Is our MINI's losing their value more now? I recently traded in my 03 JCW MCS, premium, sport, leather, MFSW, H/C, with 42k miles. While I know the miles were a downfall after 2 weeks of arguing over the value 19 k is the best I could get out of it and that was swaping out the new runflats off the new car. (I like my 225 MX's better anyway)
this is about 2k below what I feel it was worth.
Now the wife has decided to trade her convertable MCS in on a bigger car with a better ride (bad back) she got the first MCSc with LSD to arrive at our dealer, only the 2nd with LSD. She ordered it in october and took delivery the first week of February,
It is pure silver, the car has Premium, Sport, Chrome line Interior, MFSW, H/C, Back up alarm, LSD, and bonnet stripes and the sport runflats with 9k miles.
The sticker was 29,899 or close to that. I was sitting with the sales manager at another dealer when he called the local MINI dealer to find out the value, the MINI dealer told him 21-22k is all the car is worth
After a few more calls along the east coast 21-23k is what they are saying! Has anyone had their 05 appraised? this seems low for any 5 month old car much less a MCSc with lsd.

 

They are not holding their value as much anymore because MINIUSA is spitting them out left and right now. There are no longer 6 month waits. Average wait now is only 1-3 months. I got mine in about a month and a half I believe. Since they are easier to get now the private seller can't charge a high price. Well, thats the way I see it.... I heard of stories of people selling a 2-3 year old MCS close to sticker price because the person buying it didnt want to wait 6 months for the car..

 

This was destined to happen eventually...there are a lot more MINIs around and MINI is gearing up for even more production. It may be even more difficult to recoup the costs on those highly modified or optioned MINIs. Values are still pretty darn good, but the crazy stuff is probably over. In the end, it's all okay w/ me...resale value is not why I bought the car.

 

Like jds, resale was not one of the reasons for buying my MC.
It does seem that folks aren't getting what they used to for a used MINI.
And the biggest hit you take on value, like most cars, is when it leaves the dealers lot the first time.

Will be interesting to see what happens when the "new" 07 MINIs start rolling out.
Sorry to hear your wife has to sell her MCSc. How about exploring softening the ride abit. Probably still handle way better than anything bigger.

 

Thats pretty hard to believe. The MCS are still practically unavailable here in Southern California at MSRP without at least a 6 month wait.

 

of course a MINI dealer isnt going to give you what the car is worth...
But I would think they would at least have gone 24k Im sure they could sell it as a cert. car for 28500.
I think it still depends on how far you are to the dealer and how many are available in your area, theres not too many S models in my town or reg MINIS for that matter.. I paid 21k for my MCS loaded, it blue books for 23k, I traded in my 2001 Beetle (8600.00), if I had sold the car to a indie person it prob would have got 9k maybe??? I probably paid 1-2k more than I should have for the MINI but the nearest dealer is 200-250 miles away and who knows if they would have givin me as much trade in on my VW??
When I finalizing the deal there was still ppl stopping to asked about it and they had a file up on the wall with several other serious buys.
Im pretty sure that if I desided to unload mine a year or two from now I could still get 18-20 for mine. who knows.

db

 

The way I look at it, it's gonna be just like the VW New Beetle, when they first came out, everybody wanted one, thought they were so cool. (ugly IMO) kinda hard to get, then a couple years later, Volkswagen produced way to many of them and couldn't sell them. They lost their value real quick. It's just a matter of time for the MINIs.

It sucks if you want to re-sell your MINI, but like a few said above, I didn't buy mine for the re-sale value.

 

Well, I hope so... as then maybe I can dump my "MINI Wannabe" membership card.

But seriously, I agree with DJ-Konky - it was only a matter of time.

So... would anyone out there be kind enough to buy a Blk/W MCS with no sunroof, a CWP, MFSW, Cordoba Beige leather and anthracite interior and then sell it to me in... oh say... the Summer of 2008 when my daily driver is paid for?

 

You will never get what your car is worth on trade in.

Plain and simple. I did my time working in dealerships and anyone else will tell you the same.

 

I hope they sell trillions, I would give up some of the value on my car if BMW would open a satellight MINI service center in my town!

db

 

Dou you have any idea how many Honda Accords are sold each and every month?

MINIs are a drop of water in the bucket. There are not even 100K cars in the entire country!

Resale values depend on what the used car market on a particular region is willing to bear, the color, equipment, miles, condition, etc


Too many variables!

If you want top dollar for your MINI I have 3 words for you: SELL IT YOURSELF!

Back in February I sold my nearly plain jane '04 MCS for $700 ABOVE of what I originally paid for it new 17 months ealier.

Trading in is a VERY EXPENSIVE convenience! Put your money in your pocket not the dealers!

 

I have to agree with you on that one

 

When I was in the process of selling my '04 MCS with 17K miles and 100% bone stock, both the dealer and Carmax offered me no more than $18,500 for the car. This car was only 16 months old.

Then I decided to give it a shot at selling it myself and lo and behold after 6 days of having it listed in www.cars.com I found an eager buyer for it. I sold it for $21,900 cash!

Moral of the story? Instead of giving away my car to the dealer or Carmax and putting $3,400 profit on their pockets, I put the money IN MY POCKET instead. To me that was a huge chunk of change. Well worth the $50 I paid for the premium online ad.

 

I agree with C4 - he knows what he is talking about.


Also, yes it's true, it's always a matter of time - but guess what? Now is not MINI's time.

 

Resale values are not a concern to me... we are planning on KEEPING our MINI! In 30 years, it will be a classic collector's car!

 

I suspect that everyone's resale values will suffer a bit once the all new 2007 MINI is launch to market. But something tells me that the 2002-2006 cars will still command strong values in the used car market because the R50-53 generation will be more sought after by enthusiasts than the all new car.


We'll see what happens then.

But don't forget this fact guys:

The MINI ain't a PT Cruiser or VW New Beetle! Our cars have the substance and quality than the other 2 wannabes never had and never will. Here lies the difference

 

Studies have shown that if you buy a car that loses value quickly (Ex: Domestics, Korean cars, etc) and you keep it 5-10+ years, you will still lose money on it! Cars with poor resale values end up costing much more than vehicles that have substantial resale values.

 

You're trading the car in... what do you expect?

If you want to get what it's "worth", sell it yourself.

 

Kelly Blue Book Private Party Resale value on my 2003 Cooper is more than I paid for it new!

 

MINIs still have a great resale value than the majority of cars on the market. It may have lost a little edge, but the resale is high.

Having no intension of ever selling my 02 MCS so resale doesn’t really have me worried.

 

I agree with Jeff! You will NEVER get your money's worth on a trade, Tremec. The dealership makes more money selling our MINI trade-ins than they do selling new ones because their profit margin is very slim! They count on dealer add-ons (like JCW and accessories) to make more money.

Your best bet is always to sell the vehicles yourself. List it on Craigslist.com and/or Ebay.


Clover

 

I can tell you, as a former car dealership accountant (I'm still an accountant, just in a much more respectable field) that Clo is 100% right. I worked at a LARGE Chevy dealership and we always and I mean ALWAYS made more on used than new.... every month total and on every vehicle.

I have seen used cars go for literally twice what we paid for them... if those people had taken the time to sell the car themselves, that money would have been theirs.

 

I am in car business, have been selling cars for over 6 years. dealers will always try to steal your vehicle and retail it and make all the money, this is how the system works, very easy and we all know that.

selling your vehicle yourself is the smartest way to go. you have such a strong product that will bring very close to what you paid.

i see more and more used minis in South texas car market since last 5-6 months. people are asking all the money for them, and believe me they are bringing the money.

take your sweet time, and put the car in local newspaper, try autotrader.com even e-bay, see what brings the most, do not settle less than $1,200.00-$1,500.00 off the MSRP. in about 6-7 days, you should sell the car. trust me.

i had a 2004 VW jetta tdi (diesel) which i bought for $21,600.00 and in 12 months, after 13k sold it for $19,900.00, not bad.

mini is not a vw beetle nor a pt cruiser, the bmw name will always provide us a better re-sale value than others, not to mention about that there is no competitors in small hot hatch market except cheesy japanese cars.

wish you luck.

 

In response to the question "Are our MINIs losing more of their value now?" I would have to agree with the bulk of the posters that:

(1) I don't care about resale value
(2) An increasing availability of new cars will reduce the resale value of used ones
(3) The value will always be higher in a private party sale than as a trade in.

The mitigating circumstance here is the fact that model year 2007 will introduce some significant redesigns which could make the value of the 2006 and earlier increase if the market segments significantly into "likers" and "dislikers" of the new model styling.

 

It is not likely that people will love/hate the new styling because Chris Bangle is nowhere near the design studio for it:smile: But some may prefer a smaller/lighter car.