> > Now I look up its value, and both Edmund's and the NADA book show it
> > being worth around $15,000. That's a 40% loss in one year!!! I was
> > considering upgrading my Dakota to a bigger Dodge truck, for larger
> > towing purposes. But I can't afford to lose $10,000! I still owe $20k
> > on the loan!
> >
> Are you sure about this? 25K sounds like too much for even a 4X4. I paid
> $100 over invoice for my loaded v8 2wd(95) ($14,173). There is no reason
> to ever pay more than 100-300 dollars over invoice for a new vehicle. I
As I recall (I can't find the paperwork at the moment), the sticker
price on my truck was about $25k. I offered $23,500 and that was about
$500 over invoice. I think that's fair on such an expensive vehicle;
the $100-$300 seems more appropriate to a $10k-$15k car. They may have
squeezed a little more out of me, but not much. My wife and I played a
little "good cop / bad cop" and did pretty well at the bargaining table,
if I do say so myself. :-) It was fairly easy because they were trying
to get rid of their 96's to make way for the new model.
We also bargained them down on the extended warrantee from $900 to $600,
if I recall. That plus tax, title, license, etc. brought the total back
up to about $25k. It would have been $28k w/o bargaining.
So I don't think we did so bad. We used Edmund's and new exactly what
the MSRP and invoice costs were, and the dealership's sticker wasn't
artificially inflated, or anything. Some of the more expensive options
we got were:
* 4x4
* extended cab
* Towing package
* Automatic tranny / limited-slip 3.55 diff
* SLT package / aluminum rims / AC / stereo / etc.
I think about the only thing we didn't get was a fancy paint job. And
the fancy console with compass, thermometer, etc. If someone here can
tell me they got a '96 with all those options, and paid thousands less,
I'll be pissed. This is *not* a $20,000 truck.
You know, I posted to this list when I bought the truck ... I just
downloaded 96*CONTENTS from the archive site to search for my post, and
the CONTENTS files don't include a "From:" line! Only subject. So I'll
have to unpack all the *gz files and go digging. :-(
ANYWAY, a slight correction on the current value. $15.5k is the
*trade-in* value; $17.5k is retail. I was so shocked by this whole
thing, I posted the wrong number. And I don't owe $20k on it like I
thought. Still sucks, though. $25,000 --> $17,500 in one year is an
outrageous depreciation, even for a new vehicle. Trucks usually hold
their value MUCH better than that.
When I bought the last of the old-style Dakotas, I banked on the fact
that there'd be enough people who *didn't* like the new style, the '96
would still be worth something. Alas ... Dodge must've done too good a
job with the new style. :-/
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Paul Caskey mailto:pcaskey@swcp.com http://www.swcp.com/pcaskey
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