Street

After researching this site and others, I decided I'd buy out my 2011 at the end of the lease and then sell retail. Dealer offered $3k over residual, but retail private party book is more like $9k.

Still have a few days before I either have to "trade-in" to dealer or keep on trying to sell.

Have CL and aol ads and have not received even a single bite. From all my reading, I thought the used S4 market was pretty strong. What do you think? Is it the time of the year?

shivamerlin

I don't think that the market for used S4's has gone bad but it's certainly not the greatest time for selling a car!

I was lucky selling my A3 in December 2 years ago but the best time is between March and June!

Good luck!

MVR 155

You should try autotrader.com

CL is very local and often pretty spammed with dealer adds that are pretty vague (at least that is what the chicagoland CL looks like).

Bobby Kinstle

End of year incentives. The price will go up after the new year.

DrGP

YES http://editorial.autos.msn.com/blogs...cid=autos_4992

If you are expecting to get anywhere near retail or private sale on your car you are dreaming. Also, the mileage will have more of an influence on price than what the original MSRP was. A lightly loaded good condition unit will be worth more than a loaded model with significantly more miles. I ordered a 2014 PREM + to replace my leased 2010 prem +. MSRP of the 2010 was $50k. Car had 29k miles. Residual was $25.6k. Dealer gave me $31.5k. That gave me $6k to put towards the new car. BTW, dealer had my car listed for $40.5k on the website. No way he will get that. But selling at $38k, he makes $6k on the deal plus what he makes on the new 2014.

snagitseven

A dealer isn't going to offer any more than current actual wholesale auction prices. If "retail" is listed at $9K more than they offered to pay (which is probably overly aggressive to reality), they would likely have to discount a sale to move it and would still need to make a profit. While you might not realize the "book" price you saw, selling it privately would garner a few thousand more than selling it to a dealer.

Bada Bing

Is the dealer you are referring to an Audi dealer? I am puzzled why Audi lease residuals are set so low that the dealer who typically pays no higher than wholesale trade-in value is willing to pay $3K over your lease residual. I guess my follow-up question is: Why did you lease the car (vs purchase) in the first place? There are only a couple of benefits I see in leasing Audi cars:

1) You don't pay sales tax on the full price of the car (at least that's how it is in CA, you only pay use tax on each lease payment). So if you don't keep the car very long, you save some tax money.

2) If you happen to get into a major accident and the car's future value is diminshed by having it on the CarFax record, in which case returning the repaired car may be a good idea. An Audi salesman told me hat one of his customers returned his leased car and leased a new one for this exact reason.

I suppose lease payments based on lousy residuals are still lower than loan payments on a 60- or 72-month lease but not by much. Leasing an Audi and then having to buy the car or find a buyer at the end seems to take away some of the benefits of leasing.

DrGP

There are many legitimate reasons to lease rather than buy. Especially if your business is paying or writing off the lease. Plus you pay a lower monthly payment and decide whether it is to your advantage to buy the car at the end of the lease, not the beginning when you finance. And YES, the Audi residuals ARE set that low. I could have purchased my 2010 for $25.6 k. Which is way below wholesale. S4s are not really plentiful and not many will make it to auction. Audi dealers will scoff up any incoming S4 at lease return rather than return them to AFS and than go to auction. WHY? Because they know they can get them below or near wholesale price and make a significant profit on the resale.

Bada Bing

OK, those are valid points about leasing in general, but I hope you are not suggesting that having such low residuals on Audi leases is better than the opposite situation, such as with BMW's inflated residuals. For the same payment as a Premium Plus A4 2.0T, one can probably lease a fully loaded 335i which is a lot more car. YIt appears that with Audi one has to pay a lot more monthly, but can get some of that money back if you sell the car privately or trade it in instead of turning the car in and walking away. I suppose this is one aspect of leasing I had not considered. I was always in the mindset that everything else being equal (cap reduction, mileage allowance, etc), you want the lowest possible monthly payment and not care about residual value.

One nice aspect of BMW's inflated residuals is that dealers will negotiate at lease end to sell you the car at less than residual value, sometimes several grand below residual. So if you decide to buy the car, you do have some recourse.

Street

Market has gone soft indeed! Not even one view on AOL autos, only spammers responding to CL. We either "inventory" the car until next year, or just get the $3k over residual.

One thing nice about leasing, is that even if the bottom falls out on used values, you don't lose when turning in.

Just got my lease return inspection report done at no charge. Car needed nothing.