I didn't intend to get a "new" car today. But a high trade in quote, combined with some upcoming expensive repairs, and an ok deal on a used car, led me to come out majorly ahead. Here's the story:
My wife had a 2017 Mazda CX-5 Touring that she loved. Really I loved it too. It got us to and from Disney, took us up and down the east coast, and was a reliable friend in tough times. But it had a few issues which were going to be expensive to fix (if we fixed them all). The touch screen was on its way out, it had some dings which would be several hundred to fix at a reputable PDR place, and needed new brake pads in about 10k miles. Total would be about $3500 for all of this work.
I planned on doing brakes first since it's a safety issue, and touchscreen later, since it's a convenience issue. PDR could wait for much later. But for curiosity, I got a trade-in quote from Carvana. They offered me $23,500 for our 2017 with 42,700 miles.
At the same time, I found a newer certified preowned 2018 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring (top trim for that year) with 21,800 miles for $24000. It was a $500 difference between the trade-in and the price of a newer version of the same car that had half the mileage and much MUCH better equipment (Bose stereo, adaptive cruise control, full leather interior, polished wood trim, sunroof, etc). I even got them to include new OEM tires and carplay as part of the deal, since Carplay is mandatory for us, and the tires it has are no-name lease return tires that I am not comfortable with.
After a bit of back and forth, the new loan is for exactly $1000 more than what we owed on the 2017 (which was very little to start with). So for effectively $1,000, I got to "fix" the issues my wife's car had by upgrading to a newer one with longer CPO warranty, lower miles, and much better equipment.
My wife had a 2017 Mazda CX-5 Touring that she loved. Really I loved it too. It got us to and from Disney, took us up and down the east coast, and was a reliable friend in tough times. But it had a few issues which were going to be expensive to fix (if we fixed them all). The touch screen was on its way out, it had some dings which would be several hundred to fix at a reputable PDR place, and needed new brake pads in about 10k miles. Total would be about $3500 for all of this work.
I planned on doing brakes first since it's a safety issue, and touchscreen later, since it's a convenience issue. PDR could wait for much later. But for curiosity, I got a trade-in quote from Carvana. They offered me $23,500 for our 2017 with 42,700 miles.
At the same time, I found a newer certified preowned 2018 Mazda CX-5 Grand Touring (top trim for that year) with 21,800 miles for $24000. It was a $500 difference between the trade-in and the price of a newer version of the same car that had half the mileage and much MUCH better equipment (Bose stereo, adaptive cruise control, full leather interior, polished wood trim, sunroof, etc). I even got them to include new OEM tires and carplay as part of the deal, since Carplay is mandatory for us, and the tires it has are no-name lease return tires that I am not comfortable with.
After a bit of back and forth, the new loan is for exactly $1000 more than what we owed on the 2017 (which was very little to start with). So for effectively $1,000, I got to "fix" the issues my wife's car had by upgrading to a newer one with longer CPO warranty, lower miles, and much better equipment.