[quote=flu]i disagree. Sorry BG, but It would have to be some exceptional reason for me to buy a preowned european car (like I knew the exact history of it, which I came almost to doing a few months ago). Particularly a high end, fully loaded with electronics thats more than 2 years old. Too many things and too many unknowns. Buying a high end 1-2 year preowned high end car, I wouldn’t really be “saving” that much relative to the entire purchase price. It’s not like 1-2 year old car will get me 50% off… For example. Let’s figure one wants to spend $100k on a S550. I seriously doubt one would consider saving $20k 1-2 year oldpreowned. If you can afford to be in a $100k car, you aren’t going to be worried about saving $20k for a preowned, you’re not going to be shelling out $80k either.
In any cases, most of these higher end cars are not purchased out right in cash anyway. Most are leased since in 3-4 years, people can ditch them for the latest and greatest…[/quote]
flu, from my friends’ experiences in buying pre-owned used luxury vehicles, I have been told that the “certified-used” dealer premium can often be $3K to $10K (or more) over a private-party sale and is “pure profit” to dealers. One only has to compare the trade-in and private party values on kbb.com for a specific year/make/model to verify this.
If the “electronics” you are speaking of here are maps and TVs/DVDs, then I feel those “add-ons” are kind of superfluous. I have a “library” of paper atlases and road maps, even “specialty” plastic-coated maps for lakes and rivers, that I load my car up with prior to embarking on a road trip. I usually know in my head how to get to a certain destination, having driven there so many times, so just pull off the road and look at a map only if I need to. I think I’d be too distracted by a screen in the dash. Last night, as I was getting gas, the SUV in the bay next to me had Sponge Bob playing in a screen on the dash. I thought TVs were supposed to be facing the back seat(s). I think it’s unsafe to have a video screen facing the driver. But that’s just me. I’ve driven clear across the country and back sitting on vinyl seats with beach towels over them and non-tinted windows (rolled down/no AC) in 100-deg heat more than once :=]
