My girlfriend has to a do a trade-in this week before her next BMW payment is due and would like to get a Camry. I'm trying to get her into a Camry Hybrid but her car is only worth about $20,000 in trade-in value so unless we find a smokin' price on a hybrid I doubt she'll be able to swing it. 1) So my question is for the Norcal folk on this forum. What dealership would you recommend between Sacramento and Santa Cruz that could help us out? 2) What guildline should I use when securing a price or placing an offer for a car on the table? I've not done a ton of research on the Camry hybrid to see what a realistic price is. She is trading in an '01 BMW M5
Have you thought about a private sale? I'm sure you can get more than $20k on the private market for an M5.
I was offered $1000 under invoice for any 2009 Camry Hybrid on the lot when we went shopping. That makes the price of a basic model about $23,200 plus tax and license. The one we ended up buying had maybe $2500 (list) of options. The Toyota dealers advertising fee was $551. Some people expect the dealer to eat the advertising fee and would call my deal $449 under invoice.
Put it on Craigslist, cars.com, autotrader.com for $1,000 more than blue-book value. You'll never know if there's going to be a bite unless you put it out there. My sense is it should be easy to sell. An M5 has a huge following and some folks are just waiting for the price to get down to this level. I've always sold my cars online-- never considered the sure loss of trade-ins. One more thing, go to a local Carmax. They appraise cars somewhat higher there than regular franchised new car dealerships. That's what I do to set my lower level baseline. Carmax will buy your car on the spot if you like their price. You don't need to buy from them.
Maita's website says they have 21 Camry Hybrids on the lot. I was able to get a good deal on my Prius when they had a bunch of them on the lot ( $3k below MSRP). So, you could try that approach.IDK if this is really a recommendation, just a possibility. Watch out for the finance guy, LOL. IDK if they will deal on the trade in - I didn't trade my old car, I sold it private party. Have you tried CarMax to get a quote for the BMW? I haven't done that, but have had some friends that went that route. They will buy your car without you buying one of their cars.
Not only the selling price, the switch from M5 to Camry is a hugh shift in class and handling. The Camry will be a 'fluffy' ride compare to M5, make sure your gf is ready for re-adapting too. (The new MPG will make her grin though).
Well, you're not going to get a good deal on a hybrid with gas prices at $4.00/gallon this month. And she's going to take an absolute bath on the M5 for the same reason. You can buy an awful lot of gas for what you'd lose on this deal!
If you refer to the trade-in value of $20k based on kbb.com, you are in for a big shock. I just sold my '98 BMW 540iA. Mazda/Honda/Toyota dealers DISCOURAGED me to trade it in because they thought I might CRY when they tell me the offer. I went to CarMax (had very high hope for it). On the opening day of the Modesto branch. The appraiser complimented my tip-top condition BMW, and offered me $6500. The kbb.com trade-in listed at $11k. Can you imagine my anger? I waited 4 months for them to open. Anyway, I went the craigslist.com way, I got the highest offer of around $9500. I let it go. It took me about 3 weeks of listings. BMWs/MBs simply do not do well in auction (expensive and frequent repairs). Therefore, trade-in values suck. If I were you, I would put it up at craigslist. Some guys might be interested in it. And, you may hope for $18K if you are lucky. For trade-in, you probably will get $12K. Yep, no kidding.
This is all good information (not really what I want to hear on some of it but reality sucks) and I think you guys for taking the time to post it up. I'm going to have her read the replies and try to formulate a plan. I agree that this is the worst possible time to do this. It's almost as bad as trying to sell a home in a stagnant market or when prices have plummeted. Ugggg
Consumer Reports will sell you a print-out of the actual dealer invoice cost for any new car. May be useful in negotiating a price. But my advice is: Forget the Camry: Tell her to get a Zap Xebra. Camry mileage will save gas compared to the BMW. The Xebra drives right by gas stations without ever stopping. (Unless you want to razz the poor slobs pumping gas into their stinkers, which I do not do and don't advise!)
You can also get this, along with current incentives ans any additional charges, at edmunds.com or kbb.com
I got my Prius at Walnut Creek Toyota. Straight forward people to do business with, no BS, no hard sale of any extras, maintenance, etc.
It amazes me how stealerships always try to undercut a cars value and it isn't always because of fuel consumption. They want to make the high profit. We bought a fully loaded VW Jetta TDI 2005.5 model year in 2005, I think we paid just over 28K for it. We put just under 50K on it and during this time learned the hard knocks of VERY expensive maintainence on these cars. I would never buy another one. Dang transmission has to be serviced every 40K and runs nearly $400.00! We took it on a vacation from Texas to Santa Fe last July 4th and it broke down, and was there for over two months. During the headache we had ordered a new 2008 Prius with intent to sell or trade the Jetta if and when we got it back. We picked it up in September (the Jetta), brought it home and took it over to the Toyota dealership to see what they would give us. The TDI Jetta market was at that time very hot, and the book value was trade, 18K, low book was 21K and I think the high was 23K even with the miles..They offered us 15K (this was a perfect condition car that needed zero detailing), so I took it home, and put it on the TDI forum and sold it in three days for 21.5K. Not bad for a car with 50K on it. The guy who bought it was a VW Master tech and had been following my posts on the TDI forum about the problems. He knew right away what it was and fixed it before he drove it home to Virginia..But the short of the story is, private sale if you can, even if you have to make another payment. Specially if you can post it on a forum specific to the car. Timing was perfect too as our 2008 Touring Prius came in less than two weeks later. Good luck, John
