Should we trade in our car?

[chicagomeg]

My fiancee and I just moved to Chicago. He's commuting via public transportation and I'm biking to work (woohoo!). We own outright a 2009 Jeep Liberty. He bought it new in 2010 (before we were together). It's not a choice I would have made for several reasons, chiefly the poor reliability of Jeeps and the 17! combined MPG it gets. Now, I figure we'll be driving at most 2-3k miles a year. The only thing we'll be using it for besides (lazy) trips to the grocery store will be going camping & driving home to our parents' town in Ohio. That town is quite far from any major city (2.5 hours), so not having a car isn't really an option to us.

I guess my question is, is it worth our money to trade in the car for something with better gas mileage? I was thinking about a Honda Fit or Toyota Matrix/Pontiac Vibe. However, I'm not comfortable selling a car on Craigslist in a big city like this, so we'd probably just do a dealer trade in or sell it to Carmax. By the time we lose a bit of money doing that, I'm just not so sure that there is a real benefit when we drive it so little anyway. Plus, there's the intrinsic value of having a car that only you have ever driven and therefore knowing all mechanical issues, driving history, etc. Any thoughts?

[James]

Absolutely sell the Jeep.  You don't need it, and the value will decline much faster than the other vehicles you listed.


You will definitely save money by using craigslist, but trading in would be better than keeping it.  Just be sure to do your research, know what you want, and don't agree to anything on the first trip.  Go home and sit on it before agreeing to anything at a dealership.


I can't imagine going to a dealership when I could use craigslist instead, I hate those places...  but different strokes...  :D

[PJ]

Someone posted a link to one of these articles in another thread: 
 
http://www.edmunds.com/confessions.html 
 
Thought you might find some helpful information if you do go ahead with selling the Jeep.

[dahlink]

Last year I was selling my mustang in a hurry and ended up selling it to autonationdirect on ebay.  If you list your car on ebay at the end you can opt to fill out some info and get an offer for your car.  The offer I got from them was 12400 and carmax offered only 10,000.  I ended up going with the 12400 but wish i could have sold privately but i was pressed for time.  I would definitely sell the car. Good luck.

[caligulala]

If you're driving that little, I would sell the car and not bother to get another. We're in Chicago as well, with 2 toddlers, and have done just fine after selling our car in July. You can get an I-Go or Zipcar membership for the lazy grocery runs and renting cars for out of town trips is much less expensive than keeping one full time. Enterprise has sweet weekend deals where you pick the car up on Friday, return on Monday for $10 a day. They have locations all over the city, so it isn't like you have to go out to the airport to pick up a car. Our closest office is a half mile away, so we just stroll over and pick one up as needed. Try it out for a couple months, you'll be shocked how easy it is to adapt to the car free lifestyle!

[N]

Id vote for selling it also.

 I just sold our 2009 Kia rondo, and I lucked out and sold it to someone I know (slightly, thru a social group connection). They happened to post on FB that they were interested in buying a car like mine and I contacted them. They paid me more than carmax offered me. Also, I tried selling mine to the dealer and they offered even less than carmax and also wasted a lot of my time with fake offers and outright lies until we got to the nitty gritty bottom line. just my experiences.

So, you never know. Float the idea on facebook or to anyone you know who you think might be interested in buying it first. Id keep an eye on CL and see what is happening with cars like yours, and compare yours to theirs. read some online articles about selling cars on CL.

It might take a little time and effort, but you will learn a lot in the process, and be better off.

You can save money on gas, on insurance, and buy another more mustachian car and still have money leftover!