YACT: Buying 98 Altima - price negotiations?

[naddicott]

A friend of a friend is moving next week and trying to sell her car beforehand (i.e. she's in a time crunch). I'm interested in buying, but not in a huge hurry.

It is a '98 Nissan Altima GXE with a little over 52,000 miles on it. Automatic transmission, moonroof, and antilock brakes are the main extras. There has only been a single owner according to carfax - no red lights on the title records.

Originally she said something like "I'm just looking to get Blue Book for it.", but recently she called my friend and told them "I'm willing to negotiate on price if he [me] is serious about buying it."

I'm not much of a negotiator - too used to going in a store and paying the listed price.

Edmunds estimates the "fair market value" given the mileage and the options as being ~$6,500 for trade-in and ~$7,400 for Private seller. The Blue Book website suggests ~$7,600 as a private seller value.

I would be happy if I could end up splitting the difference between trade-in and private seller value and buying it for ~$7,000. I'm worried that if I start out with that offer I'll end up paying more.

Anyone care to suggest a negotiation strategy? Remember this is a friend of a friend so I don't want to create bad blood by completely ripping them off, but on the other hand I don't have tons of money to throw around either.

Comments on the car are welcome too. Anything to look for in particular when I test drive it tomorrow? I have already searched through old Altima threads (recent and archives) and got the impression that it's a fairly reliable model.

[edit: added "Nissan" in case anyone didn't already know. Edit: spelling.]

 

[SammyBoy]

offer 6500. Tell her to take it or leave it.

 

[miri]

I leased a 99 altima for a little over 3 years. I liked the car except for the exterior styling. Nissan makes great air conditioners, the 99 altima's air conditioner is a lot better than the air conditioner in my 2003 civic ex. Anyway check up on when nissan recommends timing belt changes for that car.

 

[SammyBoy]

actually, I wouldn't buy it for 6500 either. That was just what I'd offer based on the prices. Used car prices are in the Sh!tter right now, so many people are trading their 3-5 year old cars back to the dealer for pennies so they can get in on some multi thousand dollar rebates or 0% financing on a new car. I bet if you hunted around you could find a similar car to that at a dealer for less than 7.

Plus she's your friend. If you're helping out of a jam, she should hook you up. Selling to you would be infinitely less agravating for her than selling to a dealer or a private party. Does she expect to sell her car in a few weeks to anyone with the used car market like this?

Dude, trust me. Get a 96 GTi with high miles. Make sure it has the vr6. Pay 4250 for it. That's all you gotta do.

 

[naddicott]

Originally posted by: miri
I leased a 99 altima for a little over 3 years. I liked the car except for the exterior styling. Nissan makes great air conditioners, the 99 altima's air conditioner is a lot better than the air conditioner in my 2003 civic ex. Anyway check up on when nissan recommends timing belt changes for that car.

Good Air Conditioning is important in Southern California. According to Edmunds the drive belt(s) should be inspected at 60,000 miles.

The used car market is flooded these days? Wouldn't that be reflected in Edmunds/Blue Book estimates?

 

[SammyBoy]

Originally posted by: naddicott

Originally posted by: miri
I leased a 99 altima for a little over 3 years. I liked the car except for the exterior styling. Nissan makes great air conditioners, the 99 altima's air conditioner is a lot better than the air conditioner in my 2003 civic ex. Anyway check up on when nissan recommends timing belt changes for that car.

Good Air Conditioning is important in Southern California. According to Edmunds the drive belt(s) should be inspected at 60,000 miles.

The used car market is flooded these days? Wouldn't that be reflected in Edmunds/Blue Book estimates?

Sorta. I'm sure it's going down, but people say to throw blue book out the window, and the norm now is at least a few hundred below it. See, if they lowered their prices, people would still be like....its a good time to buy used cars for the consumer, buy for below blue book. While BB prices are reasonable you can almost always get solid cars for cheaper than KBB price whether from a dealer or private party.

Also, about the huge amount of trade ins, with huge rebates on 2003's and super low financing, this is probably the cheapest time of a year to buy any car 2003 or older...and this was a good year to begin with.

 

[naddicott]

(bump for the Friday night crowd - more input is welcome)

OK, I'll try offering $6,500, but first I'll see if I can get her to come up with a price first (in case it's lower). If I'm going to be asking for "trade-in" price, I'll need to emphasize how hard it will be for her to sell the car to anyone else on such short notice.

I haven't seen too many sub $7k bargains in the classifieds and online for my area, and having a single owner who took extremely good care of the car (according to my friend) is also a comfort. Anything under $7,000 will be good news for me.