New to the forum but a longtime lurker and follower of this amazing car and company. Question: on the Tesla home page I now see a prompt to "value your trade in" which seems to point back to contact with a sales advisor...does this mean that Tesla are now taking trade ins of non-Tesla cars? Does anyone have experience with that in their purchase process? Thanks in advance.
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Trade in?
- Thread starter miked112
- Start date
gnelson
Member
Tesla has an agreement with AutoNation. AutoNation will appraise your car and transfer the funds to Tesla if you accept the offer. By doing this you can achieve a sales tax credit. Typically you may get more for selling your car than the difference is sales tax due when you register your Tesla.
mknox
Well-Known Member
I realize you're in New York, but as an FYI, Tesla will take Canadian trade-ins as well. I traded in my Cadillac CTS back in March. Not sure who they deal with in Canada as I got my quote directly from Tesla.
Thanks Tex -- I had thought about that and with CA 8% sales tax and thought it might work out to be close or even better as you suggest. However, the offer from Autonation was literally just over 50% of the blue book private resale value of my car. It is a car I took incredible car of, in perfect condition, low miles, hardtop convertible, I just couldn't give it away for about a 20k "loss." I know I now have the headache to sell it and may take some time -- but just couldn't take such a hit (total sales tax on my car as purchased was about 10k).
I hear you have an attachment to it.
What it's worth on the market and in your heart two different things (and I'm not suggesting their price was fair). Unfortunately M's do not have a great resale.
You might, just for sanity sake, take it to Carmax and maybe one other dealer and just have them appraise it. Just to see how far off AutoNation is.
How does this work with the Texas dealership issues? Did you do a trade-in? My thought was you would not be able to do trade-ins in Texas.
Any car dealer would need to buy my car lower than what they can sell it for 
Carmax has my almost exact same car (missing a few features I have) for about 3k more than what I am asking as a private seller and at a price almost 18k higher than what AutoNation offered me. I am confident I will sell it for the price I want -- Southern California and convertibles just go together.
Carmax has my almost exact same car (missing a few features I have) for about 3k more than what I am asking as a private seller and at a price almost 18k higher than what AutoNation offered me. I am confident I will sell it for the price I want -- Southern California and convertibles just go together.
gnelson
Member
I had the offer in June and AutoNation would have transferred the funds directly to Tesla. My required payment to Tesla was calculated with the AutoNation funds as a partial payment. When I sold my car to a private party, Tesla revised my paperwork.
mknox
Well-Known Member
Argh! Don't tell me that! I felt I was lowballed on my '09 CTS but the Model S came in sooner than promised and I had to scramble. Didn't have time to look in to selling privately.
Interestingly, I got a phone call from the new owner. He had bought is used at a Cadillac dealer and found my extended warranty info in the glove box and needed me to sign it over to him. I didn't have the heart to ask him how much he paid for it at the dealer!
Don't feel so bad. Yorkdale Tesla originally offered me $17,500 but I was honest and told them about an accident the truck had been in, that's when they came back to me at a lower offer of $14,000.
The difference between the $17,500 they offered me originally and the $21,000 that I sold it for is not much considering if I had traded it in at $17,500 I would had saved on the tax, meaning it would almost be like me getting $19,775 for the truck.
know what I mean?
plus you didn't have the hassle of getting it certified, etested and all the annoying stuff.
emil.
The difference between the $17,500 they offered me originally and the $21,000 that I sold it for is not much considering if I had traded it in at $17,500 I would had saved on the tax, meaning it would almost be like me getting $19,775 for the truck.
know what I mean?
plus you didn't have the hassle of getting it certified, etested and all the annoying stuff.
emil.
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