AUTO BUYING ADVICE REQUEST

[Bird]

Jeff, what the Kelly Blue Book shows and what a particular dealer will give sometimes varies considerably. Last December, we had a car that KBB showed $3,800 for trade-in value, a local Ford dealer only offered $2,800 on trade for a new vehicle, but CarMax gave us $4,600 for it and said they'd buy it for that whether we bought their car or not.

[Pat]

Egon, For some unexplained reason my wife is ANTI-minivan.

Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Bird, you said: I can't help but still be a little leery of the KIAs, purely a personal feeling with no objective evidence at all, but I sure am seeing a lot of them on the roads around here...

Again the uncanny parallelism.. That expresses my feelings exactly. Looks like a good deal but...

I haven't quite caught up with you yet in marital politics but I'm coming around.

Pat

[Pat]

Gatorboy, We have a couple Subarus in our extended family, a sedan and a Forester. Both are 3-4 yrs old now and perform flawlessly. A good friend had a CRV and it was a real good machine. They towed it behind motor home but gave it to grandson and went to Jeep Cherokee to get 4wd low range.

For what it may be worth to you, most Japanese cars are built in America. Subaru is still 100% Japanese. Hopefully parts availability will continue to remain good in the out years.

Best of luck to you in your search,

Pat

[jeffghs]

Thanks for the prices John, those were pretty much in line with what I expected.

Bird, that is partly what my frustration is/was. It seems like many dealers these days have found a new way to work their deceptive tactics. I expected to take a loss of $500 to $1000, but not $3000.

Many car dealers web sites these days will give you a tool to appraise your vehicle, some will stick with the price they give you, but others hope that you will fall in love with the vehicle you are looking at. Once you have fallen in love with the new one, their hopes are you will buy that vehicle at whatever cost as long as you can get them to not sell it at sticker price. Many consumers still go relatively uninformed (they don't use the blue book, they don't use the web) and will pay higher amounts or take a huge loss on their trades. On this particular attempt to purchase a vehicle, I used no less than 4 pricing guides to get an average trade value of $8383. Since this particular dealership used the Kelley Blue Book to appraise your vehicle, I thought it would only be right to at least hold them to this.

All I am trying to say is there are many unfair and deceptive practices out there (I know, I used to work at a Ford dealership a few years ago). We as customers can only do ourselves justice by becoming informed. If a dealer has an appraisal tool on their web site, use it, but hold them to it.

Jeff

[Pat]

jeffghs, Funny you should mention turbo and economy in the same breath. I got an estimate on the upcharge for the turbo. No thanks. If we were in the mountains a lot or especialy in mountains with heavy load or tow then a turbo would be a very good thing indeed. We have a '89 Dakota with your UNRECOMMENDED V-6. At best mileage is abot 16. Lately 10-11 and I don't know why.

A few years ago while we were on vacation a guy with two KNOCKOUT FEMALE COMPANIONS pulled into a station to fill up a Jeep Cherokee. We were fueling a Dodge/Cummins and I was some surprised when he grabbed the other hose on the pump and stuck it in the Jeep. I said, scuse me, thats diesel. He says, thanks for the warning... this is a diesel Jeep. Seems he was a a test driver for the company and was allowed to "check out" vehicles on weekends and such. This was a vehicle being tested.

I had heard the RUMOR and read comments in magazines about the diesel Liberty but it is a well kept secret as my local Dodge dealer (co-owner) has no info on it. It might be worth waiting for if it happens on schedule and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

In general, if it seems too good to be true, it usually is. So much for so litle... I have a fair size psychological barrier to hurdle to go with a KIA and I don't mean the unfortunate coincidence of Killed In Action.

Pat

[Pat]

Gary, So are you a line item on the Subaru advertisement budget? Thanks for the info. If the rumor of Diesel Liberty doesn't firm up soon I'll probably opt for a Forester. I think I may be getting over my infatuation with low price, long waranty, and features of KIA.

Pat

[Pat]

John III, Thanks for the scoop on auction prices. I had checked out the Kelley BB for KIA and Subaru. KIA certainly do not hold their value well. That, in and of itself, is not of importance if you intend to keep the vehicle essentially forever or till the end of its useful service life (hopefully beyond the waranty period). You should get to 100,000 relatively painlessly given the GREAT WARANTY. Getting another 100,000 out of it might be overly optimistic.

Time will tell if the KIA will last or not, retain good dealer representation, parts and service availability, and so forth.

I was told that the way you can tell the pioneers is they are the ones with all those arrows in their backsides. I once bought the HIGHLY TOUTED Motor Trend "Car of the Year", a '72 rotary Mazda. I set some kind of record at our lab. I got to 55K miles before it just wouldn't start one morning. One guy sold his while engine #3 was fresh. He never got near the typical 50K miles. Many others died around 50K. Car of the year my A$$!!!!!!

I try to stay away from the leading edge lest it become the bleeding edge (using my blood) as regards large expensive toys. By emotional makeup and training I am suited to be an early adopter of technology but over time I have cooled the fires of ardor and now try to avoid those arrows in the backside.

Thanks for the additional data point (additional nail in KIA's coffin).

Neighboring states? Oklahoma borders on 5, including: Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, New Mexico, and Colorado. We darned near touch Louisianna, much of which is closer than much of Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico.

Pat

[fivestring]

KIA = Killed In Action

They couldn't pay me to own one. Terrible re-sale. Kinda like the 3 cyl. Suzukis, Metro's, etc. Aluminum foil. I've worked too many wrecks with these involved and there is nothing left to repair. A bicycle could almost total one.

[JohnMiller3]

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Neighboring states?

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Hi Patrick,

Give me the state and metropolitan area that would be closest to you... so I can find an auction site... I didn't see any for OK...

(ex. Texas may have 7 or 8 auction sites around the state...)