Why do our LGT's suck so bad for re-sale?

I am most likely selling my LGT, because I need an automatic. I'm moving to L.A. and I don't want to sit in stop and go traffic with a stick shift...

 

Anyway, I asked the dealer about trade in value on my '06 LGT with 12K miles on it.... they said 19 on the high end, 16 on the low...

 

Hell, even privately I probably couldn't get more than 21K for this thing... It kinda angers me...

 

How does a 30K sticker priced car, lose 10K in value in LESS than a year?

because your in vegas....come trade it in here in montana i sell toyota chevy and cadillac.

 

oh yeah is it a GT???

^^^^

 

So what do they go for in MT?

It's a GT-Limited... in mint condition.

 

Even in the "for sale" section of this forum, these cars lose their value like there's no tomorrow...

The depreciation isn't that bad. It's not a Toyota or Honda. 1st year depreciation is bad when dealers slash prices. Honda and Toyota don't give that many rebates and they have the best reliability records in the business. My base 05 LGT listed for over 27k and I got it for a little over 24k after all the rebates. So now it has 20k miles and is worth around 17 or 18k. So I lost 5 or 6k in two years. If you want to sell your car every other year you'd probably be better off leasing a car and not modifying it. You have to keep a car for 6 or 8 years for it to make sense to finance it and even then it really depends on the car and the finance rate.

http://file.kbb.com/kbb/images/wsr/ucpath/getBlueBookValuest.gifhttp://file.kbb.com/kbb/Images/wsr/nchub/whatsThis.gif

 

http://file.kbb.com/kbb/VehicleImage/152x105/2005/MSSULEGTLTDSD051.jpg

More Photos

Condition Value

Excellent $21,200

Good $19,935

Fair $17,730

The depreciation isn't that bad. It's not a Toyota or Honda. 1st year depreciation is bad when dealers slash prices. Honda and Toyota don't give that many rebates and they have the best reliability records in the business. My base 05 LGT listed for over 27k and I got it for a little over 24k after all the rebates. So now it has 20k miles and is worth around 17 or 18k. So I lost 5 or 6k in two years. If you want to sell your car every other year you'd probably be better off leasing a car and not modifying it. You have to keep a car for 6 or 8 years for it to make sense to finance it and even then it really depends on the car and the finance rate.

Well, sticker was 30,500 for my car... we paid $27,000 for it... There was no incentives when we bought it.

 

7K in 6 months is rediculous...

 

Plus, why does Subaru offer such rediculous rebates in the first place? If they can't sell these vehicles WITHOUT offering that much off sticker, they need to LOWER THE DAMN PRICE of the car...

 

Leaves a REAL bad taste in my mouth...

Yup sucks!

 

Sold mine with '05 14K miles, SWP Limited GT fully loaded for $23,300. Only in service for a year.

 

Leased my new one.

 

X

How does a 30K sticker priced car, lose 10K in value in LESS than a year?

Who actually paid anywhere near that? I am sure most of us got it for at least 5k less than that due to all the incentives.

Why do people have completely unrealistic expectations about selling a one or two year old car? Has everyone forgotten the old adage that a car loses 1/4 its value when you drive it off the showroom floor? And loses about 1/2 its value in the first three years?

 

What car dealer offers competitive trade-ins compared to a private sale? At Edmunds.com the trade-in price is $1,500 less than the price sale price for a LGT.

 

According to: https://www.alg.com/press_detail.aspx?id=61 and other sources, Subaru ranks 4th among all manufacturers in retained value. Only Toyota, Honda, and VW do better.

 

That said, six cylinders do better than turbos of the same price (but only by about $500 for a 2005) and automatics are a whole lot easier to sell than manuals, for the simple reason that most Americans prefer the slushpumps.

Who actually paid anywhere near that? I am sure most of us got it for at least 5k less than that due to all the incentives.

Yep. Can't use 30K as a baseline. I bought my 06 LGT for $26K when they were only on the lots for about 1.5 months. New remaining 05's were selling for $24K.

Plus, why does Subaru offer such rediculous rebates in the first place? If they can't sell these vehicles WITHOUT offering that much off sticker, they need to LOWER THE DAMN PRICE of the car...

 

Leaves a REAL bad taste in my mouth...

 

If they lowered their prices a lot more than their competitors, then they would have even less wiggle room towards the end of the year. When the model first comes out they don't offer any incentives. It's when it the end of the model year comes around and they have too many models left and they have to cut their losses. This is where it really affects the depreciation. So, if you bought the car right when it came out and sold it within a year, someone could feasibly get a brand new leftover for what you would expect to get for your car. So, model year depreciation depends on reliability and how much the manufacturer slashes prices throughout the year. Cars are the most depreciating asset you will ever buy.

It's not a Toyota or Honda.

 

The real reason.

yeah, pretty much:icon_mrgr

Simple solution, don't sell a 1yo car to buy another.

 

I think you need to change your title.

Simple solution, don't sell a 1yo car to buy another.

 

I think you need to change your title.

 

Ain't that the truth. So many people buy cars on a whim, and don't think about what the future may bring or what they really want.

And sometimes life changes force you to do things that you could have not expected.

 

I for one was able to get some money back to put as a down payment on the lease. I enjoyed the GT a lot, and now the new car will be a stopgap until I can get another 5 speed beast.

 

As much as you may plan, sh*t happens.

 

Still, the truth is that the Legacy resale value sucks when compared to a toyota/honda.

 

There is a thread around here about someone's wife trading in her 1 year old Honda Pilot and getting money back no problem.

 

X

resale = honda = boring!

no resale = legacygt = exciting!

 

go figure!

yeah, it's definitely a double edged sword.

19-20k for trade if in excellent shape........... remember almost all vehicle take 2-4 years to be worth trading in dollar wise....

 

just payed 15,500 for 2005 non gt base model with cloth had 20,000 miles they had a forsale sign in the window for 16500

And sometimes life changes force you to do things that you could have not expected.

 

I for one was able to get some money back to put as a down payment on the lease. I enjoyed the GT a lot, and now the new car will be a stopgap until I can get another 5 speed beast.

 

As much as you may plan, sh*t happens.

 

Still, the truth is that the Legacy resale value sucks when compared to a toyota/honda.

 

There is a thread around here about someone's wife trading in her 1 year old Honda Pilot and getting money back no problem.

 

X

 

If it were me in that situation, I'd just drive the car regardless of the manual transmission.

Cars are the most depreciating asset you will ever buy.

 

Close. A car is not an asset. It is not an investment, either. It's a tool. Yes, you can get rid of it for cash, but in the big picture it is only an expense. Cars are constantly being built and redesigned, so any car you buy is not only older than everything built since, it's increasingly obsolete. Cars get used, and sporty cars get used harder. Non-sporty, value oriented cars like Honda and Toyota keep their value because they don't get used hard. I had 2 used Hondas that I loved and that ran forever. Why did I buy my LGT new? Because they get used hard and I wanted to trust it.

 

Every mile you drive it, every corner you take, every day it ages, your car is worth less money. It's geting closer to a major servicing. It's more likely to have something break. It's more likely to have something modified. Our cars are niche machines- mine was a small enough niche that SOA turned its back on me. That doesn't make my car a collectible, it makes it an orphan.

 

Stores are in the business of buying low and selling high. Car dealers aren't any different. They need to take a trade in for little enough money that they can fix problems they didn't know about and still sell it at a profit. Performance Subarus seem to need some drastic work to bring back to stock configuration. The way we drive them, they're likely to have had an off road excursion or two, maybe even a brief meeting with a curb. They may have been over revved a bit. The clutches and tires may have excessive wear. This scares used car buyers, which scares the store taking it in for trade, which lowers what they offer you.

 

WRXGuyInVegas- You could have bought your car last week, but it's a year old. If you bought it for $27,000, then you never thought of it as a $30,ooo car in the first place and it depreciated $3,500 before you even bought it. Think about that- you initiated the depreciation of your own car. Think about why you're selling it- less than a year after buying it you don't see it as a good transportation choice any more because of its transmission. How salable is this car? Sure, it would be worth a lot to someone here, but we participate in the same market as everyone else and new cars are still rolling out of the factory as we speak. All cars perform. I picked one for its performance while I ws using it, not for its performance when I decided to sell it.

I got my '05 Lgt 5mt LTD wagon in dec. '05 that msrp was almost $32k. I got it for $25k. I have not heard of many paying msrp. That effects resale.

Mine doesnt. I got $7,000 for a ten year old Legacy :-)

I got my '05 Lgt 5mt LTD wagon in dec. '05 that msrp was almost $32k. I got it for $25k. I have not heard of many paying msrp. That effects resale.

 

Yeah, I paid $24k for my '05 LGT unLTD. I'm willing to bet options are a big money loser in terms of resale too.