Mechanic
10-05-2010, 09:09 PM
Until today, I owned two EP3s: an '02 and an '05. I bought them both new, and in both cases I did so because the dealer was discounting them roughly $4k from the MSRP. That seemed like a damn good deal at the time. And I had no real intention of selling either one, except I've been watching the wholesale prices of used Hondas and they've been rising steadily, even for EP3s.
I wouldn't even bother mentioning this, except I got $9400 for my car from a dealer and I wasn't trading anything. I simply walked into a CARMAX store and asked what they'd offer for a clean, undamaged, low-mileage Civic Si, and with essentially no effort on my part other than showing them the car -- a black unmodified Si with 32K miles -- I was offered what I knew was the top Kelley Blue Book "private seller's price." In my case, that works out to about nine years of dead reliable, daily use transportation for about $6600. Damn hard to beat that.
What made this even more strange was I finally got around to buying tires for a set of new Honda HFP 16" alloys that I've had sitting around in boxes for three years, and the dealer was going to deduct $500 for those wheels & tires because they weren't the original equipment that came with the car. Fortunately for me, I still had the 15" alloy wheels that came with the car originally (with 29K on the OEM Michelins), and incredibly that's what they wanted on the car. Go figure. This seemed truly nuts to me, but both the initial appraiser and the store's used car manager insisted that's what they wanted.
(As an aside, I now have a set of 16" HFP alloys for sale if anyone wants them. PM me. They only fit on '02 and '03 EP3s, so they are going to end up as "garage art" unless someone wants them cheap. )
All of this, I believe, is strictly a function of our coming out of the Great Recession. The market for all used cars is hot because, right or wrong, retail customers apparently are convinced that buying a used car from a known retailer (such as CARMAX) is the way to go. Dealers, in turn, are paying top dollar for stock used cars. Put another way, I'm convinced there's no way I could have gotten even $6K for a bone stock '02 EP3 two years ago. Strange times.
I wouldn't even bother mentioning this, except I got $9400 for my car from a dealer and I wasn't trading anything. I simply walked into a CARMAX store and asked what they'd offer for a clean, undamaged, low-mileage Civic Si, and with essentially no effort on my part other than showing them the car -- a black unmodified Si with 32K miles -- I was offered what I knew was the top Kelley Blue Book "private seller's price." In my case, that works out to about nine years of dead reliable, daily use transportation for about $6600. Damn hard to beat that.
What made this even more strange was I finally got around to buying tires for a set of new Honda HFP 16" alloys that I've had sitting around in boxes for three years, and the dealer was going to deduct $500 for those wheels & tires because they weren't the original equipment that came with the car. Fortunately for me, I still had the 15" alloy wheels that came with the car originally (with 29K on the OEM Michelins), and incredibly that's what they wanted on the car. Go figure. This seemed truly nuts to me, but both the initial appraiser and the store's used car manager insisted that's what they wanted.
(As an aside, I now have a set of 16" HFP alloys for sale if anyone wants them. PM me. They only fit on '02 and '03 EP3s, so they are going to end up as "garage art" unless someone wants them cheap. )
All of this, I believe, is strictly a function of our coming out of the Great Recession. The market for all used cars is hot because, right or wrong, retail customers apparently are convinced that buying a used car from a known retailer (such as CARMAX) is the way to go. Dealers, in turn, are paying top dollar for stock used cars. Put another way, I'm convinced there's no way I could have gotten even $6K for a bone stock '02 EP3 two years ago. Strange times.