Good idea to trade in for Mazda 3??

[Spyder01]

Hiya, first time here...great forum and lol finally a owners club thats close to where i live!! :D Alright anyway, i current own a 2002 protege es without that gt package (my only regret is i didn\'t get the gt pack) I wanted to get the protege5 at first but sitting into the car at Marham Mazda, the rear window seem to small so i went with the sedan. So now about 2 years of owning the car (great car btw), everything is still working well and great with about 19000km. So now im thinking of trading it in for a Mazda 3 GT-GFX Sedan...what do you all think? I looked up the value of my current protege and its worth about $13,000...if i were to go back to Markham Mazda, i\'d expect about $10,000 from them since i brought it from them and all the service was done at Markham Mazda. Would this be a good value to trade in my 02 protege es sedan?? oh, my protege don\'t have the gt package so theres no moonroof, spoiler, etc...Looks just like the LX except for the smoked headlights, fogs, and the sporty interior.. Is it worth it to trade it in for the Mazda 3?? or should i keep it for a bit longer?? The Mazda3\'s tiptronic and the 2.3L is what really attracted me to it...haven\'t test drove it yet because i know once i go in, i won\'t be coming out...:sarc

I have read alot of posts on this forum and hear alot of negative about Markham Mazda...i do agree that their service could be upgraded but i guess if i were to buy another mazda, i might as well buy it from them again...unless ofcourse, Mazda3 Club says otherwise :p hehe yall are big influence to me after reading about your experiences with the Mazda service centers...

[MajesticBlueNTO]

i say go for it ;)

then again, i\'m a little biased since i own a 3 :)

[Dr Butcher]

Be prepared to see offers around half of what you expect to get. I black booked my truck before I started looking for the 3 and it was valued at around 10 grand. I took it to Morningside and they offered me $1500, and I was hoping for around 6 grand. I took it to Gyro and they offered me $3500. I wasn\'t happy but I knew the truck had a minor problem so I didn\'t want to sell it privately. Also, I didn\'t want to spend any more money on it because I knew it was being traded in anyway.....

If there\'s nothing wrong with it and you\'re confident in selling it privately, do it that way....

[Spyder01]

Yea but my protege was only brought from them 2 years ago..i figure the loyalty and servicing at their dealership would give my car a few more points...plus, nothing wrong with the protege, everything kept very very well, still got the new car smell even though its 2 yrs old...

But then again, i believe A LOT of pplz might be thinking like me...so the dealship might suddenly find themselves with lots of protege being traded back in for the 3... I think if my protege were to sell on the market, i\'d say it would go for about $16,000... I mean, that would be more than enough profit for Markham Mazda. hehe i\'ll go look at the 3 the next time i go for a oil change and see what they would give me for my protege

[Dr Butcher]

It won\'t hurt to get them to appraise it, at the very least you\'ll know what you\'re bargaining for when you look to trade it in. Check out more than one dealer, you\'ll find that they\'ll offer you different amounts depending where you go. If you\'re not happy with one place, shop around. In the end you\'ll still have a clean car with low mileage to drive if you don\'t get what you want.....

[majic]

on top of the dealers appraising it for you, check out autotrader (www.autotrader.ca) and see how much ppl are selling a similar car to yours and u\'ll get a ballpark number

[Spyder01]

Thanks for the site majic :) hehe i found a similar protege with the gt package with 30k on it...and its going for about $15,000..... my protege only has 20,000km on it without the gt package...im gusssing that it would be worth pretty much the same...Going to check out dealership and see what they give me this thanksgiving weekend :)

[majic]

u\'r welcome

here\'s another one :)

the blackbook (http://toyota.blkbk.com/toyota/jb/serve/auth?) so that you can appraise the car yourself without paying 25 bux as some sites want.. ugh

ps. if that link doesn\'t work.. go to toyota\'s site and price out any toyota and go to \'calculate trade-in value\' in bottom-middle of the screen

[Melenium]

I hate to say it, but you may be looking at a pretty low value if you were to trade in you Protege to a Mazda dealership. When I was looking at the Mazda3, a few dealers suggested that I consider the P5 since they had TONS sitting on the lot that they were just trying to unload. Last time I went by Avante Toronto I think I saw quite a few Protege\'s sitting out front of their used lot too. It comes down to supply and demand-- there\'s a huge demand and low supply for the Mazda3 (thats why it can be tough getting much knocked off the MSRP). On the other hand there is quite a bit of supply for the Protege-- both from older cars coming off lease and people wanting to swap them for the Mazda3, but demand is kind of weak. Selling it privately may work out well though because the Protege has a pretty good reputation for reliability, and people may not be able to afford the Mazda3 but still want the Zoom-zoom that Honda and others just don\'t come close to!

What you may want to do is check out the Kelly Blue Book value: http://www.kbb.com/ -- its a US site so a bit of legwork is involved to get it to something useable. First plug in an address thats close by-- like 14072 (thats the Zip code for WUTV Buffalo-- similar wear/tear on the car down there, similar weather). Get a value in USD, then goto a foreign exchange converter like at Royal Banks website http://www.rbcroyalbank.com/cgi-bin/travel/fxconvert.pl and change it back to Canadian. They can give you 3 values-- the private sale amount, the dealer selling amount, and trade in amt IIRC.

Good luck!

[Spyder01]

Damn...i knew alot of pplz were trading in their protege for the 3... pplz actually still have protege on lease?!?!, when i got my protege, a few months later, the protege started to dissapper off the roads...hehe pplz\'s leases were over...and now 2 yrs later...damn..lol stop leasing!! buy!! I never sold a car privately before, and theres too much to worry about when selling a car privately...hehe unless someone here wants to buy it off me :) hehe

[dredd2099]

yup
bottom line is
if u want to get the best/most out of ur current car
sell it
trading it in would \'potentially\' and in most cases makes u lose a lotto money
since the dealership will lowball u
one note tho
ur trade in value can go towards \'trade in tax relief\'
not exact wording, but its something to that effect
basically, a percentage of ur trade in value can be deducted for the tax u pay for the new car
not all dealerships are same, ask bout it

[Dr Butcher]

Dredd does have a point, whatever you get for your trade in comes off the price of the car before you\'re taxed. Say you get $6000 for your car, really you\'re getting $6420 because you save $420 in GST.

It\'s an option to think about. If the trade in value plus the tax break doesn\'t equal what you can sell the car for privately, sell it privately. :D

[majic]

good point about the GST.. but also expect private buyers to come on off hours.. call u often and want to test drive the car..

to get away from all that, last year we traded in our 99 grandam with a lot of clicks (190k) and got a little break on the tax and no hassles with getting it certified and all.. so a little piece of mind is what you\'d pay for for a low offer from a stealership..

[Spyder01]

I don\'t know if i can sell my protege privatly though...i expect that once its on the market, it would be very popular and sell quickly since its in such good status...But i really don\'t know how to sell privatly...What if i brought my car to one of those Used Cars place?? Will they buy my car for a good price?? Any recommendations on where i can get a clean sale?? Nothing like wtom\'s BS where they come back and stuff you... Any recommendations??

btw, i drove by Markham Mazda tonight and noticed most of their Mazda3 are gone...i hear that the 04 models are almost sold out... And reading the other posts, i hear not only the service department, their sales department seem to suck too... Any recommendations on where i could get a good deal on the 3?? avante?? btw, the avante mazda in toronto is close to \'center-point mall\' right?? Is it the one by the HUMMER dealership??

[Melenium]

Originally posted by Spyder01


I don\'t know if i can sell my protege privatly though...i expect that once its on the market, it would be very popular and sell quickly since its in such good status...But i really don\'t know how to sell privatly...What if i brought my car to one of those Used Cars place?? Will they buy my car for a good price?? Any recommendations on where i can get a clean sale?? Nothing like wtom\'s BS where they come back and stuff you... Any recommendations??

btw, i drove by Markham Mazda tonight and noticed most of their Mazda3 are gone...i hear that the 04 models are almost sold out... And reading the other posts, i hear not only the service department, their sales department seem to suck too... Any recommendations on where i could get a good deal on the 3?? avante?? btw, the avante mazda in toronto is close to \'center-point mall\' right?? Is it the one by the HUMMER dealership??

Call up the MTO and find out about the \"used car\" package-- if you do sell it privately you will need one of these. Alternately you could check out their website.

You could also try googling \"how to sell used car\" or something similar.

Avante Toronto is just a few blocks South of Centrepoint mall, yes. Avante is known for their service. They\'re fairly sticky on prices though.

[Spyder01]

Which mazda dealership do you think i\'ll have the best deal if i were to trade in my protege?? Which dealership would be best if im just purchasing without trading in?

[majic]

Originally posted by Spyder01


I don\'t know if i can sell my protege privatly though...i expect that once its on the market, it would be very popular and sell quickly since its in such good status...But i really don\'t know how to sell privatly...What if i brought my car to one of those Used Cars place?? Will they buy my car for a good price?? Any recommendations on where i can get a clean sale?? Nothing like wtom\'s BS where they come back and stuff you... Any recommendations??


So what is the problem? don\'t u want to sell it fast? sometimes it might take a month or 2 before someone actually makes and offer, so privately might be a little pain staking process and as Melenium mentioned, if you sell privately you will have to get this package (http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/dandv/vehicle/used.htm) for 20bux

IMO, used car dealers are even more sleazy than regular dealers but it doesn\'t hurt for you to go to them and see how much they would give you.


Originally posted by Spyder01
btw, i drove by Markham Mazda tonight and noticed most of their Mazda3 are gone...i hear that the 04 models are almost sold out... And reading the other posts, i hear not only the service department, their sales department seem to suck too... Any recommendations on where i could get a good deal on the 3?? avante?? btw, the avante mazda in toronto is close to \'center-point mall\' right?? Is it the one by the HUMMER dealership??

pretty much whatever is on the lot is sold.. and even the \'05 3s that are due in november.. SOLD. btw.. you don\'t have to get your car serviced where u buy it.. buy it where u get the best deal and then if avante is close to you go there and if not find one close to your house that is nice and friendly. HTH