How much do you think I can get for my truck?

Make sure to calculate the "real cost" and not just the difference between trading your current truck in vs selling privately. For example: The dealer offers you $30k for your truck and the state will give you a sales tax credit, you effectively gain an additional $1,500 (assuming 5% sales tax rate) for a total of $31,500. It is easy to assume that you would need to get $31,500 from a private party to "come out even" with what the dealer offered. That is not true at all, and every dealer knows it, and uses it to their advantage.

Why?

Because the dealer can (and usually does) simply raise the price of the vehicle you are buying by an equal amount ;-)

An exception would be to negotiate a sale without EVER mentioning that you will be trading...Get a firm price and THEN hit them with "Oh, my cousin decided not to buy my truck after all, what would you give me for it if I trade it in?"

That way, you will have a better idea of what they are actually giving you for your truck.

When posters claim "I got $xxxxx on my trade-in!! I'm soooo happy !!" They fail to realize that the super awesome price they got for their trade was simply tacked on to the purchase price of the new vehicle ;-)

FWIW my 2019 was sold to Carvana two years after I purchased it new (no trade) for exactly $747.00 less than I paid for it. I think I had about 16,000 miles on it and it looked brand new. Local dealers couldn't come within several thousands of dollars of what Carvana gave me. Two days after the deal, all the $$$ showed up as a direct deposit into my checking account. Easy-peasy.

If you already figured all this out, simply ignore this essay I wrote and carry on ;-)

 

All true but most new car dealerships in my area are a fixed price on their vehicles. Basically $0-500 in wiggle room

 

Had no idea dealers did this. Interesting.

 

Good Luck. Nice Truck. It would sell quick in California. (Please, no bagging on California comments!)

 

Check out carvana they usually give pretty good offers . No bs dealing with dealerships or flakes on Craigslist lol .

 

Check carvana and vroom will give you an idea, you can take those prices to a dealer you want to trade too.

Negotiate the price of the full size , do not mention you plan to trade after negotiating a price you are ok with, tell them about the trade, if they offer a lower trade price then you have gotten show them. If they don't match walk.

Lastly there is a chip shortage for vehicles they are projected to be 1.3 million short in production worldwide this year, that means prices will be less negotiable, but used car prices will stay high so your trucks value is im a good spot right now.

 

I submitted my truck to carvana and got a real good price on it (35,900). I may go that route if dealership low balls me. Thanks for all the replies.