BYE BYE ZED

4337 Views 48 Replies 22 Participants Last post by Domino, Jul 25, 2005

blue350z

Discussion Starter · Mar 30, 2005

Well after nearly two years of owning a Track 350Z it is time to move on. I am frankly a bit tired of the poorly manufactured car. The final insult regarding the Z is what trade you are offered. My Track was a 06/03 build with only 26,000k's . The trade in offer everywhere was $40K.

A few months ago I had bought a Golf 1.9 TDi for the wife. Well I decided to go down the same track with a similar car except I bought the Golf 2.0 TDi. It is slightly optioned with 18" rims and full body kit :biggrin: Total price was $44K. The build quality is so far ahead of the Nissan it is embarrassing not to mention the list of standard equipment. It even has a radio that sounds great

I know I will not have the handling, braking or off the mark acceleration but I think this car will have a lot of mid range acceleration because of the 320 Nm torque from 1750 rpm.

I think the early owners of the Z will suffer badly in the trade in market as it seems the newest Z has got more power and a better gearbox from all reports.

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mickyboy

· #2 · Mar 30, 2005

Good luck with the golf. I have driven one and they are a nice car. I also have diesel Citroen C5 hdi, good fuel economy but diesel is so much more expenxive than 3 yrs ago.

One more thing, private sale! You would have realised a much better price than the trade.

SeeYA

Perth 350z

· #3 · Mar 30, 2005

$40,000 seems very low. Was there something wrong with it??

http://www.redbook.com.au/vehiclesearch/pr...=NISS03AH&veh=y

blue350z

Discussion Starter · #4 · Mar 30, 2005

The car was perfect. No damage. Full service history. Plenty of tread. The Nissan dealers do not want the cars. Some even offered $38K. Face it guys. We own(ed) a car that will devalue like ****.

I find it sad that Nissan went to all the trouble to design this car and the final execution was flawed in many ways. (shitty paint, crunchy gearboxes, etc etc)

Z350Lover

· #5 · Mar 31, 2005

blue350z is correct... our car worths very less now comparing to 1 year ago... when I was thinking about trading my car for the R34 GTR, they would give me the price of 55K trade price though... and it is not hard to believe it is worth only 40K now...

Also I guess this car is for very specific people in the market.... 2 seater might have already limited those potential car lovers... either you are single or you have other cars in the family that you can fit more than 2 people already.... else you will not get this type of car....

cheers,

richie

mickyboy

· #6 · Mar 31, 2005

Retained value of the zed is approx 63-64% after 3 yrs with normal km's travelled. Now don't be fooled, this is the retail sell price, so trade-in value will be less due to the retail margin that needs to be achieved.

Also, I recommend NEVER to trade-in a car, always sell private!

When trading in, the retailer must first of all make a margin but also needs to add GST component to their sell price. So in blue350z's case his trade-in value of $40K + a retail margin of minimum of $3K (can be as high as $5-7K) brings his car to the lot at approx $47,500. They will probably try to sell it at $49,990 or a little more.

This is why private sale at $45K (even higher should be achieved) at least gives you an easy sale and $5K better off at least.

Overall the 350Z does hold it's value quite well (as good as most cars).
You just need to sell properly and not whinge about it not holding it's value because you couldn't be bothered taking the time to do it right!

NourZ

· #7 · Mar 31, 2005

I don' t know how things work in OZ land but I bought my car for CDN$42,000 after talking the dealer down from $46,000 and my car is worth $38,000 now and it's an 03, and all reports say that the Z is in the top 5 in keeping it's value!!

zlegend

· #8 · Mar 31, 2005

[/quote]

I agree, in the US as well Zs retain good value.

mchapman

· #9 · Mar 31, 2005

That is the trade in price from a dealer.

blue350z

Discussion Starter · #10 · Mar 31, 2005

You will note that I said that was what they offered. I haven't agreed to trade it yet. You never know I might go and park it in Redfern for a few weeks :biggrin:

Im not whinging but just stating a fact.

mickyboy

· #11 · Mar 31, 2005

So take some time out and advertise it. Try using carsales.com easy to use and cheaper than the trading post.
You should get at least $46k for it private and that should be a quick and painless sale.
If you have been running it under business use then any loss will be taken into account by the ATO. I run all my cars under business and use a special type of finance will allows me to write off all the GST in the first quarter of the purchase, so it's like a 10% discount that most people don't get straight away off the purchase price. After 3 yrs my vehicle is almost fully depreciated and I move onto the next and the Mrs gets the car (I sell it too her at a discounted price) and further 'losses' are incurred.
So, I actually want the Zed price not to hold it's ground when compared to other cars. Nut at the moment it is marginally ahead than the average.

Good Luck!

scathing

· #12 · Mar 31, 2005

There aren't that many low-compromise sports cars that manage to retain their value. People who want them will buy them, but they can't cater to enough people to give them a big demand in the second hand market.

There are exceptions, like the Lotus Elise, but for the most part your sports cars tends to shed value quickly. It is an egocentric purchase.

In the end its a Nissan. Japanese cars don't hold value as well as Euro cars. And then there's the build quality. One thing I've noticed about Nissan sports cars is they're a hoot to drive, and the engine and driveline tends to be bulletproof, but anything not directly related to making the car go quick tends to be pretty average in quality.

Its something I've noticed in older Fairladys, Silvias, Skylines and Pulsars. While the Maxima seems OK internally (and its the engine that's a pain to service) there are always rattles and squeaks in a Nissan sports car.

Good luck with the sale. The Golf is a far more practical car and, should I ever need to get a sensible set of wheels, I'd be making the same choice as you.

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tonym

· #13 · Mar 31, 2005

All I can add is mu company runs HSV's for our company cars in Oz and we find cars like a Commodore Clubsport has only a slightly better retained value - 2% or so. Unfortunately this affects all cars. Depreciation is actually worse here in NZ. You can drop 35% in the first year. Hence I bought my (private) 350Z at 18 months old - let someone else (usually a company) wear the loss.
Cheers

dre168

· #14 · Apr 1, 2005

blue350Z: sorry to hear you found the Z to be so dissapointing.

I just received my ZR and so far happy with it (only 350kms though...)

I just got out of a Boxster and lost a ton of money on it. To add insult to injury in the last 12 months after the warranty ran out, the car cost me over $20K in repairs. I'll never own another Porsche out of warranty. All makes suffer quality issues imo.

It may be far from perfect (notchy gearbox, etc) but for the money I couldn't find a better sports car than the Z.

I agree with Scathing: sports cars are self-indulgent purchases. Buy it, drive and enjoy it and just expect to lose quite a bit of money once you decide to sell it (ferrari garage queens excluded).

Good luck with the sale.

davidm

· #15 · Apr 1, 2005

Generaly speaking, the more expensive the car you buy, the more money you will lose. The actual 'percentage' of the retained value is irrelevant to me ... what I look at is the actual amount of maney that one is loosing. Therefore I see a $15k Hyundai a better 'investement' than a Ferrari or a 911. The exotics may retain 85 - 90% of their value over the first 3 years, byt that is still ~$50k loss. On the other hand the Hyundai can have a 0% retained value and you'd still be good $35k better off after 3 years.

I just got out of a Boxster and lost a ton of money on it.

Which Boxtser did you have? Boxsters (just like practicaly any other car) drop a fair bit as soon as you drive one off the floor, but 2nd hand they seem to hold value pretty well. A Boxster S that could have been bought for $105k 3 years ago would still fetch about $85k today. $20k loss in 3 years on $100k+ car is not bad at all.

To add insult to injury in the last 12 months after the warranty ran out, the car cost me over $20K in repairs

That's a lot of meney for repairs ... I can't imagine what you had to replace? Afterall the wear-and-tear-parts like brakes, disks and clutch are not that expensive on a Boxtser. Heck, even the whole engine can be had for 1/2 that amount. So what went wrong with it, and what did all the money go to?

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dre168

· #16 · Apr 1, 2005

David,

I had a 1999 Boxster 2.7 (bought brand new). The car was otherwise perfect for the first 3 years but after that,

- RMS leak
- motor for convertible top broken
- ignition chamber broken
- motor seized (mechanic said injectors were all blocked up).
- fuel pump broken
- engine mounts broken
- CD player broken
- there was this large clunk coming from the engine towards the end that was never rectified as no one could find out what the problem was.

This is just what I can remember from the top of my head. Parts weren't that much more expensive from what I recall but the labour costs were significant. I think it's because the engine wasn't accessible and therefore needed to be taken out from underneath to get access to anything.

Then I had enough and decided to sell it. As it was my daily driver I had put a lot of kays on it (relatively for a Porsche)...over 90K kms. So you can imagine I had a lot of problems selling it and ended up selling it to a guy for $1500 more than the best price I got from a dealer. In the end I just had to get rid of it and cut my losses.

All in all I had absolutely no regrets buying that car. It was an absoulute joy to drive and I'll definitely be looking into getting into the current one in a year or so but never again will I keep it past the warranty period.

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DJ777

· #17 · Apr 1, 2005

Why sell it.. ?? Just drive 60Km/h down the road, find nice telegraph pole, and aim your passanger side into it :shiftdrive: .. then call insurance company ... :wavey:

davidm

· #18 · Apr 1, 2005

I had a 1999 Boxster 2.7 (bought brand new). The car was otherwise perfect for the first 3 years but after that...

That is a lot of problems ... and some of them are pretty major. Sorry to hear that you had so many problems ... 90k km certainly does not justify the need to fix so much :-( Did all of those problems happen inthe lasty year of the owneship (ie. out of warranty)?

Odd thing is that there are a large number of Porsches being tracked literally every weekend and they have minimal problems ... looks like you had a bad one. Shame that you had to put so much money into it just to sell it ... but with all those problems who can blame you.

All in all I had absolutely no regrets buying that car. It was an absoulute joy to drive and I'll definitely be looking into getting into the current one in a year or so...

I still regard the Boxster as one of the best drivers cars out there ... even the 2.7L had more than enough go, but it's the Boxster S that always stole my attention.

I've been reading recently that the new Boxsters have lost some of the car-driver connection in the original Boxtsers. I have not driven a new one, but they say that the new one is no longer adjustible like the original. Will have to drive one myself and find out when I get the chance.

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coatsie

· #19 · Apr 1, 2005

I think that one point that is being missed here is that "it's not all about economics".

Why do we drive sports cars? As someone said earlier in the thread, it is an egocentric trip and surely this must come at a premium. Most of us enjoy our cars as a hobby, toy, the buzz or whatever and by the time we come to move on to the next one it is very difficult to put a dollar value on the fun that we have had driving the car (relative to, say, driving a Hyundai).

You only once live once so "feel the fear and do it anyway!!!"

cheers
coatsie

dre168

· #20 · Apr 1, 2005

David,

Yes, all that happenned after the warranty ran out. Quite freaky actually, like the car had a timer on it or something...

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