The view from the cage. Find a good trough and wallow in it.

There is always a better way and I'm always looking for it.

Do you have a Carmax nearby? I sold my Honda Odyssey to them for 2k less than I paid for it and I drove it for 2 years and 22k miles.

2nd CarMax. It doesn't hurt to use them as a barometer/indicator when buying/selling a vehicle. You might get a good clean price, iwrock......

When shopping for an E320 turbodiesel, the most perfect low-mileage 2008/09 E320 Bluetec I found was through CarMax.

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'06 E320 CDI
'17 Corvette Stingray Vert

I just sold a 78 450SL for a friend who is not healthy. I listed it on CL and sold it to the first person who looked at it the day after they looked for $300 less than asking. It's a very dirty, super rusty barely running model- and he's shipping it to Germany. I couldn't believe it- it was barely better than the cars in the junkyard. He said he ships as many as 10 a month to a dealer there- mostly older SL's.

Good luck with whatever you do Tyler.

Times have changed of course. The guy across the street where I grew up started a consignment car sales business. Primarily in sports cars. Made a killing and always seemed to have a lot of consignment inventory.

Even back then a lot of people did not want to deal with selling off their old car. So knowing they would be beat to death trading it in they just consigned it to him. Not wanting the personal headaches of selling it themselves either.

Word got around that he produced favorable results quite fast. I do not know but suspect the Toyota I purchases for the wife with 5k miles on it was a consignment sale to the dealer I purchased it from. It was a one year lease return. The leasing company probably disposed of many cars in that fashion. Probably getting a better return than from an auction.
A one year old car may be hard to pull much of a price from generally as there are no interest free terms. So if you have to finance the purchase easier and cheaper to buy new.


There is a guy locally that only sells repaired salvage cars. Perhaps if I saw legitimate before pictures of them I might consider one. Otherwise not.

People expect to get these cars much cheaper as the salvage title remains in place. Apparently today cars with only basically superficial damage that get written off quite easily are probably the gems. Any pulling to get the suspension back into position I would not want. Those are going to be the cheapest to buy for the dealer though.

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Says someone inside the cage...

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TC
Current stable:
- 2004 Mazda RALLYWANKEL
- 2007 Saturn sky redline
- 2004 Explorer...under surgery.

Past: 135i, GTI, 300E, 300SD, 300SD, Stealth

Don't give up young man. I've started two businesses sold the first one for a small chunk moved to Korntucky and am still running the second one. As someone stated earlier in this thread you have to diversify If I wasn't printing, I was making signs or selling antiques or trying to buy and sell a car, 4 wheeler, boat, jewelry anything of value.

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For the Saved, this world is the worst it will ever get.
For the unSaved, this world is the best it will ever get.

Clk's Ebay Stuff BUY SOMETHING NOW!!!

Even if you stay in your current business it is essential to have an exit strategy every time you make a commitment. Before you start signing contracts make sure you understand where the other end of the commitment is. Count the rows to the exit door in case you have to find it while crawling under the poison smoke with a wet towel over your head. Don't even get me started about the zombies and vampires.

Car dealers tell me they can sell anything on the lot when people are cashing tax return checks. The rest of the year they are lucky to make rent. Maybe you just need another source of income for the rest of the year.

What's wrong with being a "job-hopper?" At will employment -- they can fire you because they feel like it. And yet you have some sort of obligation to them to stick it out and not look for better opportunities?

I have someone who wants to buy a motorcycle from me and ship it to europe. It sounds like a scam, he wants a bunch of information and such. I am thinking that as long as his payment clears with my bank before he takes delivery I might play along. We shall see. I am likely going to waste time with a few losers over this one, why not a eurotrash loser?

"Cash and carry only. All emails soliciting long-distance transactions will be ignored."

I'm starting a thread on this one. It is outside my comfort zone.

It's been a miserable week. Since starting the business I have a 3 cars returned out of 400 sales. 2 were legitimate claims, 1 was dishonest.

Yesterday I had 2 cars returned in a single day. An auction house lost my title and weren't working very hard to correct the issue, prompting the customer to get spooked so I returned the vehicle. First time I've ever had a title issue like this. The other was a huge mistake by my mechanic.

My goal this month is to clean out my inventory as much as possible. This includes personal cars.

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1985 500SL Euro w/ AMG bits 130k
1984 300SD Turbodiesel 192k
1980 240D Stick China 188k
2001 CLK55 AMG 101k
2007 S600 Biturbo 149k Overheated Project, IT'S ALIVE!!!

Getting a job with the City Government in San Francisco was for me career wise and retirement wise --- the smartest career move I ever made.

After a couple of BOUNCED paychecks in private industry, that did it, so far as I was concerned, even though it was a HUGE salary drop --at first, to go to work for the City.

I am not rich, but damned secure in retirement, the lifetime pension and medical dental and vision care benefits don't hurt my feelings too much either. And the vacations and holidays were REAL generous too.



Might not hurt for Tyler to check going in that direction too. With a wife and family it might be a workable strategy for the LONG term.

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)