Upgrading the family hauler

[Sax Maniac]

Yeah, it's not a Mazda, but I'd like the advice of the pricing gurus here. (I've earned it!)

Check this out: http://tinyurl.com/yugvth

I've been offered $23,999. (With $3,000 back on my '99 Blazer FWD, but obviously that doesn't count.)

Based on this, it looks like about $500 under invoice if you calculate up the invoice plus delivery, subtract $6500 factory-to-dealer incentive. Should I do it?

[hal2814]

Is $23,999 out the door or do you have to add tax, tag, & title to it? As an out the door price that's not bad. Keep in mind that this vehicle has a KBB value of about $21,500 as soon as you drive it off the lot. Losing $2,500 out the gate isn't terrible if that counts everything. What kind of deal can you get on an 07? If you can get within about $1500 it may be worth it from a depreciation standpoint.

[Sofa King]

Just as a thought. My wife bought a PT Cruiser convertible in '04 when they first came out. We went to a dealer to check out a trade in that fall and the car already lost 40-45% of its value. She bought it for around 27k and was offered around 13-14 for it. That is in about 6 months time. I was told that chrylsers DO NOT hold there value worth a damn.

But if you like it than go for it.

[Sax Maniac]

Sorry, I should have said it's a new 2006 model, AWD touring, off the lot. Are you looking at the KBB value for used?

Anyway, I don't really care about resale value, as I'm not selling it. I care about price relative to invoice. Tax and title doesn't affect that.

No equivalent deals on 2007 to be had. There is a $6500 factory-to-dealer incentive that's not on the 2007 models.

[hal2814]

I am aware you are looking at a new 2006. I was just pointing out what it's immediate resale would be. Personally, I don't pay attention too much to invoice. If the "invoice" were really what the dealer paid to get the car and were some sort of reliable indicator of actual costs I'd put more stock in it but usually invoice is a pretty fudged number (especially at Chrysler). I always base my auto pricing decisions off of expected depreciation. That's about as real a number as you can get for the value of your car. That's something I do even for cars I expect to keep a long time because the cost should never be much higher than the actual value. If the gap gets too big, then the price will come down soon.

[Dragz0@aol.com]

Are you sure you don't want a CX7 or CX9? Hmm... maybe you could work something out with the dealer you bought your 6 through...

[lapis_blue_beast]

I would highly recommend buying a Pacifica with 5 - 10k miles on it. You would probably end up saving $5k+ if not more...

[Sax Maniac]

Well, it's a done deal. It's in the garage now.

Anyway, the whole reason we went new is that most places wanted nearly the same price for a used 2007 with 20-40K miles on it anyway. To me, saving $1,000 is not worth 40,000 miles of wear. I really had no plans to buy new, but this deal presented itself. Oh well.

I also called up a bunch of dealers with that quote in hand, and nobody matched it.

CX7: not big enough. We needed a third row. CX9 was nice, but too new (possible reliability issues) and a bit more expensive at this point. Not many used ones available either to cut the depreciation.

[MikeyD]

this may be out of your price range but my dad bought an RX-330 from lexus 2 years ago brand new and weve put a good 40k on it and weve never had one single problem. Except lol a chip in one of the keys stopped working once but they even replaced that under warranty.

[Sax Maniac]

this may be out of your price range but my dad bought an RX-330 from lexus 2 years ago brand new and weve put a good 40k on it and weve never had one single problem. Except lol a chip in one of the keys stopped working once but they even replaced that under warranty.[/b]

The RX doesn't have a 3rd row seat... wasn't even a contender.