what would customizing do to your car's resale and trade in

[x2gtz]

Just a question that popped in my mind. what is the impact, and what are the "safe" customizing things you would do? I am planning on keeping my 8g for a few years and have no intention to take out all the stuff when I sell it.

any thoughts?

[Dominicano]

from what i heard it has no value when it comes to trade-in for another car, now if you sell it to another person thats different, but the dealer would not take that into consideration.

[Tiller]

it actually lowers the trade in value of your car...

unless your mods are tastefull and do not cheange the overall look of the car...

anything but the stock suspension, you lose money right away... so save your stock parts for when you trade it in...

[x2gtz]

I am thinking along the lines of interior stuff like shifter, trim, gauge, bezel etc etc.

also aftermarket tails (JDM e.g.) etc etc.

I still want to do this, but just want to get an idea of the magnitude of impact on trade in value or selling price

because it would be a real pain to uninstall things like those especially if you are going for a diff car later. Uninstall, sell etc etc..

[Lazarus]

Anything you do to the car is going to decrease the Value of a trade in. Shifter, Floor mats anything. Because when the dealer goes to resale the car he has to make it appealing to all buyers which means making it look as stock as possible. If a couple years down the road you decide you want to sell it (God Forbid) your best interest would be to part out all your customizations if you are taking it back to the dealer or your best bet is to leave it as is and sell it to some young tuner as a whole and charge him for the mods and work you put into the car.

[HeadAche]

I'll tell u guyz what happened to me one day when i went to Mitsu to check on this GSX that some old guy had brought back.. It was a 95 GSX in like mint condition all the upgrades with only 35,000 miles on it, yeah i already know, that motor wasnt even broken in yet.. So i was checkin it out and this guy walks up to me and was like are u interested. I was like yea but im not really sure if i want to trade in my ride for it.. SO he was was like well what kinda car i was a like a 00 Galant and he was like well lets take a look at it and see what kinda condition it was in... The guy walked up to my car and asked me what in the hell i did 2 it.. so i gave him the run down the guy called ova one of the garage tech guyz to look it ova and he was like my car wasnt even safe to drive because of the amount of nitrous oxide i was using.. That was when i was using direct port fogger system... and they were like that i could never trade it in to anybody because it was a driving hazard.. Can u imagine a drivin hazard..lmao.. so yes adding on shit to ur car does drop the value, if u trade ur car in as is with all the stuff, all they do is take it off and re-sell it or auction it off to there own people. KEEP ALL UR STOCK PARTS..

[pinoyesv6]

but don't forget about things like seat covers, floor mats, headlight covers and things of that sort of nature can help to increase the value of ur car. if the car is clean and the finish is good, then the value is a lil bit more

[x2gtz]

yeah, i am not planning to do anything major, some interior trim, halo gauges, bezel, shifter, brake etc, and later some body kit, tint etc, thats kinda about it. I will sell it myself probably and may take out a thing or 2 but dont want to go thru teh hassle of making it back to 100% factory.

[Black2k1GTZ]

Chances are alot of dealerships wont take the car if it is too custom. Best thing to do would be to sell it privately like in AutoTrader or on EBAY. Usually you will get alot more doing it that way...I have seen alot of custom car dealerships that specialize in that sort of stuff. But most of them are in florida and cali...


Marc :mg: