<p>This may be the dumbest question on earth, but…do used car dealerships accept trade-ins? We have a ten year old car-- an SUV, stick shift–that I’d love to trade for a little automatic for D to drive now she has her license. Not sure if I have to sell it first or if a dealership will just accept it in trade.</p>
<p>Yes they will, but you will take a big hit on the spread and may not worth it. Its better if you sell the suv yourself and pay cash for the other.</p>
<p>Yes - they’ll do almost anything if they think they’ll make money on the deal. Like artlover said, you might not get the best deal so make sure you have a good understanding of the values of the trade-in and the vehicle you’re purchasing by checking the value on edmunds.com or kbb.com. You might do okay if you go ‘like price’ for ‘like price’ - i.e. if they’ll give you only the ‘trade-in’ blue book price then see if they’ll sell you the new used vehicle for the equivalent trade-in blue book value. </p>
<p>I’ve heard that Carmax will do this - i.e. take a trade on their used cars but I’ve never actually purchased a car from them.</p>
<p>Yes they will but you will lose money on the deal. We never trade cars in as the dealer will usually give you below Blue Book for it. We have had very good luck selling cars thru Craigslist. Just check out the Blue Book on the internet and then price your car fairly.</p>
<p>Thank you! Craigslist makes me nervous, but maybe that is the way to go.</p>
<p>Used car dealers are there to make money. They are not going to do “like price” trades. If they do, then you are still going to lose out. Because first, they will pick every thing over your car to talk you down, secondly, you don;t know what are you getting from the trade. I have bought several cars from used car dealers and when you first get those, it looks good. Sooner or later, some thing will happen, especailly the transmission. I guess they can rig the transmission to work for a while before they blow off, normally after the “warrenty” expires.</p>
<p>I stay away from used car dealer.</p>
<p>CarMax will buy your car from you even if you don’t buy one from them.<br>
We did it and got a pretty decent price on a 6 yr. old Honda Accord. </p>
<p>You could list it on Autotrader. We have found a few cars through that website.</p>
<p>I’ve purchased used cars with no issues at all - there’s nothing wrong with buying a used car, including from a used or new car dealer. I don’t think there are many used car dealers who ‘rig the transmission’ to work for just during the warranty period. Most of them wouldn’t know how to anyway.</p>
<p>By ‘like price’ trades I meant that at least the purchaser will know that if they get ‘trade-in’ value for theirs they can get the ‘trade-in’ price on the replacement car also. Of course the dealer won’t lose money on the deal regardless but that’s often because they don’t even offer the BB trade-in price for a traded in car - they figure out where the customer is expecting the ‘deal’, either on the new car or the trade-in and then adjust the numbers to make the customer feel good but still in their favor. I don’t know if a dealer is willing to do a ‘like price’ trade in.</p>
<p>Given all that, I’ve purchased used cars with good luck but I’ve never traded a car in since the price they’ll pay is always way lower than if I sell it myself. I did sell a used car on consignment once (Ford Exploder with 100K miles on it) at a consignment used car lot and got a decent price for it and I’m sure the dealer did okay also. This is a little different because you don’t get paid until the car sells but this way you don’t need to deal with the purchasers and the dealer makes money on top of it all and can handle financing, showing the vehicle, etc. The difficulty would be in finding a reliable consignment place willing to do this. Other than this one time I’ve generally used autotrader or just a sign in the car window to sell the used cars.</p>
<p>I had my mechanic sell my last car (11 y o Volvo). I think she felt guilty that it gave me so much trouble in last few months, and wanted me to get best value. I’m sure she made money, but I did better than would have with CarMax or trade-in (unless buying another volvo)</p>