Topic: Used minivan negotiating tips

[Brig]

Funniest thread in a long time.  Talk about burning your bridges BEFORE you get to the other side...

Brigitte

[Needminivan]

Barrie and Saint 11, thanks for the replies and taking the time to read my post. I will continue to post here and will continue to ask for assistance and assist in any small way I can. I’ll try to watch putting forth humour so quickly.  

I also understand that being a dealer is a serious insult here. I thought this forum and especially a ”buying and selling” board would be an obvious place for dealers. Perhaps this sounds strange here, but I always walk up to a dealer with respect for a person doing any job. I found this link interesting:  

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/42962/article.html

Despite this type of story, I do prefer not to make assumptions about people because of their profession. I’ve still run across some generally good people who are trying to do their job in selling me a vehicle for the most money that I am willing to pay for it. Perhaps going to a dealership is like buying something in the middle east or asia. It’s all in excellent condition and the price is what you are willing to pay for it. ie. buyer beware. A dealer is still someone’s dad, husband coming home after a tough day who might deserve the benefit of the doubt before being judged. Just my opinion, others are entitled to theirs of course.  

I will not “kiss ass” for assistance as others seem to insist. And I will not insult intelligence on this forum by pre-emptively sucking up to people hoping to get help. If I don’t get assistance, then I don’t get it. And if after reading my last post here, some still get a kick out of trying to be larger than someone on a net forum, all the power to them.  

I was actively seeking, but took a break and now have slowed down reassessed and am thinking more late model odyssey or 04 sienna with the power doors. This means higher price, but may be looking for lease takeover. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[Brig]

[Wannabe4x4ing]

Oh, my belly hurts from laughing! I love Saint's post! Oh, good...calming down now. Continue, please.

[Wannabe4x4ing]

You know, I believe we're all still waiting for information on that minivan.  

Hey, Mini> Stop blabbing and start posting relevant information! You don't need to kiss ass, but you don't need to kick it, either. Just lay out your cards and let the boys take a look!

[Roadrunner]

Whew! Mini, to ease the pain you can also use the Smiley faces you see us use here practically all the time. Emotions are extremely hard to show on the Internet so we find using the little faces acceptable. They tend to defuse the flames.
As far as site knowledge goes, go to the forum main page and scroll down, you'll see what we mean by NO Dealers, etc. With one exception that is. Read the past posts and you'll see who it is and why he IS an exception to the rule.
We police this forum ourselves (along with the site moderators) to prevent problems and rarely do the posts turn into flames.  
Relax, lurk for awhile between posts and you'll soon fit in. Enjoy!
BTW, Welcome to the forum.

(Message edited by roadrunner on January 16, 2005)

[Needminivan]

Thanks for the tip roadrunner  



well that doesn't quite look like the way i'm feeling in the post preview, looks too contrived..

so lets try

much better...

been away from looking for a while, but not much has changed out there...still not certain whether to go recent odyssey 01-14, sienna 04. But leaning back toward MPV, cause wife likes the more compact size.  

The info that i did not offer is mileage. can't remember exactly but v. close to 65k for 2001 mpv es and somehwere around 75k for the 2000 mpv lx. The rest of the info is pasted from above as follows:

MPV minivans 2000 and 2001. The more expensive one being an ES fully loaded (cheap leather in those always looks worse than lower cloth model, but the moonroof is nice) and the cheaper one is an LX.  

ES originally listed at 19,000 for a very short time and now listed at 18,000. Blackbook value is 12-14500. What is reasonable opening offer? and what is reasonable sale price. assume average condition.  

LX Blackbook is 8600 - 10500. Mostly listed in market between 15+ to 18k. This one listed at 17,500 but identical "loss leader" listed at 15,500-- made contingent to getting inspection offer of 14750.00 and got not call back from dealer.

[Johnny5]

As Sterling said in post #4, there are many variables to selling (not asking) price.

My rule of thumb:  If you really like the product, offer 15% less than asking price.  Work up from there.  Shop as close to the end of the month as possible.

Your offer of $14,750 was good.  They were possibly scared off by the mechanical check.  Therefore WALK!  

If they did not call you back, don't panic.  There are more fish in the sea.

[Needminivan]

Thanks Johnny5. I did walk and actually took the advice of a friend and just stopped looking for a short while.  

There must be some old adage about seeing things all the time, except for the time you're looking for them. So I just took a break, which resulted in me considering other models also.