This is a sad day. My Kbb value for my 05($21690 with only 16,000 after 23 months) has now dropped below my lease end Residual($22000) and I still have 16 months left on my 39 month lease. That means that no matter what happens I have to wait to the end of the lease and turn the car back in.

It seems kind of crazy that the 05's have dropped so much in value. I have been tracking my KBB value since 11-01-06 and my car has lost atleast $3,325 in 4 months. That is horrible. Has anyone else had this experience? I guess now my only hope is to wait for the 09 G37. Atleast, I might get the bigger engine then. Oh well here are the KBB values for my car since 11-01-06. Note: my wife put a huge scratch on my car this week while I was away on a business trip so I rated its value at good instead of excellent.

Trade in 11-01-06 13K miles
Condition
Excellent $26,325
Good $24,965
Fair $22,450

11-10-06
Excellent $25,125
Good $23,790
Fair $21,420

11-19-06 13,400 Miles
Excellent $24,925
Good $23,565
Fair $21,250

Trade in 12-21-06 14.5K miles
Excellent $24,325
Good $23,015
Fair $20,700

Trade in 1-02-07 and 1-22-07 14.8K and 15.2K miles
Excellent $23,750
Good $22,490
Fair $20,225

Trade in 2-06-07 15.5K miles
Excellent $23,650
Good $22,390
Fair $20,125

Trade in 3-01-07 16.0K miles
Excellent $22,900
Good $21,690
Fair $19,525

 

I just got $24500 trade for my 05x with 24K on it last night....

Actually... i just checked KBB for my trade and I swear to god it literally dropped $500 overnight cause I printed one fresh yesterday before going to the dealer. WOW.

 

Sorry to hear that, but the 08 or 09 will be worth the Wait!

Cars are not meant to be swapped out in the first few years, you loose a large amount of value in year 1, and then year 2, but after that it flattens out. it's the 3rd year that value and payments catch up assuming a 5-year payout with little down payment. and in the 4th and 5th year is when things are fantastic. after 5 years you start the big drops in value again... Ideally you should dump a car between 4-5 years, or just hold onto it for 10 and ride it into the ground. Leasing is a whole different story and has it's bennefits for quick in/out of a new car.. but it costs you more in the long run because you never build any equity and you never get to drive a car without payments and then you pay for every little thing or extra mile you put on the car. i.e. get that scratch and the dealer charges you $400 to fix it while if it were your own car you might just use touchup paint or buff it out and live with it.... you can't do that with a lease.

Financing is sort of a savings plan, when you pay $600/mo for a $40K car, your really only paying $300/mo to drive the car, the other $300 is going toward a savings account, at the end of 4 years you have no more payments yet you have $20K in value in the car. Leasing is a less expensive "total" payment, but the cost of driving the car is actually more in most cases.

Wait your lease out and then when you swap out, I'd recommend financing over leasing.

 

Keep in mind that the 2007 model is causing all your prices to drop, it's a lot of car, much more then the 03-06's.. therefore the used values on these cars drops a lot, why pay $22K for a used 04 or 05 when you could pay $33K and get a new 2007. The 03-06's will drop even faster over the next couple months and when the 08 coupe and sedan hits, you'll watch them drop again pretty hard. In 3 years from now an 05 will be worth about $5-6K because the 07's will be hitting the used market in volume in the 20K price range.

 

I completely agree, infiniti's as a whole don't seem to lease great. It seems a lot of people get into a lease because its the "cheapest" way to get into the car with out looking at the cost of owning the car over a longer time period(3 years for example).

 

I ran into this situation myself back in November when I traded my 03 G Sedan in on the 07. I didn't get what I thought I should for my 03. I guess when a new generation of a car comes out, resale values on the previous generation will definitely be effected.

As for me, I got into a lease this time around since I can write off 100% of my lease payments as a business expense.

 

That sucks dude. Sorry to hear about horrible drop in resale value. Oh well, you can always hold out for a newer better model in 16 months that will make the rest of us envious.

 

Excellent point, there are certain circumstances such as this that make it a much better decision to lease.

 

Sorry to hear that but that's one of the reasons why I will never lease a car.

 

Have you actually tried to go into the dealership?
If you have a current lease with IFS you'd be surprised how easy they make it to get into a new car...
I had a $500 credit for wear & tear - but such low mileage that they didn't even inspect it.
So don't give up yet!!

 

Sorry, but I never understand it when ppl say that. How about this reason: $11,000 dollars?

I do agree the resale values have been dropping pretty quickly. It's pretty weird to think my trade in value is getting close to $20k on my coupe.

 

It doesn't help reading the 2007 G35 forum either, if you have an older car. It makes you want to upgrade more :-) .

 

+1 IFS sent me mail last week about the 500$ wear and tear credit....HA HA My lease is up in july!!! I only have 20,000 miles on a loaded 04 coupe in great condition.Can't wait for the 08!!

 

Wait until the 08 Coupes hit the showroom floors. Unfortunately, you'll see an even sharper decrease in your trade value. I experienced this first hand with my last G.

 

It's not actually $11,000... it appears that way, but you have to look at the big picture, that $11,000 if you pay it for a new 2007, your getting a new car, new warranty and your getting 2 more YEARS of the car. so over the course of 5 years your paying the same amount to drive the car, it's roughly $3.5K a year.

If you were to buy the used car for $22,000 and drive for 2 years (5 years from the "new" date) the car is only worth $15K after 5 years. The used car cost you $7K for 2 years. which is $3500 a year. The New 2007 cost $33K but after 5 years of driving, it's worth $15K, your cost of driving was $18K, or $3600 a year. For arguments sake, it's a wash on the annual cost of driving. So it doesn't really cost you $11K, it cost you nothing more. you may have "paid" 11K more, but after 5 years of driving it, you have $11K more in value in the car. .

Does that make more sense? you can't look at the the numbers at face value, you have to look at the cost of driving a car over time. And in the example above it's costing you the same to drive a new car with better features etc...!

Used cars work out good when they at like 100K miles and you pay $7K for it and your looking to run it into the ground for another 100K miles. then your getting bang-for-your-buck but your also risking repair costs should something go wrong. Or the other scenario is if you can jump in to a used car that's only 1 year old and the car already took a big depreciation and your coming in at a sweet spot, i.e. car was $33K, and you pick it up with 7K miles for $24K and it still has 4 years of warranty left.