Used car buying help?

[2015Etrac]

I'd appreciate any help. I generally don't buy vehicles often and the last one I did was a new Mustang with 0% financing. My friend's looking to buy a Focus. I have a feeling the loan will be high interest, so I told her to make sure there is no pre-payment penalty, so she can pay it off sooner, and to make sure the rate is not extremely high to begin with. The car's Kelley Blue Book is $7800-$9100 trade-in if it's "good". The private sale value is $10,400-$12,200. I believe it's listed in the mid $12's. What would you guys offer and what do you think I can realistically get it for? I realize there's many other factors, but just curious based on the Kelley prices how low I can expect to get something like that for. I was thinking $11,000 would be fair? I believe it comes with a 2 month warranty, but the Ford 5 year power-train should still be in effect if the cars within 5 years right?

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[madlion]

I'd appreciate any help. I generally don't buy vehicles often and the last one I did was a new Mustang with 0% financing. My friend's looking to buy a Focus. I have a feeling the loan will be high interest, so I told her to make sure there is no pre-payment penalty, so she can pay it off sooner, and to make sure the rate is not extremely high to begin with. The car's Kelley Blue Book is $7800-$9100 trade-in if it's "good". The private sale value is $10,400-$12,200. I believe it's listed in the mid $12's. What would you guys offer and what do you think I can realistically get it for? I realize there's many other factors, but just curious based on the Kelley prices how low I can expect to get something like that for. I was thinking $11,000 would be fair? I believe it comes with a 2 month warranty, but the Ford 5 year power-train should still be in effect if the cars within 5 years right?

What year is this focus? Mileage? Transmissions on those had issues until the 2015-16MY so you may want to make sure you have power train warranty for a t least a couple of years (warranty starts the day get sold).
While Focuses are nice cars, they are not worth much and there are tons of them out there. I would not pay more than trade in value since that is what a dealer think the car IS REALLY WORTH.

 

[2015Etrac]

What year is this focus? Mileage? Transmissions on those had issues until the 2015-16MY so you may want to make sure you have power train warranty for a t least a couple of years (warranty starts the day get sold).
While Focuses are nice cars, they are not worth much and there are tons of them out there. I would not pay more than trade in value since that is what a dealer think the car IS REALLY WORTH.

Thanks. I was also wondering about that. I don't know much about the new Focus models, or their reliability. I'd assume if it's a 2015 model the powertrain warranty will be good until about mid 2019 if it was bought in 2014. The car has 33k miles. I tried to tell her to find something with better reliability in that price range. She had an older Focus that had nothing but problems.

 

[madlion]

Thanks. I was also wondering about that. I don't know much about the new Focus models, or their reliability. I'd assume if it's a 2015 model the powertrain warranty will be good until about mid 2019 if it was bought in 2014. The car has 33k miles. I tried to tell her to find something with better reliability in that price range. She had an older Focus that had nothing but problems.

This is just me, but if she drives a lot, I would try to go with something 16+ (not older than MY15) and with 20k miles or lower. With Focuses going away and the market being flooded, you should be able to find something in the $9-10k range. Like you can buy a new one for like $16k before any special rebates kick in...

 

[2015Etrac]

This is just me, but if she drives a lot, I would try to go with something 16+ (not older than MY15) and with 20k miles or lower. With Focuses going away and the market being flooded, you should be able to find something in the $9-10k range. Like you can buy a new one for like $16k before any special rebates kick in...

I appreciate the help. She went with the Hyundai which was a 2017 with 33k miles. I was leaning towards the Focus but after you mentioned the transmission issue I spoke with my brother-in-law who said he has also had a few customer cars with that same issue. The Hyundai still has a few years left on the powertrain warranty and about 3k miles on the bumper to bumper to get everything else checked out. It's always interesting dealing with those used cars guys. They came at me with $345/month for 72 month for a used fleet rental Hyundai that sells less than that brand new, then proceeded to yell at me for being "rude" when I just laughed at the extra $4k in hidden fee's that they expected to sneak by her. I still think she paid too much for the car, but she wanted it and I able to finally get it for a more reasonable price that she was OK with.

 

[Cobra Jet]

You can’t go wrong with a Hyundai.

I purchased a then new 2011 Genesis Coupe 2.3T. That Genesis was only in the shop for dealer serviced oil changes, every 3500 mi and to get 1 set of new tires when the originals were done at 80k miles...I had traded it on my previous then new 2016 S550 - and I had to deal with nothing but issues starting at 1k miles and get Ford to do a Buy Back on that POS @ only 33k mies....lmao....

 

[2015Etrac]

You can’t go wrong with a Hyundai.

I purchased a then new 2011 Genesis Coupe 2.3T. That Genesis was only in the shop for dealer serviced oil changes, every 3500 mi and to get 1 set of new tires when the originals were done at 80k miles...I had traded it on my previous then new 2016 S550 - and I had to deal with nothing but issues starting at 1k miles and get Ford to do a Buy Back on that POS @ only 33k mies....lmao....

Wow that sucks. I've been lucky so far with my s550, but I'm only at 8k miles and plan to buy the extended warranty after reading about all the a/c issues. I agree on Hyundai, my sister took over my grandfathers 07' Hyundai and it's never had any problems.

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