Sell or Trade My 335d?
 

My retirement is looming on the horizon and thus I will likely downsize my stable and that means the 335d will probably not make the cut as it is my daily commuter and I will no longer be making a daily commute. What to do, trade it or sell it? Is there much demand for used 335d's? Mine is in perfect condition with almost exclusively highway miles. I searched on bmwusa and there appears to be a glut of used 335d's out there.

Year? Mileage? Color, etc?

DUH, look up! :ouch:

Lose the Z-4. Keep the D.

Just wait for the next gas price spike and then sell.

+1 to dunderhi's post. And if you can then till more BMW diesels are launched.
I thought i should sell mine too since i lost my bachelorhood recently and am actively looking to get a place of my own but at same time diesels resale is not high as i expected. its as much as normal e90 and mine is paid off and only expense I have in future is gas and some maintenance.

I only see model year listed in OPs profile. Anyone serious about selling a vehicle would list more details than "I took care of it well" and "exclusively highway miles".

I'd thought if/when more diesels are launched it will actually hurt our already lower than expected resale values. I am probably jaded on this though because I have had my car for three years and for over two of those I have wanted to sell it. Initially I got in my head I should wait for the Eco credits on new ones to go away but it took the model car to go away for the credits to be gone. Then I started looking to trade in and discovered it just was worth a lot less than I thought it would be. So to this day it rests in my garage and is used only when we need a second car to drive.

To the OP though if you no longer will need a commuter car and that is the cars very purpose then I say sell it. It is only going to devalue with more time and if you have no need for it then why lose more and more money on it.

Sad to hear u plan yo sell yours,snipe. I for one plan to stay w mines,people are not used to hearing DIESEL on car anywhere in the USA and Puerto Rico and that alone detracts any future purchase

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Bimmer App

Here you are:

26,XXX miles (2nd scheduled service just performed)
Black Sapphire/Oyster Interior/Wood Trim
Premium Pkg
Cold Weather Pkg
Navigation
Satellite Radio
USB/ipod
Garaged/Waxed Monthly/Near Perfect Condition

Better to sell a late model on your own. I once did it by putting a sign in it and letting it sit in an upscale parking area, but nowadays you apparently get crank calls and people just trying to drive it for fun.

Listing it in www.autobytel.com or www.cars.com usually works well.

The appeal of the d as a commuter car should sell it soon enough. Patience is a virtue. I wouldn't get low-balled on the price either.

As far as how many are available, one way to tell is e-Bay, and not many are listed, so its difficult to tell. Dealers may have people trading them in who don't like the harsher ride or just aren't "diesel people."

Just my $.02.

PL

What am I missing,,, if you plan to downsize then it would seem to me that "trading it in" would be counterproductive to that effort, no? Perhaps you mean sell it to a dealer like CarMax?

The dealer I bought my 335d from approached me this week to try and get me to trade it in. I ended the conversation before it could really progress into any sales tactics from them since I have zero interest in any existing BMW models here. I told them they are welcome to buy the car back though to which I got no reply. I think though they were approaching me simply because it was the three year marker and nothing at all to do with which BMW model they sold me.

I routinely look on cars.com and autotrader.com for models I am interest in and seems to give me a decent enough idea of what is available out there. Sometimes I hop over to eBay but seems to be less offerings of what I am looking for on there.

The 335d cars I randomly follow on autotrader.com do not seem to sell quickly at all and not for near what I'd thought they would go for. For some reason it lacks appeal, maybe because it lacked much marketing when new so is unknown to a lot of folks or maybe some other reason.

To to OP.
If you bought it and its paid for, you might want to drive it till it drops. IMO, no other vehicle comes close to the D in performance/FE/price.
When you retire, you only need to fill your tank maybe once a month as you drive less.
Also you may want to take more road trips so the D is still the perfect vehicle.

I'm almost in the same boat as you. I'm 63 this year but have no plans to retire from my business.
I paid for my D in full when I bought it in Nov 2009. This is the first vehicle I've driven for 3 years. All other vehicles lasted not more than 2. With the D I am still enjoying it as much as the day I got it and I can't think of another vehicle that can replace it for now unless BMW brings in the f10d or f30d touring.
But it's nice not to have any lease/loan payments and just enjoy the D.

Cheers

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Some other thoughts came to me:

1. If you were buying from a dealer, they often try to sell you on the tax advantage of not having to pay the entire sales tax on the next car, having paid on your current one. The difference in trade in price - what you pay for the new one after you trade yours in - would be what the sales tax would be, at least in some states apparently.

2. BMW's are not known for their super reliability and the 335d is not a known quantity. The used market may be sensitive to this.

3. There is still a recession going on in spite of what you hear from talking heads on cable, so the prices for expensive cars are a bit softer with some exceptions. Diesel customers may be more sensitive to pricing and the economy, I don't know.

My $.02

PL

The sales tax difference here does not appear to equate to the private party sell difference. With exceptions of Porsche dealers I have had $21k trade in offered a few times but I think private party might net me $26k

$26k sounds about right pvt party in this economy. It would be 30 ish in 2007

i traded my 09 335d loaded in october 2011 for 29k as soon as i heard new body style was being released....I think prices have sunk due to new body style more than anything else, its now an older model. I do miss it.