Are good used cars going up in price?

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Ryland

I used to be able to find $150-300 cars for my friends that would last them a few years, now I'm currently trying to find a good used car for a friend of mine and having no luck! she has money from her insurance and we can't find anything under $3,000 that is not trashed, or a truck, put a ceiling of $1,000 on the craigslist search and nothing shows up that runs!

Is anyone else noticing this trend of a lack of nice small cars for sale?

I think this is a combination of 2 things.

Crap for clunkers definatly did not help

High metal prices also didn't help.

I also think greed has done it as well, the fact that a 10 year old + diesel (choose your oversized vehicle) in moderately good condition was $1200-$3000 10 years ago and now is $10K plus for the same type of vehicle can't be explained just by inflation or demand either.

I think dealers have learned to just sit on stuff hording it and keeping it off the road and as a side effect have driven up the overall price for everyone and must not care about sales volume anymore. Also the junk yards charge more than what the vehicles sell for in the wild now, which is VERY strange.

The sad part is if I try to sell one of my vehicles, like our 02 TDI Jetta with 111k on the clock I can't even get $5k or even people who want it, but try to find one and the damn things are around $10k. I would have sold it and got a stick by now of the same age/mileage if I wouldn't loose $6k in the process

Its the same story with a 01 1/2 Dodge v8 pickup loaded with options, we have uses for a pickup but it would be INFINEATELY more usable as a stick with a long box (would also work as a dingy/trailer), try to sell it and maybe $2k even though its rust free and only has 65k on the clock. Try to buy the exact same truck and their all $7k plus, some are $11k makes absolutely NO SENSE. No one seems to be willing to negotiate either.

Before I got the Dodge we were looking for a $500 crap van that ran and stopped. It used to be unbelievably easy to find an old rusty but good van for moving crapola around. I looked for months and the one old van that ran I found had a salvage title and had no functional brakes, the others that were $700-1000 didn't run (or required extraordinary means to do so) Over 2 dozen all complete garbage and all in that rather high price range.

Ungodly irritating because I can't move out of my vehicles anymore, I have to just stick with what I have or pay a tremendous price penalty. Basically have to trash the things to get rid of them, all to move into something almost the same but with a bit more utility (for me at least)

Because of all this irritation I am having my old 6.2 diesel rebuilt relatively cheaply with a stick, sad part is the guy doing it is REAL slow. Still a lot less than trying to buy one If it works out the dodge is being basically given away, too bad it won't help my taxes any though.

Cheers
Ryan

[Clev]

Doesn't help that the news reports are all touting the supposed upcoming $6 gas and how efficient vehicles will be going up in price.

[caffeinekid]

You guys are speaking my language with this thread. I've been *****ing about this for years. And it is cars in general, not just clunkers. When you go to sell one, you can't get better than wholesale, but good luck trying to buy the very same one without the $3000-4000.00 markup.

If you ask me, I would say that the millions of illegal aliens have also added more buyers to the market for clunkers. Dealers around here will go to the auctions and buy Ford Escorts that are over 10 years old and sell them for $3995.00 "pay as you go - hablamos Espanol". The damned things didn't cost but about $10-12k brand new. At best they are a $500 car.

[Ed79]

the cost of purchasing a quality used vehicle has definitely increased in price, i used to be able to find a solid vehicle for 3k or under here locally now i am hard pressed to find one for under 5k. The only vehicles i can find for a respectable price are full sized older pickups that everyone is eager to unload.

[rmay635703]

Originally Posted by Clev

Doesn't help that the news reports are all touting the supposed upcoming $6 gas and how efficient vehicles will be going up in price.

Why would that increase the amount I have to pay to buy a used full size truck or van though? It should go down not up, I can understand why I can't sell mine for what I expect, but I expect EVERYONE ELSE TO BE IN THE SAME BOAT, not just me.

[Stanley]

Buying used cars is a brilliant idea rather than buying the new one. A best used car dealer does not just sell you a car and then forget about you. A long-term and healthy relationship is built between the car dealer and the buyer to ensure a great car service guarantee.

[Frank Lee]

Yeesh- NO DEALERS!!!

[justjohn]

Same thing in southern WI. Took me a couple months of keeping an eye on things to find a deal I was interested in. And it was still a bit of a gamble; we'll see how it plays out.

Seems really hard to find a high mpg car for anything reasonable. I noticed echo owners in particular seem to be asking a lot. Some close to twice the blue book value. :/

Example:
Blue book as described is $3700

[Christ]

That's due to the fact that kbb doesn't account for the market in which the vehicle is being sold. Buy a not- so-high mippig car and mod it. Save money.

[Nevyn]

Originally Posted by Christ

That's due to the fact that kbb doesn't account for the market in which the vehicle is being sold. Buy a not- so-high mippig car and mod it. Save money.

Agreed, but not-so-high + mods = high; however, high + mods = extreme!

I'd like extreme MPG for sure. However, I don't have the money to afford to find high mpg myself, so medium + mods it is for me.