Terrible residuals on an A4 :(

[Geordie Amanda]

It's a long story, but an opportunity came to change my car early (to another very nice car) and so I thought I would see what my A4 was worth as a trade in. I only wanted to know what the SIV was, but I was slightly surprised.

The car was £40K discounted by the usual amount, is a 3.0tdi S line, Full ADS and Sports Diff, Tech pack high, Sound Pack, Interior light pack, heated seats, and a couple of little things I can't remember. It's 22 months old and has 39K on the clock. Is is immaculate inside and externally is perfect except for a small light scratch on a rear panel.

It's SIV = £15.5K not terribly good really

Needless to say, I am glad I have a PCP, as the car looks as though it will never be out of negative equity

[Crasher]

Over supply, too many ***** coming out of 3 series **** mobiles and buying Audi's, buggered up the residuals!

[xtremist]

Was in a similar position, car in my sig below with 54k on a 58 plate, very good condition (1 car park ding), trade in between £12 and £13k !

Guess I'll be hanging on to it for another year or 2

[theskyfox]

I guess thats just the nature of cars. At least you will get a bit more being S-line, Diesel and 3.0.

Its probably not worth giving it to Audi anyway. Find a good local garage that will take it off you instead,
or if you feel brave list it on autotrader. When I traded in my old 1.9TDi Audi wanted to give me £3000 for it.
I went to another local car dealer who wrote me a cheque for the same car for £4000. Then he listed it
up on his forecourt for £5590!

You know what they say....if it Appreciates, buy it. If it depreciates...lease it!

-Andrew

[C Mitchell]

If you ever get the opportunity to Glasses Guide or do a CAP valuation on BMW you will find that they are worse than Audi hence, why I didn't go for the 318d SE and instead for the A4. The difference on the trade valuations was about £1,500. As for my previous VW - every VW salesmen will tell you what magnificent residules they have, then you come to trade it in and you get way below book. Happens every time to my well maintained VW's. My last trade and purchase so my local VW dealer offer me £1,200 less than a car supermarket and an independent dealer. I suppose they have to pay for these fancy VAG showrooms somehow.

[Audi Nick]

I sold my last car privately rather than trade it in which netted me about an extra grand. The problem I found was that the toys made the car more attractive, but not enough for people to pay more it. I always thought that Glasses and CAP were 'guides' not 'maximums' which seems to be the case, with no additional values given for some very expensive (and in some cases essential) extra's.

I'm fed up with loseing tens of thousands of pounds in depreciation and a friend of mine have convinced me to keep the car until it dies. You may be interested to know that his A4 has now done 270,000 miles and is still going strong, only another 250,000 miles and will have caught him up!

[Crasher]

That's the nightmare with options and why special editions with options included are good. The guides price the car based on the stripped out almost unusable car but ignore the options, they should have a + section at the side which adds stated £'s increase for each option, e.g. Audi A6 TDI + leather = £200 premium. It would not be too difficult in this age of computes to do that because why should a basic car with zero options be worth the same as a car bought to order with all the boxes ticked. If you go on the Audi config (when it works!) on some cars you can nigh on double the new price of many cars.

[skymaster]

The 3.0l TDI in Slines are rare as hens teeth on the Audi used car network. I would expect to see your car on there for early 20s ...

It always baffles me how car salesman moan about 'not having any margin left in the deal' but buying in at 15k and selling at 21k sounds like a fair margin to me...

It seems the options make a car easier to sell, but not any more valuable.

Trouble with selling privately is that you limit your market to cash buyers, which on cars over 20k is limited... the dealers of course offer finance which most people opt for...

[Crasher]

£6K, do me a ******* favour we are lucky to clear 500 notes if all goes well, if something goes wrong like a DMF that's the profit from this car and the next one down the shiter. Joe public just has not got a clue about how the used car industry works, it is 24/7 ******* nightmare trying to make enough money to keep going!

[zollaf]

i used to buy and sell a few but its just not worth the hassle. i'm talking the bottom end of the market though where the risks are lower. these days you just don't get cheap cars as they go on ebay and fetch silly money.