04 Ls 430 Ultimate Lux, 43k Whats It Worth?

[Lorenzo]

Hello,

I am selling my fathers 04' LS430 Ultimate Luxury with 43K for him in San Diego, CA, This was a leased car that we are thinking of buying out and selling. My question is what is the car worth. It is in immaculate condition and also includes an extra warranty to 75 K or 3 years from purchase. We also put new brakes and tires on the vehicle. We were only offered 27K from a used Lexus dealer. The wholesale on the vehicle is 38K, and fair trade in is 33K Our buyout is 27K, after taxes and such it will be around 30K.

The car runs and drives like new, no accidents, no mishaps, not even one door ding. We are asking $35999 whcih the dealer said is a smoking deal. Any opinions if we can get that or clsoe to it??

Not trying to sell here but here is the autotrader link so you can see the condition,

I have posted my autotrader link here to see some photos. http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.jsp?car_...1&cardist=0

[RCPeters]

From a buyer's point of view, here is my story based on looking for a LS430 with Nav in So. California for several months: Before deciding to scale back on our outlay for a Lexus, we found a 2004 at Beverly Hills Lexus with about 40K miles and Nav but not with the Ultimate package yours has. We were very restrictive in our color choices wanting only a light metallic green color which this dealer had one. He wanted $40k and my wife would not pay more than $37K, so we left. A few days later, we bought a 2001 LS430 with Nav in mystic sea green, 62K miles for $24K from an independent used car dealer. Except for the color, your car is definitely worth the extra $3K. Although, we don't miss the UL features, the 6 speed transmission or some improvements in the Nav.

My thoughts are, for the lease return buy out price you were offered, that is a very good deal. Your asking price on AutoTrader is not bad either. It looks like you should be able to sell your car with some profit. I thought when one leases a car they charge for the sales tax. Were you charged it again?

[Lorenzo]

From a buyer's point of view, here is my story based on looking for a LS430 with Nav in So. California for several months: Before deciding to scale back on our outlay for a Lexus, we found a 2004 at Beverly Hills Lexus with about 40K miles and Nav but not with the Ultimate package yours has. We were very restrictive in our color choices wanting only a light metallic green color which this dealer had one. He wanted $40k and my wife would not pay more than $37K, so we left. A few days later, we bought a 2001 LS430 with Nav in mystic sea green, 62K miles for $24K from an independent used car dealer. Except for the color, your car is definitely worth the extra $3K. Although, we don't miss the UL features, the 6 speed transmission or some improvements in the Nav.

My thoughts are, for the lease return buy out price you were offered, that is a very good deal. Your asking price on AutoTrader is not bad either. It looks like you should be able to sell your car with some profit. I thought when one leases a car they charge for the sales tax. Were you charged it again?

Thanks for th input, I am not sure if the taxes are added to the buy out price, if so we are looking at about $29000 to buy it out. I am not sure either about the sales tax did we pay the tax already in the lease payments>? we woudl have to get 33 miniumu to make any money on the vehicle as we paid for an extra warranty, new brakes and new Dunlop run flat tires. We were already offered 33K by an independant dealer, but I only just posted the autotrader add yesterday so I wanted to wait and see if ther eis any interest.

[option00002]

It will be interesting to see how you make out. Typically, with import vehicles (e.g. Toyota, Honda, Nissan) unless you are under mileage the lease buy-out is rather accurate or otherwise high against market value. Further, this 'value' is subject to your region. As far as the sales tax you are certainly going to be charged on the purchase (by the state not Lexus) and the prior tax was indeed a percentage of the monthly payment leading up to today. An additional important factor in regard to its resale value is that a Lexus dealer can sell the car 'certified' whereas a private partty can obviously not. I suspect when it is all said and done if your sole goal behind reselling the car is to make a profit it will be more trouble than it is worth.

In MA it appears this year and model(sans U/P) is barely breaking $30k retail from non-Lexus dealers/private sales.

Additional complications:

Finding a $30k buyer.

The title...less of an issue if you can stroke a check for the car; however, if you are going to finance it that adds an additional 30 days to title receipt. Very few buyers will wait.

Good luck!

[smooth1]

I agree with option00002. Prices can be very regional. Here in Florida 04' LS 430's sell for 40-45k with 38k being average. So long as your not in a hurry to sell the car. It could take awhile to find a buyer. ( And stay away from car brokers!!!)