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[AZFJCRUZ'er]

Having been in the business for many years and speaking from experience (car guy's, feel free to chime in), what the dealer is doing is what they call "over allowing" on your vehicle and taking the profit out of the FJ Cruiser. Any new or newer car dealer want's nothing to do with a 95 pu with X amount of high mileage. Most finance companies won't finance such a vehicle. They won't resell it on their lot but instead take it to a dealers auction (pot lot dealers where they offer "buy here pay here" financing for folks with bad credit) where they will get usually back of wholesale book for it. Think about it, why would the dealer give you Retail KBB for a vehicle they'll end up getting less than wholesale for? In the previous posts, everyone says the price of the FJ is too high and honestly it is a bit to high but that's because what they're giving you for the trade in is too high. That is what has been overlooked. Please understand all I'm not dogging your opinions but attempting to educate. BTW, I'm no longer in this business in case anyone was wondering.

My thought on this, you have 2 options.

1. Sell your Toy on the open market and get somewhere between wholesale and retail value on it based on the condition and what the market holds in your area for your specific vehicle and then negotiate a deal on the FJ of your choice so you know what you're actually paying for the vehicle vs what you think you are.

2. Take the more than generous trade in allowance the dealer is giving your against the elevated price of the FJ and not worry about having to have people come look/test drive/harrass/pay to list/etc runaround that's involved with selling a vehicle on the open market. I don't think the deal the dealer is giving you is bad. It's reasonable but the main point everyone is missing here is that the dealer is SHOWING you full retail for a 95 Truck.....will never happen. It has to come from somewhere.

In more general terms, what you'll get at a dealer is they'll sell you there's for wholesale if you'll sell them yours for wholesale or they'll sell you theirs for Retail if you do the same. No dealer will sell you theirs for wholesale and buy yours for retail. Any dealer who does this will not be a dealer for long.

Or here's another way to ease your mind. If the dealer gives you wholesale book for your vehicle (very fair for a trade in of that type), that would probably be close to $2000.00 less than what he's showing you now. That means he could sell you the FJ for $24,700.00. Go ahead, ask him, he'll do it, I promise. All they're doing is manipulating the #'s. Sounds too simple? It is.

But wait, there's more.

If you trade in your vehicle, in some states (such as Arizona) you will only pay tax on the "trade difference" which is the price of the new vehicle minus the price of your trade in. Example:

FJ Crusier $26,700.00
TRADE $10,000.00

You would only pay tax on $16,700.00 vs the full $26,700.00 if you had no trade. That alone saves you about $900 here in AZ.

There are other things to consider. The cost of reconditioning your vehicle to sell it on your own vs just giving it to your dealer as is.

What is your time worth?

If anyone has any additional questions, feel free to PM me as I am a wealth of knowledge when it comes to this subject and would be happy to share. I help all friends, family, and even our priest buy their vehicles.

There are so many other variations to the car buying process where they're making much much more money than the price that people don't realize. Example would be the financing. When the dealer takes your credit report they send it to 20 different finance companies to get the best rate. If their best rate is 6% they'll sell it to you for 8% or even much much higher and make a ton in what they call "the back end of the deal".

Also, the alarms they sell in the finance department for $699 are really $100 alarms you can get yourself installed! Extended warranties are for the most part 99.5% profit. The list goes on folks. Don't worry so much about price, there are many more angles to this.