Low trade question.. this make sense?

I’m looking to get a Tundra. I currently have a Frontier. I negotiated a good deal on a 2015 Tundra Crew Max in white TRD for $27,400. It has 52k miles.

they offered me $9k for trade on my 2012 Frontier Crew Cab. NADA has average trade for $11.5k. I just got an offer a few months ago of $12.5k but I realize it has dropped a little since then. When I ask this dealer...why so low, they said..

“We have already lowered our price and marked our vehicle down. Other dealers have the ability to show an over allowance on trades toward their vehicles. We don’t as we have already marked ours down”.

i said “so you are going to low ball my trade to make up the difference in marking your vehicle down?”
I didn’t get an answer. Is this common practice? To lowball the trade in to make up the difference in their vehicle they can’t sell and have to mark down or did I just get a greedy salesman and dealership?

Isn’t my trade value it’s value. I understand their approach. Just seems so shady. Why does my trade value reflect your inability to move your vehicle? They have been sitting on the truck for a few months. I bet they call back. If not I’ll find another deal.

Just curious where to go from here. I’m looking to be around $11-12k for my truck.

 

of course, they always do it..try to sell your truck on your own and tell dealership you cannot buy their tundra til your frontier sell. They might give you what you want to make that sale.

 

Any car guys out there think $9k is a “realistic” trade in value. This truck is in great shape.

2012 Frontier crew cab with 81k miles.
Black with black MBTKO wheels and Goodyear Wramgler Duratrac triple wall tires. 3” lift. A few other extras and I know extras don’t get you anything.

 

Whenever I go to buy a car I only care about the bottom line number, what am I paying out the door. For instance I just traded a 2017 lifted tacoma in for my new 2020 Tundra. The sales manager asked me what I needed to make the deal happen. I told him give me 33 for my Tacoma, I will pay 48 for the Tundra. He came back exactly with that, I only had to pay taxes on 15k so I was out the door at 16,490 for the 2020 Tundra Sport. yes please.

 

Pic of the truck.

 

Look at NADA like you already did, KBB as well and also look at market prices nationwide and in your area. What are 2012 Frontiers with similar mileage selling for on ebay, or at dealerships. Of course trade in will be a bit lower but I think if you area after the 11.5K that sounds completely reasonable. I would just objectively tell them that. 11.5K for my truck, I pay 27,400 for the Tundra (should only then pay taxes on 15,900) and see what the out the door number is. If you own the Frontier, depending on what taxes are where you live you should be around 17k OTD I would guess.

 

Was the Tacoma paid off though? It all depends on what you clear in the end.

My dilemma is not that I’m cheap or can’t afford a new truck. It’s that I have a work car and my truck sits parked 6 days a week. Hard to spend $50k on a driveway ornament. That’s why I’m shopping 2015 Tundras for about $30k or less. I have put about 35k miles on this Frontier in 5 years.

Im trying to be around $310-320 a month on a 72 month loan. Maybe that’s not possible with my trade. If I found a tundra for $27-28 and I can get $11-12 range on trade in right at that figure.

 

My truck year with similar mileage and condition but stock is listed for about $15-16.5k around here. So they stand to make a decent dime on it. Granted it would go to auction. But what would auction be??

 

I don't want to seem as if I'm siding with the dealerships but...I get it from their end. For far too long these dealerships have been robbing and stealing from unsuspecting buyers. Now with the internet it's a whole different game and people go in prepared and with the same attitude of wanting to browbeat the salesman and finance manager to death in an attempt to pillage the dealership. Most people I've worked with in the past few years just want to make quick deals and spend the least amount of time on them so they can close another deal. They have offered very good first initial offers on a new vehicle in an attempt to make the deal go quickly. When I spring on them there's also a trade I do not expect to get the higher end of the range unless I'm also financing through them but I expect to get within a certain range. I guess what I'm trying to say is they have to make their money somewhere. I know there is dealer holdback and monthly and quarterly sales bonuses etc but a really good deal on the vehicle your buying usually means an meh deal on the trade. I'm not saying you should let them steal from you, but the idea is the deal should be fair to everyone.

 

Never mix selling your vehicle with buying another in the same transaction, no, no, no....

 

Your truck is worth 11k at the least. What state are you in? That truck would sell in a day in my neighborhood.

 

Why?

 

It minimizes this nonsense and gives them one more area to negotiate. They usually start with a really good offer on the new vehicle to get you excited and then lowball the trade. These transactions are emotional for a lot of people and once you get that really great deal on the new car and you picture yourself driving it many will make decisions on their trade in they wouldn't normally make if they were simply negotiating the value of the car they were selling in isolation. Car salesman know this point well. I typically separate them as much as possible. I only talk price on the new vehicle and then if that's good I will offer a trade. My attitude though is if they low ball the trade then fine...I sell it myself and I let them know that right up front. Like I said I know the range going into the transaction. If my range is $12-13.5K and they offer me $9K...that's a no go. If they offer me $11.5 or 12K and I really don't want the hassle of selling the car myself then fine. NEVER BE AFRAID TO WALK AWAY. I have never been in a situation where I needed a new vehicle - I just wanted a new vehicle. I have not had too many experiences with dealers playing games and I've purchased nearly 10 vehicles in the past 20 years.

All that said in many states there are also tax advantages to trading in a vehicle - you only pay tax on the difference between the price of the new car and the value of your trade in instead of on the full value of the new car. That too must be factored into the deal.

 

Have you tried having Carvana buy your car? They gave me $2k more than any other dealer was willing to give and they came to my house to pick it up.

 

Ok. Makes sense. I know the numbers i need. I go for it. If they dont like my mumbers i walk. Took 3 times negotiating for my current truck. Finally found a place that was willing to give me the numbers i needed. (Numbers=new vehicle price, trade price, loan %/months). People just have to be willing to walk. I wasnt in a hurry. I liked my 17 sr5, just wanted the pro more.

 

I always look at the truck first without a trade-in and get them to come down as far as they can then talk about the trade-in value and if they won't give you the nada price or close to the price then just walk out and you will be surprised what they will do. When I found my tundra it was listed for 30k got them to come down to 27k telling them I wasn't looking to trade in my Silverado. After we got that price set I asked how much they would offer me for my truck just out of curiosity and it was valued at about 12k and they offered me 9k for my truck. I told them I would do the deal if they would come up to 12k for the truck they obviously said no then offered 10k and I offered to meet in the middle at 11k for the Silverado. They didn't want to do it so I walked out. Next day they called me and said they would do the deal (full disclosure the tundra had been on the lot awhile as I had been watching it for a month so I think they wanted to switch up the inventory) I do feel like I got a steal of a deal for the truck but moral of the story is make sure you get deals separate for the truck and the trade-in then merge them together and see what they say. You won't always get as good of a result but always ALWAYS be prepared to walk away they are in the business of moving cars so use that to your advantage. Good deals are always coming so just be on the lookout for them. Pay attention to what trucks have been on the market for awhile those are the ones you get the best deal on. That's my two cents on the subject. Hopefully, that helps.

 

For the OP, I don't understand why your are confused. Perhaps this is the first time you've entered into a purchase with a trade-in? Car dealerships are one of the last true markets in the USA. It's as pure an economic exchange as Adam Smith could have dreamed of. Car dealerships want to maximize their profit on every transaction. If they can get you to pay more for their truck, and accept less for your truck on trade, that is their goal, their only goal.

You always receive a lower value on trade-in than doing a private sale yourself. The main reason anyone agrees to trade-in is for convenience. You drive in with your truck, sign some papers, and drive away with their truck. The dealership knows this and places a discount value on your aversion to listing your truck, dealing with flakes, test drives, no shows, low ballers, bounced checks, voicemails, no return calls, handshake for $10k but only shows up with $9k cause their kid fell down the stairs and is in the hospital, etc, etc, etc.

So the dealership says, I'll give you $9k or sell it yourself.

I've probably know 8-10 guys that were car dealers and everyone one of them said they could care less about your trade. They throw you a ridiculous low ball, if you take, great they make more money at auction, if you haggle, they may give you another $250 in trade. But their incentive is to maximize their margin at both the trade and sale.

I also asked them why they don't match KBB, and same answer. Cause we don't need to. You want/need our truck way more than we need yours.

So your either so smitten with the Tundra Crew Max they have that you don't want to shop any other dealers and will have to accept their lowball, or exercise your rights to enter into a negotiation with another dealer. At least until Elizabeth Warren makes it illegal to negotiate because you're hurting the dealerships feelings by calling them cheap.

 

Never even mention a trade in until you have a deal on the new one. Then you can negotiate that separately. Take the one you are trading in to 2-3 places to get a better idea of the value.

Listings on websites, KBB, etc are a decent place to start, but they are just estimates. No dealership is going to care what another source says the value is. Your truck, like everything else, is only worth someone is willing to pay for it.

On top of all that, they do plan to sell your trade in for a profit. They’re not going to give you market value for it, ever.

 

I took my daughter 4Runner shopping a couple of months ago. I averaged the high and the low on KBBs trade in value and it came to 5k on her high mileage Xterra.
First dealership we came to the deal on the 4runner and they offered 1500. I laughed and told them that’s not even the low end of KBB. We left.
I called the second dealership we had lined up and sent them pictures they offered 5k. From the pics.
They beat the price on the others 4runner but knocked off 200 on the trade because of a dent in the hood that they didn’t see in the pictures.
Line up some other options. If they don’t deal walk away.

 

Like I said...depending on the state don't forget to factor is tax savings of trading in vs private sale. It can be significant!

 

Im in NY. I wasn’t trying to rip them. I wanted $11.5k and it would of been a done deal.

 

https://www.thinkbank.com/black-book/

They claim these are true black book values. Plug your truck in and they give private vs trade in values. Without knowing the specifics of your truck it's around $12K trade and $16K private.

 

I’m not trying to rip them. Just trying to get a decent fair trade. Why should I give up $2.5k on a trade? Because they can’t sell their truck and have been sitting on it for months. I’ll see how this turns out. Maybe they won’t call. But my perfectly fine truck doesn’t need to go right now either.

 

Thanks. I’ll check that out. I was thinking $11.5k was fair. I wasn’t trying to rip them at all.

 

I didn't think you were trying to rip them off. Just comes down to knowing what you want and accepting or rejecting what they offer.

 

Get a carmax ,Vroom, carvana etc. Offer and show them or sell to highest bidder.

 

Nice. I’ll have to save this for next time I’m shopping. (For someone else
Not giving up mine for a long time)

 

Never done that stuff before. No clue how it works.

 

BTW....was the MSRP on the Frontier new $26K?

 

I don't do trade-ins. I always sell my vehicles on my own. Dealerships will NEVER give you what you feel you should get on a trade-in. And mods don't increase a vehicles value on trade-in.