When I was driving past a VW dealership earlier today, they had a 2020 Jeep Gladiator parked at the front of their used car lot, and my first thought was that someone must have really not liked it if they traded it in after just one year.
I took a look online at that dealership’s used car inventory, and it turns out that the Jeep has only 2,232 miles on the odometer! My best guess is that it was such a lemon that the previous owner felt like dumping it, or he/she simply hated it for some reason or other. Why else would someone get rid of a vehicle after barely driving it?
possible reason… with used cars and new ones getting harder to find. dealers are offering to buy your vehicle back for what you paid for it and in some cases more.
Would be nice to hear the story behind that . Also would like to know the story behind the Craigslist ad about someone wanting to sell a 2021 Ford Ranger that they only bought 2 weeks before placing the ad. They both sound like impulse purchases with big regrets and a pile of money lost.
Why are you posting a link to a dealership ? Someone might think you are posting for the dealer group and flag you . Your first sentence would have been enough .
I don’t know what year it was but prolly in the 80’s. There was a Plymouth or Chrysler caravan type in the neighborhood of my work place. He had put a luggage carrier on the roof and a large, prolly 4x4 sheet of plywood with a large lemon painted on it. I don’t remember what he wrote on the sign but it was always parked in the street, I suppose because it wouldn’t fit in the garage. Funny part was I saw it for at least several years and maybe longer. (Como Ave. just after 280-maybe someone knows him)
It has to take a special kind of masochistic person to put themselves through that year after year, instead of just trading it in. Like eating a rotten sandwich, get rid of it as soon as possible.
Owner may have died. Executor or next-of-kin did not want the vehicle (and sad reminder) sitting unused. Value is high now so sell it if you don’t want it. Dealer happy to buy and able to sell.
In the late 1060s, when I was right out of High School, I worked as a “New Car Prep,” sort of an Apprentice Mechanic at a Ford Dealership. My job included installing all the aftermarket accessories, like radios (or upgrading the AM to AM/FM), including the antennas, aftermarket A/C units, carpet verses the rubber mat, bucket seats verses the bench seat, and more…
I was pretty friendly with most of the salesmen even though the “old hand” mechanics detested them.
One thing I noticed was the “trade-in” swap outs. Sometimes the salesmen took in a junker as a trade-in and the dealer just sent them off for auction. But I had to ask why the dealership spent good money buying relatively new cars of different brands (Chevys, (and Corvettes) Pontiacs, Buick, Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles, and they even bought foreign cars like: MGs, Triumphs, Fiats, and Jaguars…
I knew they paid pretty much what they could sell them for and the salesmen said the PR was worth it. They could tell the prospective customers that the previous owners didn’t like the car and traded it in for a new Ford… These cars were used as “bad examples of new cars…”
They had all manner of excuses for the trade-ins: the wife couldn’t back-up the Caddy, the Corvette couldn’t hold the golf clubs, the Olds had no power, the Jag spent more time in the shop than it did on the road…
It must have worked because that was in the late 1960s and that Ford Dealership is still on Central Avenue in Albany, NY. It’s under new ownership, but I don’t think much else has changed…
Today, if you ask a salesperson about a relatively new, off-brand trade-in, on a new car lot, the salesperson may say, “If I tell you, you’ll have to buy it…”
There’s one at a local dealer group has a Mojave with 9,000mi purchased locally almost a year ago and they’re asking $59,000. Most likely bought it for more than the owner owed on the loan.
The dealer I work for usually has a Wrangler in its inventory, these vehicles attract buyers. If they do not qualify for the financing they can be shown a less expensive vehicle. They currently have a Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon asking more than $50,000.
Of the 95 used vehicles in stock 20 of them are 2020 model year, 20 are 2019 model year, they are not lemons.
Buyers seek late model vehicles, dealers stock vehicles that meet the buyers demands.
The unemployment rate in my area is 10%, people are losing their homes and vehicles. The story that you are interested in is likely one of despair.
A friend of mine bought a used Wrangler several years ago. He’d always wanted a Wrangler, and enjoyed it at first. Then after a few months…he realized it wasn’t actually the most “useful” vehicle for his lifestyle. Meaning, it wasn’t comfortable for carrying kids around in, and since he was a hunter, he couldn’t just “toss” a killed deer in the back of the Jeep.
So he traded it in, back to the same dealer where he bought it, on a new pickup truck. As I recall, the dealer more or less gave him what he paid in trade on the one. The salesman also told him that they keep a line of Jeeps (this was a used car lot) in the front of the dealership all the time because there are always people wanting a Jeep.
Personally, I’ve never understood the appeal of a Jeep. It seems like more of an “image” vehicle to me, with too many compromise for performance that’s never used. The Gladiator is even more of a “solution” in search of a problem.
The Chevy dealer here has an additional used car lot about 2 blocks from their main facility. This lot is run separately (mostly) from the main one.
A couple of months after the Mustang Mach E was introduced they had a used one sitting out there for sale.
Someone must have been really disillusioned with that one to unload it so quickly and take a financial hit like that.
One possibility is that the original owner died, and his descendants dumped the car because none of them want to drive that monstrosity.
Is VW’s reliability really worse than anyone else’s, or is their maintenance so expensive that people skip it?
After driving a Jetta for a few years, my impression is that it costs as much as a Mercedes or a BMW to maintain, so you might as well drive a Mercedes or a BMW if you’re going to drive a German car.
The owner may have found that it didn’t meet their needs after a few months of ownership. It may have been unacceptable uncomfortable, for instance. We have had several visitors and at least one regular that traded early for this reason.
