Hey guys,

You may remember my adventure I have been having over the past few weeks with Rusty Wallis Honda. Well now I am ready to buy another car and before I pay too much like I did on my last car I wanted to get your advice. The car I am looking at is a 2002 GPW S2000 with red/black interior and it has 40,000 miles. It has the oem hardtop, airwalker sideskirts, airwalker front lip and a rear under spoiler. (I think it's the gp sports, not exactly sure). The dealership said it only had 1 previous owner and nothing is wrong with the car. I'll be running a carfax report on it the day I go to check it out and they have agreed to let me take the car over night to an independent mechanic to get the car checked out. I myself will be going over the cosmetics of the car inside and out VERY carefully.

They are asking $22,795 for the car. Now I noticed the car has been for sale for a little over a month. I'm guessing because it's winter and not too many people are gonna buy a convertible right now. Since my initial phone call about 2 weeks ago I have received 6 phone calls and 2 e-mails asking about coming in to check out the car. I have been holding off because I wanted to get the loan from my old bank paid off first. Since they have contacted me so many times I'm pretty sure they are desperate to sell the car, since it's been on their lot for so long. I will not be financing through the dealership.. I'll be giving them a $7,000 check plus I have a blank check from my bank that I will be using to pay off the rest. I was thinking of offering them $19,000 out the door.. that's TTL and everything. Do you think that is enough, too much, etc? Let me know what you guys think. How much should I offer them?

Thanks,
Josh

 

19K out the door for a 02 with a hard top is crazy. It they take it they are getting ripped. I think they original price was fair, but it never hurts to haggle. Good luck and I hope this one works out better then the last!

I thought 02 w/red interior were all red and not black and red?

 

[QUOTE=Bullitt44,Jan 21 2005, 07:24 AM] 19K out the door for a 02 with a hard top is crazy.

 

You should be able to get at for around ~$20K+taxes etc, they're probably into it for ~$17K. All those other mods actually make that sort of car harder to sell. I know in my mind mods=younger driver=driven hard/trashed. If I were you, I would be very thorough with inspections etc.

 

I checked out a yellow '03 with a hardtop and 17k miles that a honda dealer in Milwuakee was trying to sell for $24,995. They came down to $23,500 for the car certified - but then I notice that the entire driver's rear fender had been repainted. The clearcoat was very uneven and there was a hardened drip hanging down inside the wheelwell! I bolted. I think that $19k+ttl for a '02 with 40k miles is a reasonable offer from what I've seen in the past few weeks because that is pretty high mileage for an '02. Is that a certified car?

 

No it's not, it's being sold at a Nissan dealership.

 

Then you should be able to get an even lower price. 40K is pretty high mileage for this class of car.

 

"I know in my mind mods=younger driver=driven hard/trashed. If I were you"

I totally agree. If I'm paying 20k for a used car I would prefer that the previous owner was older and less likely to have thrashed it. I would be looking for a totally stock S with lower miles. That car might look great now after a fresh detail but if its been driven hard for those 40k miles then things will start to wear out that much sooner.

 

Why don't you buy from Honda so you can get a certified pre-owned S2000 with extended warranty coverage?

 

I'm keeping an eye out for a certified car, but the GPW with red/black interior is VERY hard to find here apparently. There's only 1 car within' 200 miles on autotrader for sale around here.