I test drove a Fit this morning. I like the car. I was ready to make a deal.
I currently drive a Chevy 2006 Silverado V6 Short wide , automatic, CD, 17 MPH in city, very clean. Manual windows, no carpet. Has 14,200 miles. The chevy dealer put 4 new tires under warranty four weeks ago. Has a new Rino liner 6 weeks old. Tinted windows. Very well taken care of. Almost paid off.
Trade in offer was $7,500. Guess I will sell it myself then buy a Fit.

 

Just one of the many ways the dealer makes his money >>>He STEALS your trade! Good luck on selling your chevy & congrats on your good taste in wanting a fit!

 

Bob-
Suggestion- use cars.com (partnered with Kelly Blue Book). If you buy their deluxe ad package, you get a guarantee that if your vehicle does not sell in 60 days the ad cost is refunded. Post LOTS of photos is the ad. Also, good luck selling any pickup with today's, and tomorrow's, etc., gas prices.

 

Yes, Honda is not eager to put your Fords or Chevy's on their lots. I traded in my Ford Ranger XLT and they sent it straight to auction. The brother of a friend of mine called just a day after I got the Fit and wanted to know how much they gave me on the trade. He called to see if they would hold the truck until he could get there to look it over and they told him the truck was already gone and went to an auction house.

Hope you can get the most out of your truck and get into that Fit and keeping more cash in your pocket than given to the gas pump!

Welcome to the Fit Forum!

Cat :x

 

The word I have been hearing is that most dealers aren’t even taking big trucks and SUV's in for trade because even they can’t sell them!

 

Yeah that is the national trend because of fuel costs. Lots can not keep cars like the Fit on the lot though.

One of our dealer's locally stopped bringing in new trucks all together. Kinda risky but I have a feeling it will pay off for them.

 

you know.. i bet there is an opportunity here.. years ago i worked with a guy from kuwait.. at that time the king of kuwait or whatever he was loved chevy sedans.. seems that the air-conditioning in those cars is/was the best in the world.. and in kuwait, sand damages cars and they dont last.. kuwait is a small country and everyone there does what the king does.. so this guys brother was buying used chevy sedans in good condition and shipping them to the mideast where they were bought right off the ship with no complaints..

one wonders if buying up all these SUVs, and trucks and shipping to say.. russia might be a interesting biz idea....

 

Selling to Russia or anywhere in the Eastern block is always autoFAIL. Russia is so poor they still can barely feed their people. Its all about the Middle East.

Buy em all up and open a dealership up in Dubai.

 

HAR! indeed most are poor .. but there is a ton of loose change floating around too.. for instance, expect the ruskies to get more than its share of nissan GTRs.. because they will buy em up elsewhere and ship em there.. lots of maybachs end up there... supposedly lots stolen turbo porcshes.. seems like i heard they LOVE hummers there..

another place MIGHT be china... but its harder to do biz in china without getting taken to the cleaners than just about anywhere else.. in russia you just have to find the right 'family' to deal with..

lots of new flash money in china and russia.. middle east is another matter ..

 

Traded in a 1998 Jeep Wrangler with 160,000 miles (13 mpg hiway) on a 08 Fit Sport AT and ended up paying $12,000.00. I'm sure it went straight to auction. Or maybe Moscow or Kuwait City.

 

[quote=Bob M;318222]I test drove a Fit this morning. I like the car. I was ready to make a deal.
I currently drive a Chevy 2006 Silverado V6 Short wide , automatic, CD, 17 MPH in city, very clean. Manual windows, no carpet. Has 14,200 miles. The chevy dealer put 4 new tires under warranty four weeks ago. Has a new Rino liner 6 weeks old. Tinted windows. Very well taken care of. Almost paid off.
Trade in offer was $7,500. Guess I will sell it myself then buy a Fit.

Sounds like a work truck version (lowest price Chevy Silverado).
The trade price was a little low but the dealer realizes that that truck does not have a big market right now. Most farmers and real truck users already have a truck so he's factored in having to pay interest on the money he would have in byour truck or dealing thru used car autions.
try checking Autotrader.com to see what others are offering their similar truck for. If its $9000 or less , $7500 wholesale is fair. You may have a real shock coming when you find what the used market values are for anything that gets less than 20 mpg.

 

It is actually more sensible to keep a paid off SUV/truck then to buy a new economy car. Nothing against the FIT but spending thousands to save hundreds is penny wise pound foolish. Hopefully your reasons involve more than just gas savings.

 

I agree with this. I have a Tacoma for camping, hauling, moving, hunting, etc. Only drive when I need it. Stays in the garage the rest of the time (a LOT, lately. ). Best of both worlds.

 

Good Luck trying to sell the truck with these gas prices. It took me 4 months to get rid of my 2000 Ford Ranger in fall 2006. Thats when it was $3.00 a gallon.

 

Yea, If you can afford to keep the truck, keep it.

Not everything fits in the Fit.

 

I think your statement should start with "It depends, but in some cases... ".

I was commuting in a 2005 Subaru Impreza STi up until 2 weeks ago, when I got the Fit. The STi was averaging 21-22MPG of premium. I calculated that, at 35MPG and $3.75/gallon, the Fit will pay for itself in fuel cost savings alone. (So far I'm getting 38MPG or better and gas is nearly $4.00/gallon, so my calculations may prove to be conservative.) My commute is pretty long (over 30k miles / year), so my fuel costs are higher than average. YMMV.

 

The Fit costs .1 per mile in gas at $3.80 a gallon and 38 mpg (regular gas).
The Subaru costs .1904761 per mile at $4 a gallon and 21 mpg (premium gas).

A difference of .0904761 per mile.

A $17,000 Fit would pay for itself in 187,895 miles (assuming it was not financed). Most folk have little chance of making that mileage. Given your large annual miles you might make it. Having to wait six years to break even isn't exactly a safe bet though. One can also argue you have even more money to make up if you traded/sold the Subaru at a depressed value because of its gas economy.

Getting rid of a paid off vehicle solely for gas savings almost never makes economic sense. Most people would have to keep the car for far too long to break even.

 

Like I said, YMMV.

I just plugged today's fuel prices into my little spreadsheet. At 32K miles/year the Fit is saving me $3010/year in fuel costs. That pays it off in a little over 5 years. (Your mileage estimate is a little high, but in the ballpark.)

FWIW I'm keeping the STi -- it's too much of a hoot to drive for me to ever sell it. So there are still costs associated with that. (Given the crapola trade-in figure quoted for the original poster I'd probably keep the truck too.)

I fully realize that my Fit's not a completely free car. Even so, $3K/year is one heck of an incentive.

 

I'm glad you took the time to think it out and it wasn't a completely knee-jerk reaction.

It sounds like you did not finance the vehicle since it pays off based on your figures at around 16k. I would argue that you aren't going to break even for at least seven years though (assuming gas prices don't increase even more dramatically). You have to account for the lost earnings on that 16k. Even taking a very conservative annual earnings of 5% it would take in excess of seven years for the gas savings to equal the intial cost of the vehicle plus the lost earnings on that money.

 

I'd like to interject my own little rationalle for trading in a 10 month old Kia Rondo for a Fit. Most folks would tell me I'm crazy, that it's costing me too much, but by my calculations, given gas prices of over $4 a gallon for the cheap stuff, I will have broken even with my old loan in about three years. The lower cost of ownership of the Honda, coupled with twice the fuel economy is what pushed me to do this.

I am under no illusions that I have lost a lot of money by going with the Kia in the first place. But at least this way, I won't lose any MORE money than I have to at this point, and I get a better, more reliable car out of the deal.

And so, I'm in a nice, new MR Fit and not looking back.