Allright, since we are sharing our trade-in nightmares. Here is one that got my blood pressure up. I bought my 07 MCS off the lot the first week they were out in Feb 07 and paid $24,500 cash before tt&l. After 6 months I had accumulated 15,000 miles. I was interested in trading it in on another 07 with sport suspension, LSD, auto dimming headlights and get rid of the sunroof and chrome line exterior. I went to my closest dealer (not where I purchased) and asked what I could expect on my trade-in. The salesman came back offering me $18,000. I was so mad that I wanted to kick the sign in the dealership that said don't lose 20% when you drive off the lot, buy a MINI. In the salesman's defense, He did tell me that I would get more selling to an individual. Moral of the story: Don't expect a high trade-in at a MINI dealer even if you have a good MINI to trade.

 

It's pretty clear from reading this thread that Mini dealerships only mess with trades if they make a surefire killing on it. If that's the way they operate so be it. They know they may lose an occasional sale (like to the OP), and they'll lose some potential profits by turning away some trades (like the one above, which they could sell in a day on their lot if they gave a fair price). But it sounds like they just don't wanna mess with trades much, they want to sell new cars at retail. Who can blame them for that?

 

When I lived in NJ, I found used Mini's were cheaper at Mini dealers than other dealers, by a substantial amount. So, I guess it makes sense that they pay less for them.

 

15000 miles is not an average mileage for a 6 month old car. It's a good thing he didn't kick the sign.

 

As long as we are going slightly off topic, I have a funny story.

I was out and about last summer and I noticed they were
having this big sale at the Ford place. The ford place that
had this mini sitting in the used lot for at least 6 months.

I stop in. Turns out it is a "bank repossession sale".
So I get the particulars which its a 2003 auto, absolutely base.
the salesman doesnt know how much the price is, they have
to call the bank.

yes, I recognize this as a scam, but I had actually never riden in
a mini before. I am also leaving some details out, those details ended
up taking up about 4 hours of my life. I also came to realize why
you have to have a credit check to test drive now - they are not
trying to see if you have bad credit really, but seeing how high
they can start the bargaining process.

So I go with my wife and we ride around a while. It was nothing
compared to what I just bought, the 2007, but I didn't know that
at the time, and I figure, hey, its a base 2003, I'll offer
$9600 and stand firm.

Oh, in the lot beside them, which I think was owned by the same
company but a different name was a...2005 or 2006 fully loaded
MCS with a sale sticker of 18.5 i think.

We come back, it took forever, FOREVER, for the salesman to
"get the price from the bank". Yes, I know, he was out back
smoking a pipe of crystal meth with the finance manager. Sure.

He says basically $24.5k cash or take over payments of
$4xx (forget).

Had I not just had back surgery I would have B**CH slapped his
a$$ right there.

But I did say in a loud and extremely aggressive manner for all around
me to hear
THAT IS AN INSULT. I CANT BELIEVE YOU JUST CALLED ME THAT STUPID.
THAT IS A 10K CAR, WE BOTH KNOW IT IS.

etc etc etc

I guess he has taken classes on how to over come something like that.

He keeps repeating, well, what will it take to put you in that car.

I keep repeating $9600.

This goes on and on.

(I had also at the intermission time called a friend to look up the
BV and was waiting a call back).

So, after he kept repeating for a while, I finally made the mistake of saying
HEY MAN YOU ARE RIDICULOUS
I FIGURED I SAY 9600, YOU COME BACK WITH 14.5, AND WE
AGREE ON 10.6K. BUT YOU ARE SO WAY OFF ON THIS THING
YOU LIVE ON MARS MAN

He looks at me calmly and says
"so, you'd actually pay 10.6k" and walks off to fire up another pipe
of crystal meth with the finance manager.

He comes back an insane amount of time later and says,

well, i've checked with the bank. they're willing to lose money on
it at 17.5, but that's all I think I can do.

I START YELLING AT HIM AGAIN

Unfortunately I didn't actually get that much attention from the
customers as it was the ford place and most ppl were interested
in ooogling this $50k F150 or some sort of monster truck like thing.

The phone rings and my friend tells me the BV is somewhere in
the 10.5 range, give or take.

I say to him
WELL THE BV LOOKS TO BE 10.5 I'M LOOKING FOR A GOOD DEAL TODAY
I DONT THINK IT IS YOU I'M LEAVING NOW

So I'm getting up to leave and the finance manager was actually there
kinda hanging out in the shadows and for whatever unknown reason
shakes my hand and says sorry we couldn't do business.

I left a lot of details out. The details taking up 4 hours of my life like
I said.

Bank repossession sale.

OH! I said, I've been driving past that mini every day for the last
6 months, it sure has been repossessed a long time.

He says, well, we've been saving up inventory for our big sale.

I actually respect the mini place for saying, well,
the price is the price, that's it.
Not like at the honda place where the price was
$4000 over sticker and then I have to feel happy to bargain
down to the msrp, and not like the monster truck place where
the price is the price, but, if you buy now, today, before sunset,
it's $6000 below the sticker. Unless you wait until the moon is blue
then its either $4000 below or $8000 below, depending on leap
year or not. etc etc etc

The price is the price.

As for the 15 year old BMW I traded in, I know how they
can't put cars like that on their lot, they basically have to
send them out wholesale to auction. I understand how that
works, and I got less than retail for sure.

I can say also though I don't have somebody comming back
sueing me because the X Y Z broke on a 15 year old E36
after they hotrodded the h e $$ out of it the first day, broke
it, and want their money back.

That's a made up example, but I actually had that happen
when I was 19 and sold an MG. What do you expect?
It's a $500 MG, you dogged it, it broke. They somehow managed
to cancel the check a week later. I still don't know how that
happened.

So, maybe that's what you are really paying for, when you get
less at trade in.
Peace of Mind.

Peace of Mind is worth something.

 

I live in a better world.... Wow.

 

When I went to my MINI dealership to place the order, their used car buyer didn't make it within 40 feet of the car when he said "I'm not going to give you what you want for this car... I apoligize in advance." It was a 7 year old Nissan Altima with 90k miles on it and it looked like I just drove it off of the showroom floor... inside and out.

They offered me 3k. I took it to CarMax and they offered 4k.

The dealership was nice enough, though, to offer to broker a private sale for me. I found a private buyer, negotiated a price with him and brought him into the dealership for closing. Technically, I 'traded-in' my Altima, getting the tax rebate on the new MINI, and then the dealership sold the Altima to the new owner for the price that we negotiated earlier. Both the buyer and myself felt good about the transaction, knowing that everything was above board and I got my private sale price AND the trade-in tax savings. It took a smidge more work (Craigs list ad posting - answer emails & calls - show car to the buyer - negotiating), but it was worth the $1500 or so I got out of it and that was for a fairly low value car.

 

That really sounds like it worked out well for everybody.

Do I get a tax rebate for buying a mini?

I think there is one for a hummer sure that figures but
I didn't know about the mini.

 

Agreed. I sold my old car while I waited for my MINI to be built. It took me maybe half an hour to take the pictures and write the Craigslist ad.

I had it sold in maybe 4 hours, and I didn't have to spend a penny to do it. I had never sold a car outright before like that - I'd always either traded in or else the car had been totalled in an accident. But it was so easy and I got $2500 more than I would have gotten in trade-in.

 

I went to CarMax to trade my 2000 Jetta V6/120,000miles. They offered me an insulting $1500 !!! We tried selling it while waiting for our baby, then when we picked her up asked Mini how much they would give me for my car..$4200. Can you believe that? We took the money and ran (really drove) and felt fortunate to avoid the private sale drama.

 

condor's story was really funny! I sold cars year ago right out of college for a summer. This nice couple comes is with a nearly new Volvo looking at our Toyotas, thinking they could trade down (come away with a new car and cash). Riiiiiight! The freaking manager pretend calls the Volvo place where they bought the car, says "it's Harry Halo over at Tim's Toyota, is Jerry (the owner) around?" He pretends to get him, asks him how much he'd give for the Volvo. Way less than our car of course. And they walked, but I loved the act. Afterwards we went out back and smoked a crack pipe (JK)!

 

Not sure if it was mentioned.
The trade reduces your taxation of the entire deal.
If in a high tax city like NY, then a trade-in valued at $23,000 as my was,
gave me a credit of $2012.00 making the deal more painless and avoiding the hassles of selling on my own.

 

I didn't think Carmax sold any cars with over 100k miles on them, which means they wouldn't give much for one with over that would they?

The MINI dealer actually treated me great on my trade-in. I had an 18 month old Scion XB, paid $14500 for it new, traded it in with 40k on it and they gave me $11,500 trade in. That was right at the top KBB value for the car.

Saw it on the lot 2 days after I picked up the MINNI, it was gone when I drove by 2 days after that.

 

Jeez, that's a helluva deal. Maybe the appraiser was smoking a pipe out back like the guy in the story above in this thread!

 

I sent you a pm...

 

That's too bad for you then! They came down over 1.5% off their quoted MINI "Elite" credit rate and even beat my credit union's rate by .25%. Just fyi.

Did the same when my dad bought his 5-Touring, too.

 

Nah, it wasn't too bad, I just replied about that because you stated that they would unequivocally and they hadn't for use more then once, they couldn't get close to the interest rate we could get. I don't mind at all though, I prefer not to finance through the dealer; the less you need to mess with their sales and finance the better in my book. I like to walk in with a check and walk out with a car - quick, clean and simple

 

The time I spent with MINI Finance person at the dealership was less than 5 minutes (literally).

I did however, spend about 30 minutes (seemed like HOURS) going over the car with my MA. I wanted to hop in and go for a drive SO BAD! It was killing me.

 

GAH, although I know he was only trying to do me a favor, it was the exact same thing with my MA! Given that I'd already read the online version of the owner's manual all of about 4 times while I waited the 4 weeks for my custom ordered MINI to arrive, I probably knew more about the damn car than he did. Talk about wasted tim... And to add insult to injury he wanted to go over the ENTIRE run through again when I purchased my second MINI after the first was totaled after only four days. WTF!?!

 

Yeah, I didn't have a problem with the paperwork, either, once I made it clear I didn't want any of the "add ons."

My MA took quite a bit of time going over features--the better part of an hour. I was happy that he did, and I felt he was careful to help his customers get the most out of the car. My first drive out of the showroom was to a MINI club meeting in the area. I had 2 miles on the odometer, and a full tank of gas!

 

Really depends on three things.

How honest the dealer is to make a fair deal.
How hungry the dealer is to make a fair deal.
How smart the seller is.

You did well.
Congrats.

 

I traded a one year old 2005 Xb for my 2006 MCSa; cost me about $1000 to drive that car for a year.
I traded a one year old 2006 Mazda 3 for my 2007 MCS; cost me about $1000 to drive that car too.

A BIG part of the game is to have paid rock-bottom for the car you're about to trade in. Most cars have alot of room to negotiate; there's often about 15% to 20% wiggle room, depending on the vehicle.
Do your homework, know your market, and walk in to offer them the deal. Get up and walk out if they don't take it. Then keep coming back until they do (they will eventually; they want to sell cars).
I usually pay cash for my vehicles (I like them to make a living but not get rich off me) and feel that the "deal" is important.

 

Ever since I found 'mistakes' in the numbers on a car dealer's finance paperwork and then also encountered 'errors' when my Mom went through finance on her car (and on top of that they tried to pressure her to agree to add on things at that stage) I have avoided the auto dealer finance guys. Apparently in some cases they get bonuses to be sleazy and make mistakes in the numbers on purpose Luckily when I have wanted a loan I get excellent rates, and they can't match or beat it from what they say anyways, so no worries.

Its funny, for many years now, whenever I buy cars the sales guys do not seem to know that much about the features and don't bother going over them much (and if they try they stumble), so I don't go through a long review - besides, by the time I buy a car I know more about it then they do The most time I spend there is inspecting the car top to bottom for flaws, etc.

 

MINIS lack of depreciation is highly touted on this forum and in this thread - however, it appears it will retain a whopping 1% more than a Jetta GLI for example in 5 years. If I am to beleive the article it makes purchasing a MINI less actractive than a VW ! See the article below.

http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home...LNQC8AEAu7YWsA

 

My MA spent about that much time, but about 20 minutes of it was her learning that the navagation won't work if you put it's dvd in the cd slot.