Closet_Gamer
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
Apologies for a long post...hopefully this is useful to someone!
I finally ran out of patience with the repairs on my 8 year old BMW 3 Series. Did the math and realized that I was spending on average $250/mo in repairs to keep it going...toss in the on-going depreciation and I figured I was north of $400/mo. Not smart. It was a fun car, but sadly lived up to everything I'd heard about maintaining a Bimmer.
So I started shopping, researched like mad and test drove stuff. I haven't shopped for a car for a long time, so maybe this is common now but it seems like there are AMAZING deals in the lightly used luxury market right now.
Apparently, Infiniti ran some crazy short term lease deal on the Infiniti G37x about two years ago. Then they doubled down on this strategy and called of these lessees offering them some deal to move to a new Q50.
The result is that there appears to be a HERD of lightly used, beautiful G37s heading back onto the certified pre-owned lots right now. There were THIRTY+ within 25 miles of my house that were 2012 or newer and had LESS THAN 15000 miles on them. Still had factory warranty...and a CPO warranty to boot. I almost bought a pristine 2012 AWD G37x with 6500 miles on it for $30K...about $12K less than the original price!
Even better though, it appears to have pinned back the prices on similarly, lightly used luxury cars. The Infiniti Dealer was dumb and low-balled the trade on my BMW, but the Acura guy wanted to make a sale. He gave me 33% more.
Result: I drove off the Acura lot yesterday in a 2013 TL with AWD and the snazzy technology package that had only 7500 miles on it. I paid the guy $34K for a one year old car that originally sold for $44K. The car had a bumper-bumper warranty until 2017, but I put down another $2K and got full bumper-bumper plus free repairs on parking lot door dings, windshields, & tires/wheels until 2021.
So for $35K I've got a beautiful car and guaranteed ZERO repair costs for the next seven years.
If you're thinking about swapping out cars, it seems like a really good time to me.
I finally ran out of patience with the repairs on my 8 year old BMW 3 Series. Did the math and realized that I was spending on average $250/mo in repairs to keep it going...toss in the on-going depreciation and I figured I was north of $400/mo. Not smart. It was a fun car, but sadly lived up to everything I'd heard about maintaining a Bimmer.
So I started shopping, researched like mad and test drove stuff. I haven't shopped for a car for a long time, so maybe this is common now but it seems like there are AMAZING deals in the lightly used luxury market right now.
Apparently, Infiniti ran some crazy short term lease deal on the Infiniti G37x about two years ago. Then they doubled down on this strategy and called of these lessees offering them some deal to move to a new Q50.
The result is that there appears to be a HERD of lightly used, beautiful G37s heading back onto the certified pre-owned lots right now. There were THIRTY+ within 25 miles of my house that were 2012 or newer and had LESS THAN 15000 miles on them. Still had factory warranty...and a CPO warranty to boot. I almost bought a pristine 2012 AWD G37x with 6500 miles on it for $30K...about $12K less than the original price!
Even better though, it appears to have pinned back the prices on similarly, lightly used luxury cars. The Infiniti Dealer was dumb and low-balled the trade on my BMW, but the Acura guy wanted to make a sale. He gave me 33% more.
Result: I drove off the Acura lot yesterday in a 2013 TL with AWD and the snazzy technology package that had only 7500 miles on it. I paid the guy $34K for a one year old car that originally sold for $44K. The car had a bumper-bumper warranty until 2017, but I put down another $2K and got full bumper-bumper plus free repairs on parking lot door dings, windshields, & tires/wheels until 2021.
So for $35K I've got a beautiful car and guaranteed ZERO repair costs for the next seven years.
If you're thinking about swapping out cars, it seems like a really good time to me.
