Best way to get rid of a tired old car

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Dchall_San_Antonio
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Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by Dchall_San_Antonio » June 13th, 2016, 7:00 pm

Car is a 2006 Honda Pilot. Body is in good shape for 160,000 miles. Motor, however, has seen better days. Last year for some reason it overheated. Apparently the reason is a leak that has not been detected. Over heated Honda motor warped the head enough for the head gasket to leak. Lots of money later it was working again. Now it's happened again. I'm unwilling to put lots of money into it, so I consider it to be totaled. Estimate to get it fixed is around $2,000 with no guarantee it won't happen again. Mechanic recommended trading it in.

Dealer is willing to give me $1,500 to $3,000 depending on what their mechanic tells them. Is there a better way to get rid of this vehicle?

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by mtlcafan79 » June 13th, 2016, 9:12 pm

CarMax will buy anything. Doesn't cost anything to take it there for an estimate but your time. They generally offer on the low end of dealer blue book prices, aka "fair" condition. If their offer sucks, walk away and you at least have that for leverage with the Honda dealer. There's so much monkey business with the dealers that they can generally "offer more" for your trade if you are buying something new from them.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by BoatDrinksQ5 » June 14th, 2016, 12:54 pm

Also selling 'needs repair' vehicles/boats on Craigslist can fetch a fair price from what I seem to remember hearing. Just be very upfront with the issues.... will get shade tree mechanics looking to flip cars or for their own.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by Dmt » June 14th, 2016, 5:11 pm

In my experience Carmax has given a better price than dealerships. If you get a Carmax quote another dealer many times will match it and then you can also get the tax benefit for the trade in for whatever you buy. My stepdad was a used car salesman for many years and this is what he told me to do - Get a Carmax quote before you go to the dealer to buy a new car, get dealer to name their trade in price to make sure they won't do better, show them the Carmax quote if they offer less and get them to match

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by 1977212 » June 14th, 2016, 11:55 pm

Don't tell a dealer about any problems on trade in. That's for them to figure out on the inspection


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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by LoneRanger » June 15th, 2016, 12:27 am

^ If it's a Honda dealer, they already know about the current/future issues.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by Overfloater » June 15th, 2016, 10:28 pm

I don't think CarMax will buy anything older than 7-8 years. You can try though.

1500-3000 sounds very generous considering the mileage and age. I'd be all over that.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by mtlcafan79 » June 16th, 2016, 10:28 am

Carmax will buy ANYTHING. You might not get much for it, but they will buy it. Most of the stuff they buy goes to auction, not their lots.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by 1977212 » June 16th, 2016, 10:40 am

mtlcafan79 wrote:Carmax will buy ANYTHING. You might not get much for it, but they will buy it. Most of the stuff they buy goes to auction, not their lots.
Yeah dealers around here look at the past few weeks of going auctions for said vehicle and give you a fair offer based upon that. But beware they don't really care about options or if it's in better condition it's just based on model and year.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by ENVY23 » June 16th, 2016, 11:19 am

What's it worth fixed? If you can get $2,500 in it's current condition, or get $4,500 after repairs, obviously you wouldn't want to waste your time fixing it, because in the end you're still only getting $2,500. However, if it's worth $6,500+ after repairs, then it may be worth your time to repair it and sell it. NADA and KBB are good estimating tools, but ultimately it's only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. I would do a search for similar vehicles in your area and get a ballpark price of what they're selling for, subtract $2k for repairs, and if that number is greater(by at least $1,000 or so) than what you're offered, I would consider repairing it(again) and selling it.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by HanLawn » June 16th, 2016, 5:52 pm

meh,donate it to charity,they will pick it up in your driveway.Write off the donation.Simple,quick,easy.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by Tony alony » June 17th, 2016, 3:12 pm

Dchall, just curious about your situation. I have a 2006 Chrysler T&C with 144, 000 miles on it. I've spent more on the car's upkeep since moving to Houston with its brutal temps, than I ever did in Chicago. While I was in Chicago the first 6 years of ownership, I was concerned about the car heating up to operating temperatures of close to its 212 degrees specs, then cooling off to the ambient temperature of less than 20 degrees, and sometimes much lower, which could occur in a matter of minutes. I don't know for sure, but I speculate that the temps in San Antonio are similar to Houston. My point is; you have 160,000 miles on a car, how much more could you ask for, in terms of performance, when the car has to operate in a very hot enviornment, and when did it start to give you troubles with repairs. It may be worth it to spend money repairing rather than buy something new that could never even make it to 160,000 miles.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by Pete1313 » June 18th, 2016, 12:17 am

160,000 miles? That thing is just breaking in! Heck I've got my '01 cavalier just over 397,000! I think the best way I'm gonna get rid of mine is donate it back to Chevy so they can tear it apart and figure out how they managed to build at least one cavalier right! :rotfl:

Kidding aside, I agree with the previous posts. I've been working at a dealership going on 13 years. Get a quote from carmax, keep it in your back pocket, see if the dealer will beat it. If not, show them your offer and they will always at least match it. Then enjoy the tax savings when trading in on another vehicle.

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Re: Best way to get rid of a tired old car

Post by 1977212 » June 18th, 2016, 8:36 am

Buy a decent vehicle that will hold its value and trade it in before 100k, by doing so low credit people can qualify for them much easier. Trade it in after 3-4 years of ownership by doing this technique, worse case you will need to pay a few thousand on trade but ull have another 3-4 years of maintenance free vehicle besides tires and oil changes.

Its not worth it to keep a vehicle forever anymore, ull have car repairs all your life, might as well put the money towards payments and not a repair shop.

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