Hi, Anyone have any experiences trading in a car to Carmax or any other dealership for that matter? I'm debating if I should just part out my car and trade it in since I haven't had any "real" offers for my car. The issue is the car has full bolt ons. Would Carmax be able to give me a legitimate trade in value with my mods on? If they give me a decent offer then I plan to put the car back to stock and bring it in for trade. I don't want to deal with the hassle of putting it back to stock then find out that they offer me like 18k.... 2016 wrx with 12k miles. Thanks!
So if understand correctly, you want someone to evaluate your trade as "stock" while it has the mods. You will then remove the mods and trade in the car? I'm not sure if anyone would do that. I've always had my car in the condition I wanted to trade it in as when it was evaluated (save for the snow tires on my crosstrek) I know Luther buys cars too, might be worth it to make it stock and then makes the rounds to all the car buying dealers.
Carmax will usually give you a pretty low offer just at or above the going auction prices for the car if they cant sell it themselves. There are certain cars that they can sometimes give competitive offers on and I think your 1 year old subaru could definitely be one of those cars. They like cars that are less than 3 years old, still have manufacturer warranty, and are in high demand for the area thus easy to sell. Which your car fits all the criteria. What is the lowest you would take for your car to sell it? I highly highly doubt they will take the value of any mods into account when appraising the value so you can always take it there now and see what they offer to get a ballpark. If it is enough for you I would bet that if you then return to stock and bring it back it wouldn't lower their offer much if any, but you would probably have to go through the appraisal process again. There also is no harm in asking the appraiser if you returned to stock what it would do to his calculated value.
A quick look at value for a base 2016 wrx with 12k miles trade in value (I don't know what trim or options you have) NADA clean trade in: $23k KBB trade in: $21k-23k Black book clean trade in: $24k I would guess they would offer around $22k and its quick and easy so if you need it gone quickly it can be a decent deal
You could take it in with the mods on to get estimated, then return home and just take them off. Give them the ol' bait and switch treatment. Haha.
As Nhibbs says, a 2016 WRX will be a car the dealer will be happy to take in trade. I think mine was on the dealer's lot less than a week before they resold it. The prices he lists are fairly in line with what I saw (I had a Limited tho so it was a little more).
Uh, since when is a stage 3 block a bolt on? https://mnsubaru.com/threads/fs-2016-wrx-w-iag-stg-3-block-23-000.51486/#post-861472 I've tried the trade in route with my 08 STI and my 12 Legacy. Trying to trade in my 08 sti was a joke...the used car evaluator at the dealership could barely drive it (6 puck clutch). Then their manager was picking on the 1 little door ding that I had, and say, "guys race these things, so we don't know what we're really getting." I was straight faced, but chuckling a bit on the inside (I definitely raced the thing). I don't recall with the dealer offered...it was "ok", but I didn't feel comfortable trading in such a modifed car. For my 12 Legacy (this was last year...still under the 60k warranty), Carmax actually gave me a decent offer and it was valid for 7 days, at any carmax dealer. I was buying my Forester from a dealer in Chicago, and we discussed the trade-in via phone and email, and they gave me a ballpark price. When I arrived, they low balled me from the previous "ballpark". I think it was partly because they finally realized it had snow tires on it [which I had told them before], and they wouldn't sell a car with snow tires, so that had to factor in new tires. I had my printed offer from Carmax and used that to help negotiate, and they did come up a bit on price. It still wasn't what carmax offered, but after factoring in the tax savings on the trade in (about $1k), it ended up being the same. I was pretty pissed that they low balled me, but after the sale, I checked their website regularly...that Legacy sat on their lot for at least 2 months. And it was priced lower than what I wanted when I was trying to sell it as a private party. So, I guess it wasn't that bad. Long story short...it really depends on the dealership, and you are always going to get less when you trade in a car, vs selling it outright. The only advantages to trading in a car are 1. Tax savings, assuming you are buying a car from that same dealer. 2. You can unload the car quickly and wipe your hands of it.
Oh yea, I definitely recommend putting as much back to stock as you can and selling your aftermarket parts. When I sold my sti, I took off the easy, expensive stuff (coilovers, sway bars, wheels, etc) and recouped an extra $5k selling those parts.
Yeah, forgot to add in the built block part. lol I took it into WB Subaru after I got done with the break in process to see what I would be looking at if I were to trade it in and one of the managers there offered me 14k-15k. This was in back in November of 2016 with about 10k in miles. I get where he was coming from for the modications, but the price he gave me was pretty insulting.
