2010 Roadster 2.0 Base #523 - Electric Blue - Fantastic Shape - CAC 148

[jwwilsonmd]

After recently taking delivery of a gorgeous Deep Blue Model X 90D, I've decided to let go of my Roadster 2.0.
The car itself is in incredible condition, as it used to be a CPO car.

- 2010 2.0 Base
- Electric Blue Premium Paint - near perfect shape.
- Premium Microfiber Seats (rare, and arguably more comfortable than the leather seats)
- Silver Forged Wheels (also incredible shape...barely any curb rash.
- Stock JVC Headunit, but upgraded individual speakers done by previous owner.
- Xenon Headlamp Retrofit ($2,600 from Tesla) JUST installed
- Four recently replaced Yokohama Tires
- Soft Top
- Currently has 32,XXX miles.
- Comes with 240V UMC Charging Cable, NEMA 14-30 Adapter, and Henry Sharp's CAN Jr., which allows J1772 Adapter.
- Battery charges to 180-182 in Standard Mode. Battery CAC is 148, which is excellent for 32,000+ miles. (A new battery Calculated Amp-Hour Capacity is around 156-160). I have not range charged in a long time, but based on knowledge I'd suspect it reaches 230+ miles.
- Clean bill of health issued on most recent Annual Service. I also went ahead and had the brake fluid changed, which was an extra cost and not included in the annual service.
- ALL SERVICE RECORDS AVAILABLE IN FOLDER WITH CAR.

I am asking $64,500, but am open to offers slightly lower depending on timeframe. She deserves to go to a great home, and in this condition, will drive flawlessly for many more miles. According to @DeedWest, who has driven 9 Roadsters of every type (mine included), he swears this is the nicest condition one he's driven.

Photos below (note: these were taken just before the Xenon Headlamp Retrofit was done).

Feel free to comment with ANY questions you may have. Thank you!

 

[jwwilsonmd]

Update: just found a shot of the car a couple hours after Standard Mode charging, for proof.

 

[DeedWest]

I can personally vouch for this information...easily the most flawless Roadster I'd ever seen in person. To anyone seeking one...check this out. Electric Blue is the greatest color, in my honest opinion!

 

[IMACB]

is your roadster still available, i am possibly interested would you please call or text me at 650-521-7911 thank you Michael

 

[jwwilsonmd]

I am lowering the price to $62,000. Come test drive this baby.

 

[ecarfan]

I have seen a number of Roadster sellers lower their asking price after a few days, or a few weeks. The Roadster is a niche vehicle with a very narrow market appeal. It takes time to sell. I am sorry to see sellers drop their price so quickly.

But it's your car to price as you wish. I wish you the best of luck with your sale, it's a great looking car at now an even better price!

 

[jwwilsonmd]

I have seen a number of Roadster sellers lower their asking price after a few days, or a few weeks. The Roadster is a niche vehicle with a very narrow market appeal. It takes time to sell. I am sorry to see sellers drop their price so quickly.

But it's your car to price as you wish. I wish you the best of luck with your sale, it's a great looking car at now an even better price!

Any ideas on where else to post? I am using SHIFT, Craigslist, posted here and not sure where else to reach out. Tried an E-bay listing once, too.

 

[wiztecy]

Timing of the season is also key for the Roadster, such as spring and summer is the best time of season to put them on a listing.

 

[ChadS]

I hope this isn't messing up your for-sale thread, but since you asked...

I'm one that recently sold mine too fast (indeed, I got an offer for more only minutes after I sold it). But we only have a 2-car garage and my wife was insisting I trade it in so we didn't have to park it on the street, and I really wanted to avoid having to take the trade-in value. At least I did notably better than that.

I definitely agree with wiztecy that Spring and early Summer are the best times to sell, but life doesn't always cooperate on that front. I'll also note that the buyer and more than one other interested person were from Canada. There seems to be a shortage up there. They can't import the S, X or Roadster 1.5, but they can import the 2.0 and 2.5s.

Here's some of the stuff I looked at to sell mine:

• These forums. I got some questions from one potential buyer. At least it's free and you can learn from others. And you never know when somebody here might have a friend looking to get in to the game.
• Autotrader: I only got a couple of not-very-serious questions. It looks like two other people submitted an email form but I did not get the email; Autotrader didn't answer my question about that. I was disappointed in this one.
• Craigslist: I got better prospects, and indeed my buyer, here. And it was free.
• Ebay: I did get some bidders; and right after I accepted an offer, my car got bid up to a reasonable range (though still under my reserve) given that there was still a week left. The night before though, a very similar car with far less miles expired without getting as high as mine. I am not sure why the difference; maybe my ad just looked more trustworthy than the auction house's, or maybe my location was better. I don't think any bidders asked any questions in private or public. Ebay's fees seem a lot less transparent than they used to be; I am still not sure what the final bill will be.
• CarMax: very easy to use if you happen to live near one. Their offer was better than Tesla's (and Tesla will match it) so this was very useful to set a pricing floor. But not at all an offer I would be happy with on its own.
• Online services: Shift, Vroom, Beepi, etc. They seem really easy to use, but some of them are not in my area, and ones that are won't buy the car because it's "specialty". Beepi said they wouldn't buy it but would be happy to list it for free (and just take some off the top if it sells - but they wanted to set the amount I would get; somewhere at or below what I ended up getting). They came out to do the inspection but ended up turning it down because the receiver hitch that Tesla's former head of Roadster Service designed and installed "didn't look factory". They don't like any mods - they even wanted me to take out my HID headlight bulbs and put in the original bulbs even though the originals suck and the buyer won't want them.
• Local lots: I contacted a couple that said they didn't think it was really appropriate for their lot, and I should go with the local high-end place (Park Place). They were very nice and can do stuff like financing and take trade-ins and of course the advertise, but they wanted several hundred just to get the car on the lot, they'd get an exclusive for 90 days, they'd add $5k to whatever I wanted, and if the car didn't sell at the higher price, then I'd have to start over. If it's too late to trade in and you want it off your driveway, I suppose this is a good option, but will the boosted price hurt more than the chance to get buyers that want to finance or trade in? Hard to say.

There are not a lot of solid lessons to learn here - clearly there is no one magic way to sell a Roadster. I think ecarfan has it right - the best thing is to take your time and wait for the right buyer, if you have that luxury. (And I suspect, though I don't have any way to prove it, that such a buyer will find you - so you don't have to list it everywhere). GLWS, jwwilsonmd, the car is gorgeous and will make some new buyer very happy.

 

[jwwilsonmd]

I hope this isn't messing up your for-sale thread, but since you asked...

I'm one that recently sold mine too fast (indeed, I got an offer for more only minutes after I sold it). But we only have a 2-car garage and my wife was insisting I trade it in so we didn't have to park it on the street, and I really wanted to avoid having to take the trade-in value. At least I did notably better than that.

I definitely agree with wiztecy that Spring and early Summer are the best times to sell, but life doesn't always cooperate on that front. I'll also note that the buyer and more than one other interested person were from Canada. There seems to be a shortage up there. They can't import the S, X or Roadster 1.5, but they can import the 2.0 and 2.5s.

Here's some of the stuff I looked at to sell mine:

• These forums. I got some questions from one potential buyer. At least it's free and you can learn from others. And you never know when somebody here might have a friend looking to get in to the game.
• Autotrader: I only got a couple of not-very-serious questions. It looks like two other people submitted an email form but I did not get the email; Autotrader didn't answer my question about that. I was disappointed in this one.
• Craigslist: I got better prospects, and indeed my buyer, here. And it was free.
• Ebay: I did get some bidders; and right after I accepted an offer, my car got bid up to a reasonable range (though still under my reserve) given that there was still a week left. The night before though, a very similar car with far less miles expired without getting as high as mine. I am not sure why the difference; maybe my ad just looked more trustworthy than the auction house's, or maybe my location was better. I don't think any bidders asked any questions in private or public. Ebay's fees seem a lot less transparent than they used to be; I am still not sure what the final bill will be.
• CarMax: very easy to use if you happen to live near one. Their offer was better than Tesla's (and Tesla will match it) so this was very useful to set a pricing floor. But not at all an offer I would be happy with on its own.
• Online services: Shift, Vroom, Beepi, etc. They seem really easy to use, but some of them are not in my area, and ones that are won't buy the car because it's "specialty". Beepi said they wouldn't buy it but would be happy to list it for free (and just take some off the top if it sells - but they wanted to set the amount I would get; somewhere at or below what I ended up getting). They came out to do the inspection but ended up turning it down because the receiver hitch that Tesla's former head of Roadster Service designed and installed "didn't look factory". They don't like any mods - they even wanted me to take out my HID headlight bulbs and put in the original bulbs even though the originals suck and the buyer won't want them.
• Local lots: I contacted a couple that said they didn't think it was really appropriate for their lot, and I should go with the local high-end place (Park Place). They were very nice and can do stuff like financing and take trade-ins and of course the advertise, but they wanted several hundred just to get the car on the lot, they'd get an exclusive for 90 days, they'd add $5k to whatever I wanted, and if the car didn't sell at the higher price, then I'd have to start over. If it's too late to trade in and you want it off your driveway, I suppose this is a good option, but will the boosted price hurt more than the chance to get buyers that want to finance or trade in? Hard to say.

There are not a lot of solid lessons to learn here - clearly there is no one magic way to sell a Roadster. I think ecarfan has it right - the best thing is to take your time and wait for the right buyer, if you have that luxury. (And I suspect, though I don't have any way to prove it, that such a buyer will find you - so you don't have to list it everywhere). GLWS, jwwilsonmd, the car is gorgeous and will make some new buyer very happy.

Thank you for all the great ideas. I do have room to hold on to it, so if SHIFT is unable to sell it for me in remaining 60 days, I'll just keep holding on. I'll look into listing in Canada. That is a great idea, too.

 

[ecarfan]

Any ideas on where else to post? I am using SHIFT, Craigslist, posted here and not sure where else to reach out. Tried an E-bay listing once, too.

I just think that in most cases selling a Roadster takes time. As in not days or even weeks, but sometimes months if you want to get the best possible price (from the sellers point of view). I understand that sometimes the seller has good reasons to try to sell the car quickly.

The Roadster is a niche car and the market size is very limited. It's not an easy sell. That doesn't mean it isn't a desirable car, it means that the number of people who are interested in owning a Roadster is very limited compared to more "normal" cars.

 

[jwwilsonmd]

This vehicle is still for sale. Taking my time now to find a buyer. Still listed at $62,000.