Yesterday I got a phone call. The guy asked for me by name and then said he was from the dealer where I bought my car 7 years ago and they would like to buy it. I explained that I had used my previous car for 17 years and felt I had 10 years to go.
What is going on here? Are they really trying to get me to trade in for a new car? New car dealers are not in the business of selling old cars, although of course they do it in order to be able to take trade-ins. Is there any other purpose to this? Did someone walk in and say that they were looking for a 7 year old Honda Fit?
It is just a cold call trying to generate new sales. The dealership gives its salepeople lists of people who bought cars there previously, and they start dialing.
It’s very common. The dealership wants you there to buy a new one. I often get mail saying the dealership wants the used car for their inventory, but what they really want is for someone to have a new car itch
They want to buy your car because they want to sell you a new one.
They figure that after seven years you are likely to be open to buying/upgrading. They also figure people will be more intrigued by the “we want to buy your car” approach rather than “we want to sell you a new car.”
They are simply trying to kickstart your desire for a new car, get you in the showroom to show you the neat new models. If you have a 7 year old car, no, they don’t really want it, or at least they don’t intend to pay you more than it’s worth. But if they can get you to stop in, one of their friendly sales consultants will be glad to show you a new 2014 or 2015 model with all of the new convenience and safety features.
If you bought a Honda before, you are more inclined to buy a Honda again. If you bought from this dealership, and still live locally, you are more inclined to buy a new Honda from this dealership than the average Joe their TV and newspaper ads reach. It’s simply a form of marketing, more targeted than a traditional TV commercial or newspaper ad. Making a phone call, or sending postcards (which I get occasionally) is relatively cheap direct marketing.
And contrary to your second post, new car dealerships ARE in the business of selling old cars. Dealerships make about as much money on used car sales as they do new car sales. Often, they make MORE selling a used car - pay $15k on a trade in and sell it for $19k, for example. But new car sales, used car sales and service make up the three legs of a typical dealership’s revenue generators.
But in my experience the used cars available at the dealers are newer than seven years old. So I doubt they will add the OP’s seven-year-old car to their inventory.
All of the above. It’s just a sales tactic. And yes, they will give you an absurdly inflated trade-in value for your old car… because the cost will come out of some other part of the deal.
I started getting letters to trade in my car after I had owned it for two years. They just want to drive business. Personally I think most people who trade their cars in that fast are kind of crazy, even if you are rich. Sensible people, even rich people, keep their cars for a long time and don’t consider a car payment part of the cost of living.
Yeah, absolutely. The dealership would wholesale a 7 year old car to an auction house. Either way, whether they keep a trade-in or wholesale it, they will only pay a reasonable amount for it… or build a too-high amount into the price of a new car.
Yeah. My mom just got an offer to pay 110% of blue book value for her “vehicle”. Unfortunately, she died two years ago and both of her “vehicles” are now in California instead of Idaho. I’m pretty sure that driving either of them to Idaho would negate that added 10%.
I have to assume the offer was generated by computer from a list of old customers. I can’t imagine a salesman being dumb enough to deliberately send the offer cross-country.
I had a Ford extended cab pickup that sat in my driveway for a few years. There was a constant stream of guys knocking on my door wanting to buy it. Evidently, this was the preferred model for construction/laborer types. I should have let one of those guys have it. It sat so long that by the time I got around to trying to get it running and get rid of it, the engine had seized up. I ended up paying to have it towed off.
I made calls like that back when I was selling cars. Sometimes it was because things were slow and we were trying to drum up business; somebody with a 15-year-old car might reasonably be assumed to be interested in getting a new one, which typically involves trading in the old one. Other times it was because I had a prospect looking for a particular make, model, & year, so I was trying to satisfy that person; sometimes we were just trying to replenish our inventory for a particular make.
+1
My wife drives ten minutes down the road to get to work. The dealership knows the history of her car and all the maintenance & repairs ever done on it and the fact that it’s got ridiculously low wear & tear on it for its age. They’re eager to sell her used car to someone else for top dollar. They’re even willing to pay her “50% more than full blue-book” for it.
We’re under no illusions that they’re prepared to hand her cash. They’ll show her their blue-book (not Kelly’s) and subtract for every microscopic problem (“your front wheels are 3 minutes* out of alignment”) add 50% and tell her they’ll take that much off the price of a new car. Nice way to set up another car loan, but my wife doesn’t want to carry another loan right now.
Technically, it’s not a scam. They do want your car, they are willing to pay a reasonable price for it. Of course there are some rules and restrictions…
–G!
*No, not even 3 degrees – but they are misaligned so that lowers our offer…
Yeah, we had a '98 Dodge Intrepid that we stopped driving regularly when my wife got a new corporate car. It was to be sold promptly, then one kid, not needing any warnings about riding her bike in the driveway, creased the rear quarter just enough to make it something that had to be dealt with. In between trying to get a reasonable repair estimate and other things, it sat for about 4 months. In that time, it ate two batteries, the power windows jammed regularly, and otherwise always had something wrong that kept it from being salable at a fair price. We finally donated it and took a tax deduction much larger than any realistic sales profit.
Yeah, I think this is the key. They usually don’t make a whole lot of profit on the new car sales themselves, but the trade-in and financing can make the the deal pretty lucrative. A 7-year old Honda Fit is a pretty desirable used car, so if they can get it for a typical trade-in price they’re going to make money on it, even if they just wholesale it. A potential customers they know has a nice juicy trade-in is the kind they’re going to want to get in the door. I have a feeling owners of old Chevy Aveos and such don’t get these sorts of letters quite as much.
I bought a 1999 Subaru from a local used car lot 4 years ago. Recently I got a postcard from a nearby Subaru dealer stating that they wanted to buy my Subaru. I have never even stepped foot in the dealership for labor or anything.
So how do they know that I own a Subaru, and where I live?!
I always had a good laugh when I got those “We need your car” letters. The fine print said there was a deduction from the listed price for mileage over 12,000 per year. My 8 year old car had 248,166 miles on it. I calculated I would have to pay them $54,000 to take my Hyundai Elantra.