When we offer one of our long term cars for sale, it's always tough to set the right price. Sometimes, we schlep it down to CarMax and see what they offer us. If they offer "strong money" (as a car salesman might say) we cash out. If it's a lukewarm price we might put it up on Craigslist for a few grand more and see if we can get a quick sale.
The 2009 Audi A4 Avant falls into a different category. First of all, it didn't seem like a CarMax kind of vehicle and their offer of $23,000, confirmed that. We looked at our True Market Value, and similar cars for sale in our area (not many of them) and decided to list it for $29,500. We knew that listing it at $30,000 or above would likely bring a lot of silence. At $29,500, we would get calls. Or, in this new era of used car buying and selling, we might get e-mails or text messages.
Sure enough, after only two days on AutoTrader, we had two emails asking if it was still for sale. No test drives yet, but early interest is always a good sign.
Meanwhile, we created this simple YouTube video. We put the link in our Craigslist ad.
throwback says:
11:56 AM, 02/ 4/11
It will be interesting to see how fast you sell it. I think if it where a sedan you would have sold it already, or if you where on the East coast. Winter has been kicking our butt!
maxedoutmax says:
12:01 PM, 02/ 4/11
@throwback
The avant models are quite more desirable, there is a huge market for them. They fetch a bit more than the sedan counterparts.
The luxury used market has rebounded quite a bit as of late... this 2 yr old A4 being listed at nearly 30k is a clear testament to that. It probably stickered around 43k or so.. and could have been bought with at least 2-4k off that sticker. So the depreciation is fairly low.
exnevadan says:
12:20 PM, 02/ 4/11
listed for and sold for are two different things and $30k is quite a bit for a small used wagon
that said, agree that the wagon's are tougher to find and therefore probably more resistant to depreciation. throwback's right - AWD is a nice feature in New England about now
toastblows says:
01:34 PM, 02/ 4/11
Sells between 26500-27500
esoterica says:
01:41 PM, 02/ 4/11
Maybe one of these days you can keep a VW/Audi product longer to see if they outlast their reputation of being 50K mile vehicles.
isend2c says:
08:58 PM, 02/ 4/11
@ esoterica... What car can't last to 50,000 miles??? This Audi is more long term than most of the cars that they have in their fleet...
It does look like it's in very good condition, you mention it has "four wheel drive"... that's misleading and it sounds like you're uninformed about the car. Did you do that to mislead people about it being from a journalist' fleet?
automaton says:
09:47 PM, 02/ 4/11
Asking "is it still for sale" is the lazy spammer's way of trying to get your e-mail address. At least that's the case on Craigslist. If they don't ask specific vehicle related questions, they shouldn't get a reply.
rmrc says:
12:10 PM, 02/ 9/11
"35,000 miles and still has 6k miles left on the factory warranty" Did I hear that correctly? I have the same '09 avant you have (except I have the 19" s-line wheels) and it has a 4 year 50k mile factory warranty. I've never had to use the warranty but I have 12k left on it.