only 500$ under what a toyota dealer offered me.

 

I looked to trade my '12 for a different econobox as I no longer need it. I thought I could save by trading it and dropping the car payment a bunch but the only dealer even worth the time talking to was Toyota. I'm disappointed. It seems all relative... I bought a more expensive Prius to save gas on a crazy-long commute, saving overall. Now I have no commute so tried to save on the car itself but it's worth so little.. I'm finding unless we keep Prii for a long time, it's all relative, save gas but take a beating on unloading the car. Is there an optimal time to trade one? Too soon and depreciation kills us, too late and the car isn't worth anything. I decided to keep it and worry about it later.


iPhone ?

 

My feeling is the Prius can keep a good significant of it's value when it's still under the emissions warranty. I get asked a lot about the hybrid battery failing and the warranty that would cover it. Lucky I'm in CA and the warranty is good for 10 years and 150k miles. I noticed that the cars often are sold right at the 150k mile mark, just as the warranty is to expire. At that mileage, a good condition car will sell for about $6000-$7000 on the private market. This could be the best time to sell as if you bought new, you would have gotten 150k miles out of it and you wouldn't have to face the possibility of a traction battery replacement or major overhaul of the engine or transaxle.

 

IMHO part of the problem is not the depreciation, but the fact that the dealers are going to try and make as much money on your trade as they can. We just traded our 2008 pkg4 with 90k miles in on a new v. Negotiated a decent price on the v, but the dealer wanted to give us $5000 for the trade. KBB was about $8k, though it needed a few little things (HID replaced, one small paint ding). Took it to carmax, they gave us a cash offer of $7500 after a thorough inspection. Went back to dealer and they matched the carmax offer.

It might be worth searching the Toyota Certified Pre-owned website to see what the dealers are trying to sell cars like yours for. Here in AZ the listings for a 2010 with 33k miles are $20-23k.

That said, most of the time you're probably better off just driving a 3-4 year old car than trying to sell or trade it. We probably would have just kept the '08 if we hadn't decided to upgrade to the v to make room for kid #3 arriving in a few months.

 

Searched certified preowned in Chicago, $16-19k for pkg 2-3 so definitely some regional hit there as you observed.

 

$7500 what a deal!! You probably could have listed on here and got $1000 more.

 

Probably lol

Better than $5k though. Almost lol'd when they came out with that offer.

 

If I was in your situation, I would not have sold it to that dealer. Just save your time and finish the transaction at Carmax. Let them make the money when they resell it. At least their price was fair.

 

Almost did. Except then I know I would have used the proceeds from the sale to buy myself a PHEV kit for my car instead of putting it down on the wife's new car. Wait, why didn't I do that

 

Prius prices are proportional to gas prices. High gas prices = high Prius prices. The oil companies will ramp up gas prices in the spring and your Prii will go up in value.

 

I have sold 3 cars to Carmax, they always give you a fair offer, and will always beat a dealers offer.......$7,500 offer and getting a check from Carmax is alot better than having to deal with a stranger these days. So i would do the same, Carmax and then dealer to see if they will match, if not Carmax gets it.

 

On my wife's Honda Element with 130k I had a dealer offer $5k and I got $7,500 cash via Craigslist within 48 hours of posting. That was the KBB private party value. We had CarMax quote us a year early than that and they were way off, don't remember the amount at the time but considerable less versus KBB.

 

If your Honda had 100K miles plus at the time Carmax will not give you a great offer, they like to buy cars with less than 100K miles.

 

Everything vehicle depreciates - fact of life. RVs are probably the worst followed by a close second on motorboats, then motorcycles and cars. The Prius is probably better than most but it still follows the same downward curve. One thing going for it is the Toyota brand and really good gas mileage. Most people won't buy a car with 100k miles, but that is different on the Prii. Also high gas prices will fluctuate the price, along with the lower end C model. 0% APR and cash and factory incentives on new vehicles. In the end the cost of ownership is what you need to look at? Gas, repairs, maintenance, insurance, depreciation, etc. Overall the Prius is cheeeeaaaap to own over the life of the asset. Depreciation is probably 40% of the total cost of ownership. edmunds had a pie chart, but i did a quick search and came up with this. My insurance for the car comp and collision is under $500 for the year and since i got such a good Presidents Day deal the initial depreciation is probably less than 20%.

2013 Toyota Prius Two 5dr Hatchback Cost of Ownership

The moment you drive the car off the lot it has lost $25%+ of its value. you can't get reimbursed for TLD, etc. It is the hard truth... In the end the car has a good resale value and is not soft - but very marketable.

I plan on selling (wholesale) the car to a family member when it comes time to upgrade to a newer 2015 Prius body in 2-3 year style or wait until 2020 for the Fuel Cell Toyota and expect to get around $8-10k for a car with 100K+ miles.