most frustrating search ever

[wastntim]

When I was in college I was taught by an economics teacher that fair market value = demand. So could someone please tell me how a dealer can post a car with 10,000 miles for $59,900 and a private seller can post an almost identical car with 1,850 miles for $57,500. As I've been searching for a viper, I've run across this same situation over and over again. It makes it virtually impossible to come up with a true value for these cars. WHAT IS THE DEAL????

 

[ballhog]

What I have been thinking, the value is in the hand of the beholder. Just not enough of these cars to go around, helps keep the price high. To top it off, the Gen II has a stronger resale then the Gen III.

 

[wastntim]

I wouldn't be complaining about the prices...if they were consistent!!! The problem is that half of the time cars are posted with 3-5 times the miles of some cars yet still are asking more money. There is no logic there!

 

[2000gtsgsxr1000]

Dealers buy at wholesale and sell at retail. We buy from individuals at or below retail and sell at retail or below.Dealers can and do get more.A Viper is just like a house if someone want's a certain car it's worth what they will pay.You've got more recourse with a dealer if something is wrong than an individual.I may sell one car,they sell many and their name rides on that.

 

[Leslie]

Dealers buy at wholesale and sell at retail. We buy from individuals at or below retail and sell at retail or below.Dealers can and do get more.A Viper is just like a house if someone want's a certain car it's worth what they will pay.You've got more recourse with a dealer if something is wrong than an individual.I may sell one car,they sell many and their name rides on that.

perfectly said!

It would be rare for a dealer to buy a car and NOT expect to turn around and try to make money on it

 

[DodgeViper01]

Basically just depends on what someone is willing to pay. It is like that with many cars if you look hard enough. It is just that many people do not do the type of searching I do, as well as a few others on the board. I do not think I really search, I think I HUNT to find the best deals. Many others just see a car that they want and then buy it with little negoitation. They are out there but the majority of cars are in the median price range.

 

[Paul Hawker]

Listing prices are not always selling prices. People generally are willing to pay more from a dealer. They can arrange financing, show the car to a large volume of people, and even get some impulse buys. (Went in looking for a minivan...drove off in a VIPER!).

Supply and demand work best for commodities, and while it tends to level the field for items such as gold or silver, for cars lots of other items come into play.
Condition/Mileage/Location/Color/Modifications/

Don't really understand your dilema. The best deal in your post would be to buy from the private party if all other things are equal.

Each and every Viper is unique once it leaves the factory. Pick one and go for it.

PS All college Professors earn different salaries. If his theory was perfect, they would all be making the same. So much for their teachings in the real world.

 

[VENOMAHOLIC]

You can not compare dealer prices to private owner pricing. Dealers have to "doll up the car" and often work on the car for it to pass inspection and at the very least cover the lemon law if failure after sale happens. As for private owner pricing, that is really more of a horse trade.

Market value on Vipers does not follow any other make or model's pattern. There certainly is not a direct linear relationship with respect to year,mileage and value. Focus on the features you want and colors and with time a good deal will appear.

 

[KepRght]

dealers are trying to make $$$ buying low and selling high. private party will always average lower prices then dealers. people trying to sell a car for one reason or another may lower the price to speed the sale. not everything in econ is as cut and dry as the text books make it sound. thats for sure.

ps. buy from a private party & save money & have the true history.

 

[Vreracing]

I'm still having trouble understanding what the post is about.

Is it that two identical cars don't sell for the exact same price, or is that the one with the lower mileage should be selling for less?

I've been looking at planes and the price can vary 40,000 or so for what appear to be identical planes.

2400 doesn't seem that much different.

I may finally have another vehicle that's as fast as the Viper.

You must be registered for see images

 

[ryan94rt10]

im amazed no one has chimed in with dealers have overhead! that is why you will pay more from a dealer than an individual...now they have options, like listed above which is another reason for highrer prices, but if you talk to an insurance agent when you total a car they will never go with a dealers list price, b/c of their overhead!!!

 

[angleiron]

What it sounds like is that you are looking for the holy grail...a pristine car at a give away price...GOOD LUCK! Not saying that it won't happen, but if you are in a hurry then it won't happen...you are going to have to wait. and look...maybe for a LONG time for the opportunnity to present itself. Also know that the dealers are doing the same thing

 

[Lee00blacksilverGTS]

I'm still having trouble understanding what the post is about.

Is it that two identical cars don't sell for the exact same price, or is that the one with the lower mileage should be selling for less?

I've been looking at planes and the price can vary 40,000 or so for what appear to be identical planes.

2400 doesn't seem that much different.

I may finally have another vehicle that's as fast as the Viper.

You must be registered for see images

Cardinal RG? Always liked that model without the struts. Or is that the big boy top of the line pressurised model? Liked the push/puller joke too, funny, I never thought of that with all the hours I had in a Skymaster, with the right controller (not a busy one) that would be hilarious, with the wrong one.."Skymaster Taxi to the ramp upon landing for a conversation with the resident FAA offical"

 

[wastntim]

My complaint is not just between dealers and private sellers, its about all of the vipers on the market for example on this page of autotraders:

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/searchresults.jsp?mod_bookmark_id=null&advanced=&bkms=1158162231493&num_records=25&certified=&search=y&lang=&search_type=used&make=DODGE&model=VIPER&start_year=2001&end_year=2002&min_price=&max_price=&distance=0&address=60477&x=128&y=13

Two identical GTS's are for sale. Ringgold Dodge has a yellow GTS with 9,000 miles for $61,995. Yet two listings down Palmer Dodge has an identical car with 5,000 miles for $52,981.

This makes no sense. Here you have two dealers selling identical cars, yet the dealer with the car with more miles is selling his car for $9,000.00 more. In this case both cars are being sold by dealers, both have overhead yet the price difference is immmense.

It is this type of pricing that makes it impossible to peg a value on these cars.

 

[Cop Magnet]

When I was in college I was taught by an economics teacher that fair market value = demand. So could someone please tell me how a dealer can post a car with 10,000 miles for $59,900 and a private seller can post an almost identical car with 1,850 miles for $57,500. As I've been searching for a viper, I've run across this same situation over and over again. It makes it virtually impossible to come up with a true value for these cars. WHAT IS THE DEAL????

So...at what college did you study economics?

 

[wastntim]

When I was in college I was taught by an economics teacher that fair market value = demand. So could someone please tell me how a dealer can post a car with 10,000 miles for $59,900 and a private seller can post an almost identical car with 1,850 miles for $57,500. As I've been searching for a viper, I've run across this same situation over and over again. It makes it virtually impossible to come up with a true value for these cars. WHAT IS THE DEAL????

So...at what college did you study economics?

Well it was a while ago, but actually it was DePaul University

 

[joe117]

"I may finally have another vehicle that's as fast as the Viper."

I like the wing.

 

[joe117]

You could think of a 2002 Toyota Camry as a commodity, sort of like oil.

If you had a pipeline from here to New York, filled with these Toyota cars, you could just stick one in one end of the pipe and it would force another out the other end of the pipe.
The fact that it wasn't exactly the same car wouldn't matter much.
They are all about the same and the people looking to buy one are all about the same.

Vipers are not like that, there are not many Vipers around, and the people looking to buy one are not ordinary people.

So there is less of a fixed price on any given Viper. A Viper sitting in front of some people will make them want to buy it without research into the actual value.

Other buyers will nit pick and search for the exact Viper at the exact best price.

So it's easy for me to see how the price of two almost identical Vipers could be quite different.

Different buyer motivation, different seller motivation and the chance meeting of the two in a deal.

Vipers are not a commodity.

 

[ryan94rt10]

you also have to take location into consideration too! palmer dodge may be in a more urban environment than ringgold so they come across more vipers. also palmer dodge sells a lot of vipers...so they are more competitive with thier price...i don't know ringgold dodge so i would say they don't sell as many vipers. so when they have viper on their lot it is a rarity, and they have a huge mark-up on it. they use it as an advertiser, or an attention grabber, to bring customers into their shop to buy other things than that viper...so for ringgold they aren't as concerned about selling the car as fast as palmer is...hence the differnce in price!

some dealers also look at these cars as gold, so they leave the price up high too!

the best way to get a feel for the price on these cars is to research them for several months and get a median price of what you have looked at...now if you are trying to find a diamond in the rough you will have to look much longer than a few months!

 

[CANTDRIVE55]

As mentioned before, the asking price may not reflect the eventual selling price. One high-end vehicle may sit unsold and eventually relisted at a more competitive price, etc.

 

[Cop Magnet]

All these points are valid, and the reason I asked where you studied econ, purely tongue in cheek.

There is no such thing as "true value" for a car. There is a fair value, but it is different for the buyer, the seller, for retail, and for wholesale.

 

[slaughterj]

Two identical GTS's are for sale. Ringgold Dodge has a yellow GTS with 9,000 miles for $61,995. Yet two listings down Palmer Dodge has an identical car with 5,000 miles for $52,981.

This makes no sense. Here you have two dealers selling identical cars, yet the dealer with the car with more miles is selling his car for $9,000.00 more. In this case both cars are being sold by dealers, both have overhead yet the price difference is immmense.

It is this type of pricing that makes it impossible to peg a value on these cars.

They may "appear" to be identical from photos, etc., but up close, you may well find them to be significantly different. Further, the lower-priced one may be priced to move, while the higher priced one might be at a dealer who is not so motivated to give away at such a low price. Plus, they may have had different acquisition and cleaning-up costs. There are a million factors that can cause two "identical" cars to vary in price from one another.

 

[joe117]

Man, we really need to do something about these long text strings.

 

[Klayfish]

Joe's point is right on. Vipers are not like Camrys, where there are 10 on every corner. They're more rare. So it's not as easy to pinpoint a price, because wih a Camry, if someone prices theirs $5000 more than the others, it'll never sell since the buyer can go and find 10 others just like it for a lot less.

Viper prices are somewhat subject to the owners' opinion of what it's worth and if the buyer is really looking for a car JUST LIKE that one, because another one won't be as easy to find.

Part of it too is motiviation. How motivated is the seller? If they aren't too motivated, the price may be higher because they'll wait for that one person to come along who is looking for a car exactly like that and really wants it. If they're more motivated, they'll be willing to move the price if the car isn't exactly what the buyer wants.

I'll use myself for an example. I have a '99 GTS I'm selling. I have it up on Ebay right now. It's got more miles than most other GTS, so I've lowered the price anyway. But I'm not a dealer with overhead and looking for a profit, and I have motivation to sell, so I've really dropped the price big time so that if someone is interested but it's not the exact car they're looking for, it may still be attractive to them.

Steve

 

[wannabe-psi]

keep looking!! i got a great deal on an 01 race yellow gts with 1900 miles from bill@woodhouse!!