The $4,000 question

Morally and ethically? yes.
Legally? no.

 

It's a 2008 Saturn. They know what they're getting.

 

It's going to take them very little time to discover a balky transmission.

 

Take their money and walk away without a shred of guilt. They're far better at valuing cars than you are, and they're not in the business of overpaying for trouble.

 

Is there going to be another cash for clunkers program?
After you go to a few dealers go to edmunds.com, dealers have a price guarantee. Also they have a forum where people say what they paid for their car and which features, options, etc they got.

 

I misread it at first as she had an Acura, so I was also confused. But her car is a Saturn Aura, which was the Saturn version of the Chevy Malibu/Pontiac G6 sedan. They were actually pretty nice cars (a definite step up from the Ion I originally guessed), but not worth keeping at that repair cost.

 

Heck, then you will need that $4K to go towards your wedding costs.

 

I would definitely get rid of this car, but I am currently driving a 2007 Lexus with 150,000+ miles and love it.

I'd rather spend $10,000 on a well-used quality car like it than buy a new car that doesn't have seat heaters and COOLERS for $25,000 or more.

Also would not tell the dealer what problems the car has. I would tell an individual if I sold it that way, though.

 

Absolutely not. If the dealer asks about it, be honest. If he doesn't, don't say a word and take what you can get.

Did the same thing with my last trade in, a 1999 Honda Accord. I pushed it past 200K and it was on its last legs. When you drove it for more than five minutes, steam would come out of the engine because of a variety of leaks. The dealer asked a lot of questions about it - how are the tires? how's the paint job? any cracked windows? does the transmission slip? - but never asked a think about the engine.

I had no problem taking the $2,000 he was willing to give me for it.

 

I wonder why they do that. Are they too lazy to look at it and see if they paint job looks OK, if they tires have tread or if there are any dents or are they trying to assess how honest you are (or how much of a sucker).

Maybe they feel if you lie about the cracked windows, they feel better about pushing the $1,500 phantom undercoating.

 

So, as an update to the masses, the mechanic said her car wasn't driveable to the dealership.

Dealership wouldn't take it as a trade-in sight unseen but she felt like she had to buy something today.

So the car she test drive last night was purchased.

Her credit score checked in at 843, and if mine was that high, I'd have it tattooed on my forehead, but anyway, she's the proud owner of a 2013 Buick with 13,000 miles on it.

She essentially made a decision in under 12 hours, which is just fucking amazing to me.

 

Buicks are solid cars.

If I worked closer to home, I would seriously look at leasing a car.