When is it considered a good time to trade in?

[nemelek]

Buying and selling cars is expensive. Taxes and other fee will never be recouped. The longer you keep a car the more it pays for it’s self. I had a 88 Toyota truck I bought for 12k and sold 18 years later for 3k. The truck cost $500/year. (12 - 3 /18) A lot depends on the skill of the person doing the deal. Paying too much in the first place or wanting a new car so bad that a fair trade in value wasn’t achieved will cost a person money. Trading a car in will cost more than selling it on your own.

I have owned over 25 cars in my life time. When buying a used car I always looked for low miles. I would never buy a car that averaged over 10,000 miles/year. To me a car that is 4-5 years old with 40,000-50,000 miles is the best used car buy. Therefore the worst time to sell a car. I bought a 4 year old Honda DelSol and drove it 2 years 20,000 miles and sold it for $200 more than I paid for it. I bought my wife a 4 year old BMW Z-3 with 14,000 miles. Sold it 3 years later to a privet party with 29,000 miles for $1,500 less than I paid. Trading the car in would have cost 6,000 less than I paid.

I have traded cars in before. I traded in a 92 Lexus with a bad transmission for the Yaris. The transmission would have cost 3-4k to fix. I would have felt bad selling it to a privet party. In Colorado the difference between sale price and trade in is what we are taxed on. At 7.5% that can be a consideration.

The cost of transportation is expensive. Gas, deprecation, insurance, maintenance, purchase price, mods and things all add to the cost. Some people are willing to pay the price and drive a new car every 2 years. Others will buy used and hold on to the car for 10 or more years.