Discussion
Having sold my 98 elise last year I have been waiting for the right time to aquire another. Although many 98/99 models are up for circa £14.5K (with many owners not too keen to drop) I have rung a couple of ads for dealers buying in elises and it seems they want to by in at around £11.5K even with low mileage. If prices have really fallen this low surely the private cars are too expensive as a dealer mark up of £3K seems too much.
I'm getting a Civic Type-R to replace the Elise, for reasons why look in the 'Jap Chat' forum. Initially I was offered only 11k for it but I didn't get back to them for a while. So they rang me saying they would make it £11500 as long as I sold it to them before the end of the month (April).
I thought it was remarkably low, but looking at www.parkers.co.uk showed me they were actually being generous. I tried every angle to try and get them to give me a little more, but they couldn't have cared less since they could have got quite a few more cars in for that price.... barstewards!
Looking at it from a more positive point of though shows that 11.5k is actually over 50% of the retail price of the S1 new (£20500) so after 5 years that was still pretty good.
I can only relate the sudden fall in prices to the increased prodution of the S2. Even older S2 prices are dropping, with a Y-Reg S2 selling for about 20k from an official Lotus dealer. This indicates that anyone wanting to sell an S2 privately would do best to price it at 17-18k.
Shitty thing this car depreciation lark.....
I thought it was remarkably low, but looking at www.parkers.co.uk showed me they were actually being generous. I tried every angle to try and get them to give me a little more, but they couldn't have cared less since they could have got quite a few more cars in for that price.... barstewards!
Looking at it from a more positive point of though shows that 11.5k is actually over 50% of the retail price of the S1 new (£20500) so after 5 years that was still pretty good.
I can only relate the sudden fall in prices to the increased prodution of the S2. Even older S2 prices are dropping, with a Y-Reg S2 selling for about 20k from an official Lotus dealer. This indicates that anyone wanting to sell an S2 privately would do best to price it at 17-18k.
Shitty thing this car depreciation lark.....
Glad i've read your messages on the forum.
I am trying to trade my Y-plate Celica 190 for an Elise of age 98-00, but all dealers seem to be charging in the region of 17-18K for a 1 owner car.
How can the dealers get away with this if as you say they should be trading for 12-14K? Any advice on the best way into Elise ownership?
I am trying to trade my Y-plate Celica 190 for an Elise of age 98-00, but all dealers seem to be charging in the region of 17-18K for a 1 owner car.
How can the dealers get away with this if as you say they should be trading for 12-14K? Any advice on the best way into Elise ownership?
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