Has anyone traded a paid off car for 1 cheaper?

[lindyanne]

We have three cars. A sequoia, a cayenne and a beater jeep. DH wants a new jeep and I want to downsize a bit so we were going to trade my sequoia in for his jeep and I'd take the cayenne and then we'd sell his jeep privately (will try now but will probably go better in spring. Not getting a good trade value on it bc it has a lift kit and bigger tires on it). The new Jeep is about 30k and the kbb is about $40k. I feel like they're going to try to hose us on the trade in even though its a clean marketable car just bc we'll be walking away with money. Anyone have experience with this?

[pamela]

The only reason to trade in is if you expect to be able to bargain up the worth of the trade in as a part of the deal in buying a new car. Or because you don't want to deal with a private deal (like a car still has a note on it, you don't have easy access to a good market, or like us are just lazy). So yeah, you aren't going to get the best deal trading it in.

[M]

We've always upgraded, but we traded in our 2007 m6 for my leased 2010. They knew we weren't in need of a new car and they really wanted the sale. We played good cop, bad cop. I was bad cop. H kept calling me saying they were offering us this great deal and I kept saying no with a number in mind. They kept finding new discounts (lease discount, Euro Delivery discount, making upgrades free, etc) until I got about 12% off MSRP.

We did the same with the trade in, showed the kbb and everything. We even negotiated the refund of our extended warranty haha. Every number they gave us wasn't good enough until they hit my magic number.

Not exactly the same as what you're wanting to do but essentially they got so frazzled trying to make that sale happen that they screwed up the deal and gave us too much off haha. You can probably do well with private party trade in but I would go into the dealer with a number in mind and walk out if it's not what you want. When you don't have anything to lose, the deal usually works out in your favor.

[lys]

You will get more money if you sell the vehicle yourself rather than trade it in.