Scott 3
Junior Member
How did the trade in process work for you when you ordered your truck? Did you have to put down a deposit?
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I ordered my RAM with a $500 deposit on 12/19/18. I then listed my 2014 Tundra on Craigslist on 12/29/18. It sold in 3 days. The buyer picked it up on 01/04/19, and I’ve been truckless since then. I’m renting cars when needed for work until my RAM gets here. Fortunately, it’s been built and is in transit now. I expect it next week.
Sell your old truck outright if you can, you’ll get more $$$ to offset the cost of the new RAM. Carmax is a good place to get a solid offer, and get an idea of what you’d get on trade-in. If that number isn’t enough, consider selling it yourself.
Same scenario here. By trading in I saved another $500 in sales tax. That means my trade was probably short $500-1000 from what I could have got selling on my own. I've reached a point in life that the time I would have spent selling it is worth more than the $500-1k I might have made, not to mention the cost of insuring and maintaining while selling. Depends on what you have. In my case it was a 15 year old truck. It just depends on the situation.Might also want to factor in the sales tax credit if you trade in vs sell privately. In my state with 8% sales tax, in these types of situations (where the trade in is worth a good chunk of money) it often times saves more money to trade it in even for a little less money, vs paying 8% sales tax for the whole price of the new truck. For example, selling privately and paying 8% on the sales price of the truck (lets just say 50k)...would be around $4,000 in taxes. Or lets say your trade in was worth 30k, then you'd only be paying 8% sales tax on the $20,000 difference, or $1,600 in taxes.
I know the sales tax credit doesn't apply in every state but if it applies in yours, its something you have to at least crunch the numbers on.
Same scenario here. By trading in I saved another $500 in sales tax. That means my trade was probably short $500-1000 from what I could have got selling on my own. I've reached a point in life that the time I would have spent selling it is worth more than the $500-1k I might have made, not to mention the cost of insuring and maintaining while selling. Depends on what you have. In my case it was a 15 year old truck. It just depends on the situation.
The last two vehicles I bought new I bought outright, with no trade whatsoever. But those were commuter cars. My last four new trucks I bought, I traded in a vehicle. Three of them, I was trading in some total piece of crap, a vehicle I was thankful just to be rid of. Last one (before the Ram) I traded in a Chevy Venture minivan, probably the worst vehicle I've ever owned, on the Titan in 2004.Very true, I'd also add that if the difference was close at all I'd still prefer to trade. That way you have your current vehicle up to the day you get your new one, instead of potentially being without a daily driver til your truck gets delivered. However, like you mentioned it all depends on the specific scenario. If the trade in wasn't worth hardly anything anyways, or your state didn't have the sales tax credit, or you had an extra vehicle to drive in the meantime, then I would certainly pursue selling privately.
The last two vehicles I bought new I bought outright, with no trade whatsoever. But those were commuter cars. My last four new trucks I bought, I traded in a vehicle. Three of them, I was trading in some total piece of crap, a vehicle I was thankful just to be rid of. Last one (before the Ram) I traded in a Chevy Venture minivan, probably the worst vehicle I've ever owned, on the Titan in 2004.
I could have sold my Titan on my own, I just didn't want to be bothered. It still ran good - I drove it to Florida for a week and got back a couple of days before I traded it - but it had other issues that would have been a pain in the ass to deal with or explain to a private customer. That's really the best thing about trading - not having to deal with fixing or explaining the issues with the vehicle.
My order & trade in went better than I expected. I never wanted to order a truck but I couldn't find the longer bed with a bench seat at dealerships anywhere near me. The truck took 1.5 months to be delivered and I ordered it with zero obligation on my part. I didn't even need to sign anything, just went to the dealer, picked my options, and went home. I went to pick up my truck on Wednesday and they lowered my trade value by $4,000 from the original offer made a few months earlier. I left without buying the truck but was able to get them to increase the trade value by $2500 and purchased my truck the following day.