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Comment by foobarian | Hacker News Reader

Once upon a time I had a car, a daily driver. I kept it clean, vacuum/wash/polish with crazy waxes and the works. Stressed out about people riding with dirty shoes, drinks, etc., and when I asked myself why, the usual self-justification was "ah it's for the resale value." Hearing relatives get charged various fees at lease returns just fed that attitude, even though I owned the car outright. One day it was time to replace the car, so I brought it to the dealer as tradein. They scanned the VIN, looked in their computer, and just quoted me a price without ever looking at the car, either cosmetics or mechanicals. That was the day I decided that I own the cars, not the other way around, and this attitude slowly expanded to real estate too ;). So now there is a clover field in our front yard and I ripped out the irrigation too. When we eventually sell this home in 2060 the buyers can take it or leave it

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Of course, you should never sell the car to the dealer and should always make the effort to sell private party, which will often get you 50% or more greater than the dealers best offer.

Yes there are all those arguments. But it's a lot more work for still a pitiful amount of money.

Then on top of that after COVID dealer gave me $5k tradein for an Ecoboost car with a leaking cylinder wall, check engine light, missing parts, etc. where KBB was less than that. I really don't get it.

> But it's a lot more work for still a pitiful amount of money

It’s really not a lot of work and if $2000+ for a few hours work is pitiful, I envy your financial position. List on Craigslist at bottom market prices (you’ll still come out way ahead of the dealer), aggressively filter out tire kickers, sell it within 3-4 showings.

The law is very favorable to people being allowed to sell their personal vehicle without jumping through additional regulatory hoops.

50% is a stretch. 20% maybe, depending on the vehicle.

But here is another consideration. Sales tax. If I buy a car and trade one in, the sale price that I pay taxes on is the price of the vehicle I am buying minus the trade in.

For instance, if I buy a new car for $30,000 and trade in a vehicle and they give me $15k for it, I pay sales tax only on $15k. That saves me about $1k in my area in sales tax. If I could have sold the used car for over $16k, then I would technically be money ahead. But your time is also worth something. For it to be worth it to me, I would need to be able to get at least $17k for the used vehicle to make it worth the effort.

The amount of people who refuse to do private party sales and who insist on losing money by trading into the dealer is mind boggling.

Americans really get extremely stupid when car related anything comes up.

The sales tax deduction makes up most of the difference between private party and dealer resale. For a lot of people getting that last little bit of equity isn't worth the time, hassle and fraud risk

Time is money, and it's easier to negotiate with a dealer from whom you're buying a car than to coordinate many meetings with randos on Craigslist.

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