Trade in or wait?

My wife has a 17 crosstrek she bought new, no eyesight or other options, just the standard Premium features. We have the title but in a way it's not really paid off, a year and a half ago we consolidated several different loans into 1 and still have 4 years before that is paid off.

It looks like according to subaru's "guaranteed trade in" we could get around $19,000 for her trade in value. Subaru does this sight-unseen online and lets you print off a certificate to take with you to the dealer. If we got a limited with everything in it I think that would be around $30,000 ((? am I close on that ?) so she might be financing $11,000 or so.

Obviously it's our choice but I'd like to hear opinions? Would a brand new limited be enough of an upgrade to justify the expense? Or am I being foolish? I don't really know how the depreciation value would go so basically I'm wondering if it would be better or worse to trade in now or wait a few more years?

 

If you refinanced to save money, trading in would negate all that work. The biggest hit on the value is early on, so if it’s not needed, I wouldn’t.

 

Any problems with the '17?

 

If the '17 is in good shape, the financially wise thing to do would be to keep it and pay off the loan you already have. Accelerate the payments on that loan, after that is paid off start banking the payments and pay cash for the next vehicle.

 

You can check local depreciation values by checking out the market. Initially the first few years hit the hardest on depreciation. Subaru’s I believe do tend to hold value better than most but not certainly on par with the Tacoma.

As in other said the wise option is to keep it and run it into the ground use wise as you already took the initial hit. However if it’s for safety issue wise maybe a good decision to. What state are you located in? Some states discount the sales tax based on the trade in value of the vehicle.

Since you have the title you can see how much you can get private party but the amount might not be enough to cover the sales tax hit. Do u have a carmax near? Sometimes they give better offers than dealers and will buy the car outright without u having to purchase one.