Yesterday just for fun, I went to a local Ford dealership and asked what the dealer would give me for my 05 JCW MCS on a trade in....now I thought I had an unrealistic number, I told him I wanted 25,000 for my beloved MINI. He initially came back with 22,500. Within 25 minutes of hagling and as I proceeded to walk out I had him up to 24,750. I had no intention of trading in my car. I really did it to get an idea as to what the value of my car was. Today he called me back and believe it or not offered me 28,000! It was tempting but I can't be seperated from my MINI.

 

Who in their right mind would trade a MINI for a Ford?

Nice inquiry anyway!

 

Good question...not I for one.

 

A lot of that figure would depend on what you were trading for. Focus, no way. Super Duty turbo diesel, pee-pee extender, 4x4 dually, yeah.

 

That was an interesting exercise, and I commend your curiosity.

However...it's one thing for a dealer to offer $28000 in trade for your 05 MCS JWC, but you can bet he's going to try to offset his generosity by trying to get some of it back on your discount off msrp.

What were you looking to buy and how much was he asking?

 

$28K trade-in on a Ford GT sounds pretty good to me... JB

 

$28K on the new Shelby 500 GT would be real sweet

 

While your #'s bring warmth to my heart wrt to my current value... the situation is a complex multi-variable equation.

Did you go to this dealer and just ask for an offer to buy your car outright? (they do that you know) If so then I'd say COOL PRICE.

But if you were dealing on a hypothetical trade in, then the number is completely artificial. If he upped what you would get, it was working against the profit on the car proposed to be bought and the dealer's profit.

To determine that # one needs to factor in the time the target buy has been on the lot.... the time of the month and several more factors ....

but interesting

when people ask me what my 79 is worth, I tell them "what ever I can get someone to pay for it."

 

Very true...I asked on a trade for a fully loaded 06 Explorer XLT 4WD with a mrsp of around 34,000 which he was willing to let go for 31,500. I was not going to trade, just did it for fun more than anything else.

 

Hmmm, lemme see, the MSRP of a new Ford GT is around $153,000, less $28K trade or cash equity, you'll still have a nice $125,000 loan balance on the GT

 

I went to KBB.com the other day just for fun and entered the info for my car and checked the private party sale price and trade in values.

The private party price was MORE that I paid for the car! The trade in was $1000 less than I paid.

I have done this with every car I've had, and I have never had that happen.

 

For reference, the Cars Direct.com price for a fully loaded XLT 4WD with a target MSRP of roughly $34K is $29,719.00. The 06 Explorers are carrying more than $4K in sales and rebates (at least here in California). I'm betting you could even get them for less.

So at $31,500.00 he was still pocketing at least $2K, maybe more. If you went in with the Cars Direct.com quote, I'm betting he starts offer less for the Mini.

 

Someone in my neck of the woods apparently traded in his 05 MCSC to the local Ford dealer (for God knows what). It has less than 7.5K miles on it.

It has sat on the lot for almost 6 weeks. This is in sunny California. The market for Minis is weaker than you might suspect here. It will get worse when the 07s hit the lots.

 

With that $28K trade-in, go ahead a spring for the King Ranch - yee haw!

 

Typically convertibles are slow sellers vs their hardtop counterparts. Rag tops are not everyone's cup of tea.