Well I just ran into a kink with my S2000 plans. My local dealer only wants to give me $15,500 on my Prelude. It's a 2001 Red 5spd base with 10,500 miles in near perfect condition with no mods. Kelly Blue Book(which always seems high to me) says it should be worth $20,500 for trade in. I was expecting $18,000.

I'm going to try and get another trade in quote from a different dealer. If it's not a lot higher I'm going to have to try and sell it myself. It's going to be very tricky to time that with an ordered s2000 coming in. Looking at autotrader 21,000 should be about right. I can't tell what those cars are actually selling for though...

Any help is much appreciated!

Ryan
College Station, Texas

 

The dealer tried to rip me on my Prelude trade-in too when I originally considered the S2000.
Mine is a '98 Prelude SH averaging just at 10k miles a year & it's in pristine condition. The dealer low-balled me with a $14,000 offer....at the time he had two 'Ludes ('98,'00) both selling for over $20k, not in top condition nor SH models.
This experience alone almost put me off of buying Honda's forever. Especially considering the dealer service package I bought with the 'Lude ("cause it'll have a higher resale value son"). Heck, it was the same dealer I bought & had the car serviced at and they were offering the lowest value in town.
...in the end, I waited a year, traded in the wife's Civic...she inherited the Prelude and all was well
I would've been in a similar situation if I would;ve privately sold the car. My only idea was to private sell the car and buy a $500 beater until the S2k arrived. Lucky for me I didn't have to follow that route.
Still, my taste for Honda dealers is extremely bitter. Maybe I just expect to much....customer loyalty...maybe dealers should practice a little themselves
Good Luck with whatever road you choose....it's definitely worth the wait

 

I sold my Prelude SH back in August '99. I had hell selling it, and I got ~$19K w/ 26K miles. They're great cars, but resale can't be helped by the car's discontinuation.

 

Hey man, try Carmax. The usually give you a better deal than the dealers.

 

Thanks for the CarMax tip. I didn't realize they bought used cars. If I'm correct about Texas sales tax though, CarMax will have to offer me $16,469 just to equal the $15,500 from the dealer. I'll loose the 6.25% trade in discount. Something doesn't seem fair about that.

Ryan

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ryan P
[B]Thanks for the CarMax tip.

 

Good trick! Was it hard getting the dealers to do that? Does the dealer have to broker the trade at the exact time you take possesion of the new car? It would be easier to pull off if I had some flexibility to do it a few days before. Thanks.

Ryan

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ryan P
[B]Good trick!

 

I had 99 SH for sale for over a year and couldn't sell it. I just traded it in with 35,500 miles on it for an A4 yesterday and the dealer gave me $17,300. I asked for that much not really expecting them to go any higher than mid $15's but they immediately said ok....kinda shocked me to tell you the truth. But you wont see me complaining!!

 

I traded my '99 Prelude for 16,000.00. That is the price that Carmax gave me and the dealer was about $400 lower. Ultimately the dealer just matched the Carmax price. That was about a year ago though.