In my pursuit of a replacement for my Mini Cooper to act as a family car I stopped by CarMax to test drive a 2007 Accord Sedan and get a price for my Mini Cooper S Convertible. The car I drove was very dirty on the outside, but spotless on the inside. I was not deterred by the appearance, knowing they would clean it if I bought it. The car was splendid. I would have no trouble buying the car I drive. It was a 2007 Accord Sedan with the V6 and leather interior. It had 9,700 miles showing. Overall a very nice car. My son in the back seat kept telling me to get the car. More importantly the power seemed exactly as I expected it, unlike that of the 2008 Coupe with V6 I drove with disappointing results.
CarMax offered $21,000 for my Mini Cooper. They showed me the printout from Kelly Blue Book with a Good condition price of $21,500. I was disappointed they think of my car as in only good condition, without saying anything as to why my car should not be rated as excellent. I am pretty sure they are going to tout it as excellent if they were selling it. BTW, the Accord I drove was priced at $23,599.
Since we originally looked at an Accord priced at $28.5K I did a quick search on Autotrader for G35 sedans. I found one at a nearby Infiniti dealer. It was a 2007 (all new for this model in this year) priced at $28.3K. Why not take a look. The car was dirty inside an out. I tried to overlook it on the inside, but I was a little uncomfortable with it. When my wife asked the salesman if they clean their cars. The salesman said this car was already cleaned. That put us both off. There were footprints on the rear seat and greasy dirt on the inside driver’s door handle. Also, we noticed two things wrong with the car. First was a lot of scratches and chips on the inside drivers door handle. Why would these be here. For a car with only 12K miles it seemed odd that these chips and scratches were there. You can’t blame this on closing the door with keys in your hand as the G35 has a keyless system. You keep the key fob in your pocket and push the start button to drive the car. There are also buttons on the outside door handles to push and unlock the doors if the key fob is in your pocket. The second problem we noticed was a crinkle finish on the shifter. It should have been smooth. I am guessing that the car must have been parked outside a lot or something.
Overall the car drove excellently. This is the revised G35 with the 306 hp engine. Power was abundant. But the two items above just made the whole experience less than it should have been. I never did get the feeling of being comfortable. I guess in the back of my mind these things were creating a mental block fro this car. The car were drove was a light tan, and it didn’t look elegant. There was a charcoal gray 07 priced at $33K that looked a lot nicer. The interior’s light beige interior didn’t go over well either, expecially how easily it was showing dirt and sings of wear already. A dark color interior would hold up better on this regard.
The experience may have been enough to put my wife off looking at any used vehicles, but not me. The Accord I drove was really nice, and I would prefer it over the G35.
The Infiniti dealer offered only $19,000 for my Mini Cooper. This was enough for use to leave. We were hoping a “premium” dealer would make a more reasonable offer for a “premium” car. The Honda dealer offered $20,000. CarMax has been the only one that was close to the $23,000 the car should be worth on trade. $19,000 was a joke. The salesman had the audacity to start mentioning that my car may seem like it is excellent condition to me, but it isn’t in excellent condition. That was the leaving point. I wanted to knock some sense into this guy that my car was probably in better shape than his. I don’t have permanent damage to my car’s interior. And I can read the definite of excellent on KBB’s web site and my car qualifies.
Anyway, I don’t know what’s next. I’ll keep you posted.
