Was surprised that the dealer won't get me out of my 2010 G37S 6MT Coupe, graphite gray/black int, all options but Tech Pkg. Sticker was just over $45k. Miss my sedan, want another one. Coupe is a garage queen with just 2400 miles in 1 yr of ownership. Lease buyout is $36,800. I figured with the poor supply of sport coupes, they'd be willing to make a deal.

 

truth is the dont care about the supply they would rather you trade in your car and make money off it....sucks but its true

 

I'm not sure at what you're getting at. Sticker is 45k, so you likely got the car for around 40k, give or take. Your buyout is ~37k.

Losing out on 3k isn't a bad deal. Tax is tax, nothing you can do about it.

On the other hand, I wouldn't buy a 1 year old car for just 3k less than what I can get a new one for....

 

not if you see how immaculate his car is. Yeah truth be told but it's a car that someone will wind up appreciating if they bought it.

 

When you say "dealer won't get me out of it" - was your expectation that the dealership would take the car back from you and wipe the slate clean? Honestly, the best you'll be able to do is trade in the car and lease/buy a new sedan. Sounds crappy, but that's life.

 

I don't expect a clean slate, but they say my car is worth $31K on a trade towards a new car. So my coupe is $14K less than sticker of $45K in 1 yrs time, with only 2400 miles. I'd have to eat $5800. That's some depreciation. My friend was in a similar situation with a 1 yr old BMW 328i, lease. Traded it back for a new 335i, only ate $3K. His 328 had 13K miles too! I expecting to lose money, but I don't want a bath!

 

If you've traded in a car that's only one model year old before I'd think you would have expected this. What's in it for the dealership to give you more money for your used car? What would YOU be willing to pay to buy it retail right now? Certainly less than you're expecting them to give you for it. How could they possibly make money if they gave you more money (or even equal value) for it than they can charge the next buyer to purchase it for?

It's great that it's very low miles and in good condition, but that doesn't make any significant difference in what a customer is willing to pay for your used car. It's pretty well known that every car depreciates x% the day you drive it off of the lot. The biggest depreciation hit is right at first. 3 or 4 years down the road when it's paid for (or almost paid for) it's an asset instead of a liability because it's value is much greater relative to the amount you owe then.

 

I just thought of something else, another way to look at it. If you've owned it 1 year and you'll end up $5800 out of pocket by trading it in, you just rented a brand new nice car for only about $500 per month. That's not bad.

 

I've never buy ANY car used to save just $3K. I don't care how well the original owner took care of it. I'd rather pop for the extra $3K and be the original owner myself. Now if I were saving, say, $8K or $10K, that might sway me, but the car would have to look like it just rolled off the assembly line.

 

True, but that nice car that he "rented" for $500/month basically sat in his driveway or garage for the year that he owned it. With just 2400 miles in a year, that means he drove it 46 miles per week or a little over 6 miles per day.

 

I think there may even be an Infiniti dealer that would give what you paid for your coupe... if you are willing to pay dealer asking price for the new sedan, maybe with a few dealer installed options and an extended warranty.

Seriously, there are some online data bases with car "values" KBB and NADA come to mind. You can see what you might get retail / wholesale for your car and what the numbers really looked like for your friend's 328.

Personally, I'd take my car to a couple of dealers, maybe one of the auto buying companies, get a buy price and a net price for a sedan trade to see what the options are.