Xantia low trade-in offered

Forth · Unread post by **Forth** » 02 Mar 2005, 18:04

A friend recently went to look into getting a new Citroen, C4 or C5.... she has a Y reg Xantia 1.8i (LX) in really good condition and not a high mileage. The Citroen dealership she went to offered her a trade-in of only £1500. I told her best she coud do is tell them exactly where to to stuff it and stick with what she has.... was I right?

arry_b · Unread post by **arry_b** » 02 Mar 2005, 18:18

Instinctively, this does seem low.
BUT - Have a look on the Autotrader web site, and follow the link for "What's it worth?"
Assuming a mileage of about 60K, that suggests that book value for the trade in is a shade over £900!!!! Madness.
Sell it privately.

Kowalski · Unread post by **Kowalski** » 02 Mar 2005, 18:18

Petrol Xantias do tend to be cheap, but that is extracting the urine.
Looking on Auto Trader, the only Xantia locally of that age is £3995 but its an HDI. Nationally, the cheapest I can see is £2500 with 84k miles.

bxbodger · Unread post by **bxbodger** » 02 Mar 2005, 18:29

The trade in deal is quite often part of an overall package, and needs to be looked at as part of any overall deal they are offering-compare it to what the deal would cost without the trade-in, if, say, she told them she would put in an extra £1500 instead of the car.
And remember, its always negotiable, the dealer could well be waiting for a counter offer on its worth. The problem with trading in a car like a petrol Xantia is that, unlike say a newish Beemer, there won't be queues of people on the dealers books waiting desperately for one to come in!!!

bxbodger · Unread post by **bxbodger** » 02 Mar 2005, 18:33

I meant to add that if Kowalski has found one for £2500, then £1500 is probably about right, as the dealer will have to make a profit on the deal somewhere- New Citroen prices being screwed into the ground, as they are!!

Kowalski · Unread post by **Kowalski** » 02 Mar 2005, 22:06

1 nationally at £2500 a one off.
The majority were around the £3500 mark.
The dealer won't want to make a profit, that car will go straight into the auctions.

Stinkwheel · Unread post by **Stinkwheel** » 02 Mar 2005, 23:09

BXbodger you have hit the nail on the head, the big point of part exing anything is 'price to change'
doesnt matter what yours is worth and doesnt matter what theirs is priced up at it the 'price to change'
I have seen from both side of the counter that if you go in and have a realistic figure you can afford on top of your part ex a lot of places will wangle figures untl it fits or is very close at lease. My tip of the day, ask them the 'price to change' not how much is it up for.

silverback · Unread post by **silverback** » 03 Mar 2005, 00:00

I was once told by a smarmy git of a salesman that 'Petrol Xantias are not good news these days'.
I replied in a loud voice that they were good news when they sold it to me.
I hate car salesmen!
By the way, a friend of mine works at a Ford dealership.
He has shown me excellent cars on their way to the auction for £1.
Yes, One pound.

Homer · Unread post by **Homer** » 03 Mar 2005, 01:42

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Forth</i>

A friend recently went to look into getting a new Citroen, C4 or C5.... she has a Y reg Xantia 1.8i (LX) in really good condition and not a high mileage. The Citroen dealership she went to offered her a trade-in of only £1500. I told her best she coud do is tell them exactly where to to stuff it and stick with what she has.... was I right?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
The price sounds about right to me.
LX - poor spec
Petrol - wrong fuel
1.8 - not really big enough for the Xantia, could be worse though.
You don't say but I assume it's a saloon - another mark down.
On the plus side they are cheap to buy and as long as you know what you are doing they are no more expensive to run than any other make.

Unread post by **David Hallworth1** » 03 Mar 2005, 18:00

we traded on our 1998 R Citroen Xantia Activa, the one with the 2.0 Turbo petrol and loads of problems! We got offered £1500 for it as a P/X towards a 406 Coupe from the Peugeot dealer!
You should get more then that for yours!
Regards
David.

mezuk04 · Unread post by **mezuk04** » 03 Mar 2005, 18:16

Yup, thats right it will just go to the auctions and can sell for a £1, demand more.
Regards

jeremy · Unread post by **jeremy** » 04 Mar 2005, 00:21

David - thanks for illustrating the point made abve which is that one way to deal is on the'What's it going to cost me?' basis. How much is a Peugeot 406 Coupe, how much profit is the dealer going to make? Is he on a quota to dispose of a certain number every year?.
Plain fact is that he's going to make far more on the 406 than he would on a C4 or 5 at the moment and indeed is probably delighted to get rid of the coupe as thats one less of his quota of what may well be an excellent car but not a best seller.
One thing to do is keep a note of the dealer's stock and guess that after about 4 weeks he will be invoiced for them! So - after 3 weeks he's getting keener to do a deal?
jeremy