I had high bid on this truck.
eBay Motors: Ford : F-250 (item 350070540065 end time Jun-19-08 18:30:00 PDT)

and as some may remember I am trading my super reliable 94 f150 4x4 supercab.

So they contact me and say they are motivated to sell. I am in AZ right now, so i go over there.

Their offer was 15,9 which is what they dropped their website price to. They offered me 2 for mine.

I left. Sent back an offer of 11,5 did not hear back today.

I mean, anyone can look on ebay and see that these trucks are not selling, and I even pointed this out. Under completed listings, there are only a few marked sold, and the highest was 12,5

I am not overly motivated, i am heading back to KY real soon. But if I am going to upgrade, I would love to get a truck from out here. Zero rust, even on manifold studs.

Maybe guy had today off and will come back with counter offer tommorow.

I am thinking of going 12,5, because the trucks is real clean, and it ooks at 19+, well we will see. If not I will make offer on other truck i posted about last week.

 

How does their $.99 gas promotion work?

$4,500 off asking price is certainly low-balling it. I imagine that's at or below his cost.

I'll never understand why people waste money posting pics of the freaking manufacturer's emblem/stickers.

 

A lot of times the auctions won't show being sold because they sold them outside of ebay.

Knowing something isn't selling and being able to sell it for market price are two different things. At some point the prices will have to bottom out. They've dropped a lot already. It's like the housing market IMO.

 

reddog - prices are already falling at some dealers, I think you did the right thing - keep shopping around and throw out some low-ball offers.

I've just finished a round of truck shopping and I've found that there are some dealers who realize that this round of the fuel price crisis thing is really different - but there are still a bunch out there who think that if they hold out for higher prices on the trucks they're holding, that the price of fuel will eventually drop and they'll get their price.

The problem is the "what the truck is worth" vs. "what do I have invested" mind set at some dealers. I looked at one truck - a 2006 350, 37K miles. It had been sitting on their lot for 6 months (during which time they had rolled the mileage from 35K to 37K, pushing it out of warranty - how stupid is that!?) They were asking $21.5. I offered them $17K and mine as a trade, they came down as far as $17.9K. I went as high as $17.2 (adding in the price of their "document fee" which I usually refuse to pay) but they wouldn't come down farther. I walked. Five days later they dropped the price to $21K, I called them and told them my offer of $17.2K was still good - they said they would consider it, but never even called me back. Since then they've dropped it to $20.5K, and within the past couple days, to $20K. If they were serious about the price drops, then they screwed themselves out of a deal. If they'd just drop what they'd allow for a trade by the amount they dropped the asking price, then they're not dealing in good faith and screw them anyway.

In the meantime I picked up a 2006 350 with 17K miles and two years of factory warranty left for $16K + my trade (97 250 w/ 113K).

So I was offering them what the truck was worth (to me), and they were holding out trying to recoup what they had in the truck. Personally I don't understand their thinking - when you're stuck with something that you can't sell for a profit, or even break even on, better to recover at least some of the money and invest that money in something you *can* make money on. Put your money to work - it's not working for you when it's tied up in truck that's sitting on the lot for months and months and months...

So anyway - my advice would be to keep shopping for a truck at a bargain price - at a dealer that "gets it"...

 

MOnsta, do not forget I am trading in as well, so I dont thinnk I am asking too much. And I figure they will come back with 12,500, so...

Herdsman your right. I love car salesman. Like how for mine, they show me a value from some auction that tells you whats cars are selling for, but for their's they show me KBB. I would love to see the auction value of their truck right now. NIce trick, but I aint dumb. I would take the 6.3 that KBB says my truck is worth, or gie them what the auction house says theirs is worth, apples to apples.

I am glad things are where they are, I dont feel need to give in. Just like ebay, I bid 8 and left it, you never bid like that if you want to win. Two days later i win at 7.4, that shoulda scared them a little.

 

reddogracing,

I think your trade and $12,500. is a fair price. I would not go any higher.
V10's are great engines but when gas is almost $4.00 a gallon, they are very
hard to sell. It is definitely a nice looking truck.

Good luck

 

There's places who want to move vehicles (like the place I bought my truck from) and theres places who dont care to move em... Like Lasco ford

see my post: https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/7...are-funny.html

And yes, 4 weeks later the truck I offered a DOLLAR MORE than they are currently asking is still sitting on thier lot ...hehe

 

You always have the option not to buy something.

Yes dealers play games, lots of them. But the large majority of the consumer expects it. On one hand to make it seem like they won (I know I do). Even on a lot that has their "best price" do you believe it? Negotitation is part of the process unfortunately.

However, we are all car dealers in a way too. I sell lots of stuff that I don't need anymore to put some cash in my hand. I don't make money on any of it though, and certainly couldn't make a living on it. But lets say I had my truck for sale. I'm sure I owe more on it than I could think about selling it for right now. So if I HAD to sell it, does that mean I HAVE to take a loss on it somehow? Or should I TRY to hold out for the person who thinks it may be worth what I need to get for it?

I would have to hold out, mostly because I couldn't afford to pay the bank right now for the privelege of selling it. However, you don't stay in business taking losses on a product. And everyone seems to think that you can make it up on the next one. Except this is the next one, making up for the last 10 you had. The car business in this country is very difficult, especially now. Manufacturers offer incentives to the dealer for "moving" inventory, so you can take a theoretical loss on a new car, but there is no such thing on a used one.

I guess I'm just sore because I got what I thought was a good deal on a truck beginning of 07, invested some of the money in fixes/upgrades, then watched as the value sank like the titantic when everyone suddenly decided that fuel costs were so bad they couldn't afford to DRIVE their land yachts anymore and it was better to sell them for far less than they were worth and buy a bread box with wheels. Weird thinking IMO.

 

And the irony is that their thinking isn't really all that sound in the short run if they did the math on it beyond mpg numbers. It would take 5 yrs approximately for the average person to make that pay off(now there are some variables in there that would change that up or down, but that is the average) and with demand destruction for oil that we have right now, who knows what it would be in 5 yrs time.

Oh and on mpg numbers, you actually save more improving the mileage of an inefficient car up 2 mpgs then if you were to improve the mileage of a more efficient car up the same amount of mpgs. Called the law of diminishing return or in the business world diminishing marginal utililty.

 

I hear you.... but look at it this way, like it's the way you pay the rent. You've got to assume that there are deals out there waiting that will make you money. So for example, if you owe $1500 on your truck, but can only sell it for $1200, but there's another vehicle that you can buy for $1000 and you think you can sell for $1500, do you sell your truck for $1200 so you can take the money and make the $500? Or do you hold out for the $1500? How about if it's a good bet that next week your truck will only be worth $1100?

The old guy who taught me the cattle business taught me that when you're holding something that you can't get your money back on - whether it's cause you paid to much, the market dropped out from under you, whatever - you sell it for what you can and move on to the next deal. Of course he was an old Yankee, so he said it in a much more colorful way: "Take your f**king and forget it" was the way he phrased it, as I remember...

 

Once the innermost sanctuary of hell reaches 0 degrees C, the prices will fall.

 

Or more simply, "cost per mile".

 

I wish it were that easy. With car sales in general, it is so hard to predict what something might be worth next week. Prices are usually based on recent sale prices, because it is only worth what someone is willing to pay. It's even harder to know with values as volitile as they are now adays. It's just a huge mess.

Seems that the ones that you get to make it up on are the hot new models like whent he mustang came out and was getting 5 and 10 k over sticker. They are just too few and far between.

 

If you are in no hurry and are motivated by a killer deal then I suggest you sit tight for a while. Cost of living is increasing and more people are getting in financial stress every day. I suspect the deals will only get better as the year lingers on and more people become desperate to sell and get out from under some of their payments. There might be a slight increase in prices this fall if you are looking for a 4WD, just because the same people that panic to save fuel now also panic to get a 4WD when it snows.

Last winter in Illinois we had a few good dumpings of snow, some over a foot. I can't remember even using 4WD once all winter with my Jeep Cherokee. It's a good little rig.

 

I didn't mean to make it sound easy, or that it's a sure thing. Business decisions are always a gamble.

But doesn't mean it's pure chance either. It's a good bet right now that if you invested your capital in SUVs and "consumer" trucks for resale, you've made a mistake. You can sit on your mistake, or you can realize that having smaller fuel efficient cars on the lot will turn your stock over faster and make you more money. If I were a used car dealer I'd be sending the SUVs to auction, taking my beating, and coming home with more salable vehicles. There's value in increased cash flow, even if you are (hopefully temporarily) losing money.


But the key part of your statement is what I was saying in the first place:

Absolutely correct - it's value is not determined by what the dealer might have invested in it...