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I had my car for many years and I took it to get the A/C fixed and it turned out needing a radiator and some other things to prevent an oil leak. $1600 worth and a few days later the A/C died again. I took it back and it needed more work to get the A/C working again so decided it was time to get rid of it. I took it to CarMax and they gave me what I though was a low-ball offer. They said don't worry about the A/C because they can fix it for a fraction of the price it would cost me which I thought was honest on their part. I was unable to find any car there that appealed to me, there was one, but it was in a major collision (thank goodness for CarFax). CarMax will buy your car for that amount for a week at any CarMax in the USA. I called around and checked the web. There was nothing around here so I looked at other larger cities. The prices there were more aggressive so we headed off. When I called and sent pics of my car the offers I got were below CarMax so I brought my offer with me. It turns out that was a wise move because it helped secure the offer we wanted and we bought the car. The moral of this story, if you are trading in your car take it to CarMax and at least you will have a floor for your price.
I always go to CarMax first to get an offer in hand that I can use as easy leverage against other dealers. My first dealer offer after the CarMax offer was $7k less than Carmax. Having that in writing was a good way to get the dealer to cut to the chase and stop wasting my time with the lowball game.
Around Miami a few dealers I know will advise people to go to carmax first to get the value of the car, then return to the dealer if they want to trade their car in.
Any dealer will give you the wholesale value of your trade give or take a few hundred. There is most always wiggle room to squeeze a bit more from them.
The thing is if your trade is really nice they may want to sell it themselves on their lot.
If it is not so nice but still new enough they will probably take it to the car auction and get as much as they can for it.
If it is something that a small local lot that deals in older higher mileage cars wants they will sell it to them.
A dealer is in the business to make money even if it is only a few hundred at a pop.
I used to sell cars and sometimes a trade would be maxed out meaning no more money but if a local dealer was interested my manager could usually get him to spend a bit more then our dealer would.
Fun times.
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