People Still Don't Understand This

Quit Blaming The Dealer For Your Low Trade-In Offer

But here’s the thing, ladies and gentlemen: the dealer is not in the business of buying used cars at their retail value. The dealer is in the business of making money. And they will not make money by giving you the Kelley Blue Book “showroom condition” value for your 2002 Honda Odyssey with 147,000 miles and Doritos crumbs in the gauge cluster.

Now, if you’re the kind of consumer who writes car dealership reviews on Yelp, this is the part you think is unfair: you’re only getting $500 for a vehicle that’s “worth” up to $2,000. And this is where the real entertaining part of these complaints comes in. Because here’s what these people don’t seem to understand: if you don’t want to sell your van to CarMax, you don’t have to. You can always use Autotrader, or Craigslist, or eBay, or cars.com to sell the thing yourself and get the value you think it “deserves.” Complaining about a dealership price offer when you don’t need to trade in your car is like showing up at the Apple store and complaining that the Internet is slow on the display computers.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I leave you with these parting thoughts: if you don’t like the dealership’s offer, quit complaining and sell the thing yourself.

(Jalopnik.com)