Yes both new and used car prices are ridiculous. I'm trying to help my son-in-law sell his old 2008 Suzuki SX4 with manual tranny and, book price, it's barely worth $2,000 but I saw the same car sold at a local lot for $6,700!!! I told him to ask for $5,000 but finding folks who can drive a stick is, surprisingly, very hard these days!
In December of 2019 we traded in a good 2004 Sienna Van with 150,000 miles on it in excellent shape. It ran like a dream and we kept the interior very clean. It did have some undercarriage rust and an intermittent cat fault. We received a $2000 trade in credit for it when we bought a new vehicle. The Dealer sold it for $3500 a week after we traded it in. I wonder what if would sell for in this current market.
@Isaac Zachary It's been a good thread to work out other ideas, but I don't see a deal worth making from your current position. Car prices won't stay stupid forever. Hang on to the Av, another year or two and things will look different.
The question then becomes, what to do with the Prius. It also needs work. Battery is bad, the engine burns oil and it needs a new catalytic converter, plus I need to change a wheel bearing. As a result, we haven't driven it for the past 2 years. I was getting around to working on it again as I now have some money. But do I put that kind of money into a car we won't use that much anyway as I can only drive one car at a time, or do we sell it and rely on just one car? The other question is what to do on those occasions when we need more than 5 seats. Renting seems to be no longer an option either. We packed 8 people in the car one time not that long ago...
Ok. So we've decided to not get a van and to just sell the Prius and stick with the Avalon. It will continue to be a tight fit and it will limit us in some ways, but there are more important things we can do with our time and money. If things change in the future we'll see if we can then get a minivan of some sort, but just not any time soon.
Trading the Avalon for a minivan has really gone out the window if KBB is correct. A while ago they put the trade-in value of the Avalon at around $10,000 with the posibility of selling it for even more. Now they're saying it's worth more like $6,000. At any rate, uncle and family flew in this weekend. So we are 8 packed in the Avalon again. Yeah.
I found a single owner, 150k 1992 Toyota Previa with manual transmission... I'm so tempted right now...
That also means you found the one guy capable of keeping one going this long. Betcha he has a sweet lift and child-sized hands. I've enjoyed some classics and some just plain old cars, but a 31 year old minivan considered for frontline family hauler duty... that's pretty hardcore!
We sold our 2004 Toyota Sienna that was excellently maintained, in great condition with 150,000 miles for $2000. We sold it because it was 16 years old at the time and I wanted a vehicle with the latest safety technology. It had 8 seats with a tow package - was an LE Model. My impression was that the bank 1 cat was going out also- nothing an industrious diyer couldn't handle. It's not hard to find a good buy on a used late model van if one is really interested. It will take a little more work nowadays but nothing that would stop a motivated individual from finding a deal. We checked on a new Sienna with all the modern safety features, but Toyota had priced themselves out of our reach - I'm not about to pay over $50,000 for a van that is still missing some of the desired safety features. Ended up with a South Korean SUV for the same price we paid for our Sienna back in 2004 - the new SUV included every safety feature that is currently available.
Yep I've also abandoned my plans to sell my 2014 Tundra and get a new Tacoma. Retail for the Tundra is pretty nice (still worth $29K) but I can't justify paying $42K for a Tacoma (which ends up being closer to $47K after all the insane Colorado taxes...we are now just about 95% California-wannabes) Sad time, indeed.
It always seems like anything newer is the cost of brand new or so. Maybe if I worked harder at looking I could find one. But just plugging in numbers for a Sienna that's half what this Previa is in terms of age and mileage (from 2008 instead of 1992, 75,000 miles instead of 150,000) I find that nationwide on Autotrader the cheapest one is $12,500 (that isn't a smashed wreck needing to be towed or something similar). That's a lot more than the $3,500 asking price for the Previa and is about what I paid for my Avalon (that I also found on autotrader) when it was just 5 years old.
No denying that family vans are scarce these days. And again, I've really enjoyed some older vans.. but that really seems extreme. I fear to think of how many parts are no longer available. Especially stuff that would've been exclusive to this model, like interior trim, HVAC and the powered accessory subsystem.
Or the SADS. I understand those can be hard to find and a pain to change when they wear out. Ya, I think I just keep sticking it out solely with the Avalon. Having a car is better than no car.
Heck. I'm looking for another Prius C and although prices are 'dropping', it isn't nearly enough. I think part of the issue with the Prius C is that there just isn't as many out there compared to the other Prius models...
If this database is accurate, there were 198,360 brought to the USA. 2019s appear to be exceptionally rare.
Yep, I saw a similar number. I have seen the elusive rare 2019. The dealer obviously knew it was rare and priced it as such!
Maybe I only noticed it because of this thread activity, but I noticed a Previa parked on the street yesterday. Gray, with a white hood and a red door.
This one has a good CarFax report. It passed emissions in February and apparently, according to the CarFax report, has lived it's whole life in Pheonix Arizona.
That's a good sign in terms of corrosion anyway. And it may mean that the owner kept the air conditioner going. But nobody knows if the door and window seals can still keep rain out. That becomes a real concern with vehicles of that age. Lots of the rubber and plastic bits turn to mush or dust. Sometimes mushy dust. I'm not sure Carfax would have any bearing- they are reliant on voluntary reports, and who takes an old van to get fixed in the kind of shop that reports stuff to Carfax? There are usually many cheaper fixes available.
