Yesterday, I cleaned up my car so good, a detailer would be jealous. I've been trying to sell the car privately, but figured I'd sacrifice $1000 to sell it to a used car dealer instead, and save myself the headache. I've done this with my last 4 cars, and came away with great deals! I'm lucky in that I have about 40 used car dealerships within a 6 mile span on a single road. So I just hop from shop to shop and get the best price I can negotiate.
Today was a whole other animal. Ironically enough, NOBODY wants this damn car! I had a dozen dealers that were amazed at how great my car looks, given that I have 48K on the car.. But as soon as they saw the 5-speed transmission, most backed away. As soon as the word "Contour" escaped my mouth, most replied "Not interested".
One of the frankest dealers told me after the nightmare involved with selling their last SVT, they'd NEVER buy one again, despite the fact that it was the owners favorite car to drive.
Oh, and us 1998.5 owners are screwed, because despite the fact that we bought the car essentially a year later, there's nothing to reflect it in the NADA guide.
I actually only had 2 offers, out of 30 dealers.. And I think those 2 were because the people thought I was desperate to sell (which I'm not). One was (get this) $4500! When I told him how much it was new, his jaw dropped. And the other offer I got was for $6500. Oddly enough, one dealer that showed me their NADA guide, and my car was worth $9950 on trade in, $12K retail (prices lowered in recent month due to the soft used car market right now). So I guess they were just padding themselves, in case it took them awhile to sell the car or whatnot.
All in all, not what I expected.. The limited production aspect of the SVT doesn't do a thing for the resale value of the car.
Ads go in the newspaper next week. First $12.5K gets it.
