What's a used Roadster worth?

[daniel]

As I've mentioned elsewhere, now that I have my Model 3 I'm trying to sell my Roadster. I've listed it here on TMC in the Tesla For Sale forum and elsewhere. But I'm finding it impossible to get a reasonable estimate on its value. I'd be most grateful if people who have actually sold a Roadster would tell me what they got for it; or if people who've bought a used Roadster recently would tell me what they paid.

Obviously there are lots of factors at play such as options, mileage, condition. But I'm looking for actual real-world prices that people have paid or received for one.

FWIW, mine is a 2.5 non-Sport with leather and the Alpine infotainment system and a hair less than 15,000 miles. One owner (me).

This is not a for-sale thread. That's elsewhere, as noted. This is a request for information about the value of these cars.

 

[dhrivnak]

Daniel I am not much help as I tried, timidly twice to sell my Roadster and got virtually no response. From my following sales is you list for about $50,000 you will likely get a lot of interest. But I would like to think yous is worth north of $65,000 and at that price you likely will get few lookers. I have seen prices from $48,000 to $75,000 but the $75k is with a 3.0 battery and lots of goodies. I wish the roadster was better at holding it's resale value but I do not see it just yet. I have decided to hold on as I am hoping in 10 years it will cross into collectable territory. But for now it is just an expensive sports car that can be easily outrun by the newer Model S cars.

 

[bonnie]

I'll share with you privately what I was paid - but I was in a good position, since my Roadster was not on the market & was the exact specification that the buyer was looking for (he found me by reaching out to Tesla & they contacted me). In the end, I think we both felt the price was fair.

PM coming your way.

 

[daniel]

Thanks to both of you for those responses.

Anybody else willing to share information on prices for Roadsters?

 

[supersnoop]

Honestly, with the specs you've listed, I wouldn't list it at less than $70,000. I might take a little less only because of the missing hard top and base wheels. You've got a highly desirable color, low mileage, most recent model, and the double-din stereo. The only think you

I see you've pulled the logs. What's the CAC? With the low miles, I suspect the battery is still in great shape. Promote that because it's the single biggest worry someone will have when buying this type of car. Remember, it's rare and relatively unknown. Those who do know about it are either buying brand new cars or too scared to invest in a Roadster. It takes the right buyer.

You say you've got it listed elsewhere, but I couldn't find it. You might want to market it a little more. I check cars.com and autotrader.com frequently. Those should increase attention. *correction, I found it on ebay. I find ebay to be pretty useless for these cars.

 

[daniel]

Honestly, with the specs you've listed, I wouldn't list it at less than $70,000. I might take a little less only because of the missing hard top and base wheels. You've got a highly desirable color, low mileage, most recent model, and the double-din stereo. The only think you

I see you've pulled the logs. What's the CAC? With the low miles, I suspect the battery is still in great shape. Promote that because it's the single biggest worry someone will have when buying this type of car. Remember, it's rare and relatively unknown. Those who do know about it are either buying brand new cars or too scared to invest in a Roadster. It takes the right buyer.

You say you've got it listed elsewhere, but I couldn't find it. You might want to market it a little more. I check cars.com and autotrader.com frequently. Those should increase attention. *correction, I found it on ebay. I find ebay to be pretty useless for these cars.

Thanks for that information. I actually have not pulled the logs, but the ranger probably did during the annual maintenance. How would I go about actually ascertaining the condition of the battery? When I charge, always on Standard Mode, it gives me the same stated range as it did when it was new, but since I have no way of determining if that's accurate without driving it to empty, I've not mentioned it in the listing.

I'll leave the listing on eBay for now because as of this writing there's only 1d10h remaining. After that I'll take your advice about cars.com and autotrader.com, and perhaps also take your advice about raising my asking price.

What were you going to say with the unfinished sentence at the end of your first paragraph?

 

[supersnoop]

Thanks for that information. I actually have not pulled the logs, but the ranger probably did during the annual maintenance. How would I go about actually ascertaining the condition of the battery? When I charge, always on Standard Mode, it gives me the same stated range as it did when it was new, but since I have no way of determining if that's accurate without driving it to empty, I've not mentioned it in the listing.

I'll leave the listing on eBay for now because as of this writing there's only 1d10h remaining. After that I'll take your advice about cars.com and autotrader.com, and perhaps also take your advice about raising my asking price.

What were you going to say with the unfinished sentence at the end of your first paragraph?

Whoops, that unfinished sentence was about the wheels. I moved it higher up but didn’t clean up.

I saw what looked like a usb drive pluged into the port under the Center console in one of the photos. That’s how you pull the oyour ga and there are programs in this forum that can read the logs. The range can be misleading because it can be affected by the voltage and amperage of the charger. CAC is the one consistent measure of battery health.

 

[daniel]

Whoops, that unfinished sentence was about the wheels. I moved it higher up but didn’t clean up.

I saw what looked like a usb drive pluged into the port under the Center console in one of the photos. That’s how you pull the oyour ga and there are programs in this forum that can read the logs. The range can be misleading because it can be affected by the voltage and amperage of the charger. CAC is the one consistent measure of battery health.

Okay, thanks.

The car has the original wheels, but two sets of tires (summer and winter). The thing you mistook for a USB drive is actually the old-style iPod connector. I connected my iPod Shuffle to it since the bluetooth didn't connect consistently to my iPod, so I bought the Shuffle and left it in the car. But I unplugged it before taking the photos. I might include it or might not, so I didn't want it in the photo.

I'll ask the ranger if he has the CAC (whatever that means) from the last annual maintenance. I'm pretty sure he pulls the logs at each maintenance.

 

[gregd]

CAC is the car's guess at the battery's amp-hour capacity (Calculated Amphour Capacity).

Getting at the logs is really easy. As the original owner, you probably got a small USB thumb drive with the top level containing a directory "VehicleLogs" (case sensitive name). Or, create one of your own (4 gb or less). Stick it in the USB slot under the center console, with the car NOT on, and not charging. It should start blinking and in about 15 minutes you'll have all sorts of information downloaded to the drive. Look for VMSParser.exe for a quick decoder, or the TeslaGLOP graphical parser.

Besides the CAC, you will also be able to see all the driving and charging sessions over the past few years, and more importantly, any error messages that the car generated, including ones that don't show up on the VDS. These can be an indication of other things that might need attention down the road, or lacking them, vouch for the good health of the car (i.e. support for a higher price). I recommend grabbing the logs once a month, just to have a record, and as a way to spot issues before they cause problems on the road.

 

[daniel]

Thanks for that information!

 

[ML Auto]

I can see other Roadster owners wanting to keep prices up, but I believe $75K is just way too high. Even $65K is a stretch. As previously stated, $50K is realistic. The orange 1.5 on eBay now has been for sale for months at $46.5K with only a few thousand more miles and a hardtop. The base 2.5 might add $5K over the 1.5 with the same options. But that gap has been steadily decreasing over the past few years. People who do their research know of the potential problems the 2.X models might develop, and I feel the market is starting to reflect that. You can ask whatever you want if you are in no rush to sell, but buyers are few, and as of right now, the car has no added valve for collector status. The only Roadsters I have personally seen sell have been for a lot less than $50K, but they did have more miles (40K-50K).

 

[daniel]

Yes, my reason for raising my asking price back up is that I'm having second thoughts about selling it. Today, I'd let it go for that much. The ebay listing runs out tomorrow afternoon, and at that time, assuming it does not sell for $75K I am going to take a week to re-assess everything.

Today I tried out auto-steer in the Model 3 on the freeway for the first time. I bought it in spite of its being a much bigger car than I like, because of auto-steer and TACC. And now I'm not so sure. Auto-steer moves ever so slightly right and left as it tries to keep centered in the lane, and is sometimes closer to the adjacent lane than I like. The very slight swerving started to make me just a touch carsick. (I get motion sick very easily.) And I found it just as tiring to keep my hands lightly on the wheel and my attention closely on the road, as when I am fully driving. TACC has a tendency to brake for cars in the adjacent lane on curves, and does not alter its speed for traffic as smoothly as I'd like. There does not seem to be an option for non-TACC c/c.

I'm going to make some more trips on the freeway with auto-steer over the coming week, and then I'm going to decide if I still want to sell the Roadster, or if I'm just going to take my losses and sell the Model 3. I LOVE the Roadster. I thought it was time to let it go for the new technology. But now I'm not so sure.

 

[TampaRich]

The price of the Roadster Hot Wheel car increased by 1000% after the Falcon Heavy launch. I would hope that existing Roadster owners would get a bump in value as a collectable. Best of luck to you.

 

[Peter.h]

FWIW, mine is a 2.5 non-Sport with leather and the Alpine infotainment system and a hair less than 15,000 miles. One owner (me).

This is not a for-sale thread. That's elsewhere, as noted. This is a request for information about the value of these cars.

Another data point: I bought my 2.5 roadster sport (Alpine navigation, exec leather) with 16k miles a few months ago for $58k from a dealer in California. only extra coming with it was the UMC - no yellow cable, no hard top, no wall charger, no cans

I haven't checked the CAC, but ideal range on a standard charge is 178mi

 

[Chickenlittle]

Yes, my reason for raising my asking price back up is that I'm having second thoughts about selling it. Today, I'd let it go for that much. The ebay listing runs out tomorrow afternoon, and at that time, assuming it does not sell for $75K I am going to take a week to re-assess everything.

Today I tried out auto-steer in the Model 3 on the freeway for the first time. I bought it in spite of its being a much bigger car than I like, because of auto-steer and TACC. And now I'm not so sure. Auto-steer moves ever so slightly right and left as it tries to keep centered in the lane, and is sometimes closer to the adjacent lane than I like. The very slight swerving started to make me just a touch carsick. (I get motion sick very easily.) And I found it just as tiring to keep my hands lightly on the wheel and my attention closely on the road, as when I am fully driving. TACC has a tendency to brake for cars in the adjacent lane on curves, and does not alter its speed for traffic as smoothly as I'd like. There does not seem to be an option for non-TACC c/c.

I'm going to make some more trips on the freeway with auto-steer over the coming week, and then I'm going to decide if I still want to sell the Roadster, or if I'm just going to take my losses and sell the Model 3. I LOVE the Roadster. I thought it was time to let it go for the new technology. But now I'm not so sure.

Remember the product your buying is not the final one. Would suspect an over the air update to improve AP this year

 

[daniel]

Remember the product your buying is not the final one. Would suspect an over the air update to improve AP this year

Yes, I'm hoping so.

Another update on my difficult decision-making: I learned (from a poster here on TMC) that (whoopeeee!!!) there's a Tesla supercharger in Kelowna, B.C. It's a bit out of my way (would add an hour or so to my total trip time compared to the direct route in the Prius) but for me it's world-changing, because it means I could drive the Model 3 to my summer hiking up in Canada. If I can drive the 3, I no longer need the Prius. (The 2004 Prius was a marvel of advanced technical innovation in its day, but it burns gas... 'nuff said.) And if I sell the Prius I can keep both the Roadster and the Model 3, at least until I move to Maui (if I do, which seems likely but is not certain) at which time I'd need to decide between the more-practical Model 3 or the more fun Roadster because it's unlikely I'd have room for two cars there.

As for AP, which I didn't like much on a first try, it probably wouldn't work on the Canada trip anyway. It's not intended for winding two-lane roads, and even on a fairly straight stretch of two-lane rural road here it would not engage. But it's immensely nicer to drive (without using AP) than the Prius. And (again, whoopeee!) no gas.

Don't get me wrong, the Prius was a wonderful car in its day. But its day has passed.

 

[DeedWest]

I can see other Roadster owners wanting to keep prices up, but I believe $75K is just way too high. Even $65K is a stretch. As previously stated, $50K is realistic. The orange 1.5 on eBay now has been for sale for months at $46.5K with only a few thousand more miles and a hardtop.

When I test drove that car for a potential buyer back when it was in Dallas, it was in extremely poor shape. The paint was scuffed, paint armor was yellowing, interior plastic had holes in it, etc. Also, once I put the VDS into Debug Mode, it was throwing faults left and right. There's usually a reason Roadsters sit for too long...and a reason that VIN 191 has been moved around to various dealerships. It's probably worth $42,000 in its current condition.

@daniel - the best thing to remember when selling a Roadster, is to be overly patient and overly transparent. I would hold your price for $75,000 and emphasize that it's a version 2.5. I would contact Tesla and ask for all of your service record documents, if you don't have them already. If you've had any key parts replaced, many of them hold warranties which may be highly attractive to a potential buyer. Yours is the only one on the market from a personal owner who has taken thorough care of it and has had routine maintenance and love from Tesla themselves. The only other one on the market...well, let's just say it might be a lemon.

As someone who's still thinking of selling my 2.0 for a 2.5 (waiting for the right color), your car is the first I'd consider as a (somewhat) educated buyer. @supersnoop is right - it's a desirable color, 2.5, and has double-DIN. Not much more you could desire.

I'm sending you a PM on finding battery health information. Keep an eye out for that.

 

[daniel]

What does Double-DIN mean?

 

[DeedWest]

What does Double-DIN mean?

That's the radio setup that was available in the 2.5, which allows for the 7" navigation / audio screen you have in your dashboard. It's expensive and becoming increasingly impossible to do to a Roadster without one due to parts scarcity.

 

[daniel]

The more desperate you are to sell a car (or a house, or a horse, or anything) the less you'll likely have to accept for it. Now that I don't need to keep the Prius, I can keep both the Roadster and the Model 3. So I can keep my asking price high.

I had a friend who is an artist. When she paints a new picture, she doesn't want to sell it immediately. She wants it to be shown in a gallery for a while. Give more people a chance to see it and become aware of her as an artist. So she prices it way high. If someone is willing to pay the exorbitant price, she'll sell. But she doesn't really want to sell it yet. After the piece has shown for a while, she's ready to sell it, and then she drops the price to the going rate for her work.

Until I decide which of these cars I'd want to have in Maui, assuming I go ahead and decide to move there, I'm in no hurry to sell the Roadster. Officially it's off the market now. But if someone were to offer me a really good price, I'd let go of it.