Wife and I have a 2009 XF, which we bought new. It has been well cared for, and has 40,000 miles on it. Coming up on 11 years of age however, my wife wanted something new, but she still likes Jags. After her crash with her XJ, 3 years ago, she also wants the "security" of something a little bigger/taller. So, a few days ago, we ordered a 2020 F-Pace S. The only problem, however, is in trading off the XF. Dealer flat out said that they don't really want it, as it's 11 years old, so they'll simply wholesale it off, unless, of course, somebody within the dealership might want it for a second car, or car for their kids. It's disappointing that it will only bring about $5800-6000 in trade.

Prior to posting this, I was reading another post here, where the owner of a 100,000+ mile, 2010 XF was contemplating some potentially costly repairs. My advice would be to sell it, rather that put a lot of money in it, unless you really have some sentimental attachment to the car, as you'll never get your money's worth out of the maintenance work.

 

>Dealer flat out said that they don't really want it,
Tru dat, everyone that wants one already has one. No resale value
But the fact remains "Whenever a Jaguar arrives, people notice" and ya can't say that about a Merc, Audi, BMW...
================================================== =
You dreamed of a big star -
He played a mean guitar -
He loved to drive his Jaguar...

So welcome to the machine

 

How true.....

 

None of the European luxury cars have any trade in value. If the dealer if offering you $6K, you can easily sell it yourself for $10K with that low of miles. It'll be gone in 4 days from the time you post it. I just sold both of my XF's.

 

Sell your self or go to another dealership that will buy the vehicle at a competitive rate. You can check autotrader.com on the price of the vehicle to buy it used. Then you will know how much to sell it for. I am pretty sure 10K should be good at such low milage but at the same time it is a 2009.

Congrats on the F-Pace S...I wish I could get this SUV but out of my budget at this time. If I had the money it would be the SUV i would get! I drove it once as the dealer gave it to me as a loaner vehicle while mine was in service....it was the only vehicle i enjoyed driving other than my current v8 XF. The sound of the engine is great on the F Pace...and you just feel so good driving in it.

 

Sadly, there is a huge risk that outweighs the residual value on high end luxury cars like these. As someone pointed out in another thread, even though these cars depreciate down to nearly nothing, the cost of parts and specialized labor is still as high as if the owner were the same oil company executive who bought the car brand new. Couple that with the increasing risk of something needing repair as the car ages and thus there are too few buyers in the second hand market for aging luxury sedans. The people who do buy them like that are either 1) like some on this forum, DIY'ers who can do preventative maintenance at only parts cost (which is still staggering) or 2) gamblers willing to take a chance and maybe get lucky to enjoy another 50K miles of relatively trouble-free luxury for the same price their neighbor paid for a beater of an old Honda, or 3) a little bit of both.

Indeed, its quite obvious that paying for professional repairs on an aging luxury car does not translate into sufficiently increased resale value. I'm not sure that even DIY is really economically feasible after a certain point. I know for certain that "restoration" after maintenance has been deferred too long is almost always a losing proposition. If you do maintenance and repairs at all, its only to continue to drive it yourself.

Some of us though are quite insane and don't view cars as mere appliances to be consumed and disposed of when their upkeep costs exceed their value. Perhaps it is good that at least some of us are like that. We may not get rich or retire early, but if not for a few gearheads there would be no old cars left for future generations to study and learn. For most of us gearheads tho, its really not about sentimental attachment, rather its just a hobby, as wasteful of money as golf or fishing or world travel. There's worse hobbies than old cars. With any luck, your XF will eventually go to someone insane like us. Probably more chance of that if you sell it yourself though. If you let the dealer wholesale it, it will most likely go to buyer type 2 who will do nothing but drive it till it breaks and then scrap it.

 

Well the dealers can't come out and say the trade-in is nearly worthless, because that would imply the car being bought will soon be meeting the same fate. They just offer the minimum to close the sale and any difference between that and private party sale potential, is a fee for the patience required selling a car that hardly anybody wants.

 

I agree. Had I known ahead of time that my wife was suddenly going to decide that she wanted a new ride, I wouldn't have bothered to swap out the plastic parts and hoses, in the cooling system, just last year. I'm pretty sure that they would have lasted another 18 months, and saved me about $400 in parts plus my labor, but on the other hand, I don't like to drive a car that has questionable stuff on it. And secondly, with a Jaguar, if you're caught off guard, you can't just run down to the neighborhood auto parts store, and get parts right out of stock. So driving an older model does carry certain risks, if you're one to put things off.

With respect to selling it myself, I don't like to do it for a couple of reasons. In the past, when cars were a lot cheaper, of course, I bought a few "winter beaters", fixed them up, drove them 2-3 winters, then sold them for $5-600. At that price, if something went wrong, 3-4 months down the road, for the new owner, I had little conscience. I'm a reasonably honest person, and if I sell a car for $8-9000, I know that the buyer is expecting something reliable for their money, and I'd really feel bad if something did go wrong, especially because I'm not offering a warranty, like a dealer could. Also, in my situation, It's not like I'm buying a new car off the lot, that I can have within a couple of days, therefore allowing me to readily sell my current car.

I got an e-mail from my dealer, today, confirming the car as we've ordered it, as well as a scheduled production date, shipping date from England, and delivery date to the dealership, and it's about 12 weeks out. It's tricky to try and sell a used car, and tell a potential buyer it won't be available for that period of time, and that assumes our new one arrives on time, and undamaged. However, when that time draws near, I may make the rounds of the Carmax type places in my area, and see what they offer.

 

There was a time when there was a huge price differential in maintaining and repairing a high end luxury car vs a Chrysler, Chevrolet etc.....

But in fact even the average minivan these days is laden with so much technology, modules, bus systems etc , that the cost of diagnostics , maintenance, and repairs is becoming much more similar across the board. Just putting a new rear latch in a late model minivan sliding door or new parking sensors can be in the one thousand dollars and up range .
MY point is this. If I have to spend a small fortune repairing a highly depreciated used vehicle it might as well be a jaguar vs a Gm sedan or a Chrysler minivan .( no insult to either)
. Yes factory , dealer parts are outrageous whether it be a DeVille , a Fusion , or an XJ but there are a lot of reasonable options in the used or aftermarket arena to keep repair costs down on depreciated vehicles even on Jaguars.
. Given the high costs of a new car sometimes keeping an older car on the road still makes economic sense even if the trade in value of it doesn't.

 

Not really the reality though...

First off, where do you think the cars go that you trade in? Do you think they go back to the Jaguar in England for a full restoration? Or that they are crushed and buried? No someone buys them from a dealer pretty much as you gave it to the dealer except it costs them $3-5K more than if they bought it from you. That's $3-5K they could have had in their pocket to pay for repairs. You are basically taking that money from the poor and giving to the rich, and now they don't have any money for repairs, and they're really screwed.

Second, why do you need to sell a car now and delivery in 12 weeks? I just sold 2 Jag XF's, and they both sold within 4 days of being listed. I listed them on all the major sites, but in the end, both were purchased from buyers on Craigslist of all places. I was offered $6K for one as a trade in, and $7K for the other. I sold them for $10K and $11.5K. They sold quick because that's a good price compared to what places like Carvana were charging for XF's in not as good a condition, more miles, and less options. They were selling their XF's for around $15K, and that's no haggle, with sales pending.

It was a win-win-lose. I win over trading in with a lot more money and a quick sale, and the buyer wins getting cars they want with thousands in pocket money over a dealer, and the dealers lose.

So your logic is all screwed up.

 

Back 30 years ago when a newspaper classified add was something like $9 for two lines for ten days, it was quite common for most ordinary people to sell their used car or to buy a used car from an individual. In the blue collar neighborhood I grew up in, it was the norm. Nobody traded in a used car because everybody drove them until they were worn out enough that the new car dealer was just going to wholesale it anyway and the difference between wholesale trade in and retail values was too great to ignore. Its far less common today despite that the internet has created far greater advertising opportunity.

I think at least here in the US, there are two factors that really have nothing to do with the cars themselves that have lead to the decline of the dueno-a-dueno sale. For one, the internet itself has instilled fear into people. When I was kid, we got 30 minutes of national news a day on TV and that was just enough to cover the latest Washington political scandals and foreign proxy wars. You didn't hear about somebody getting scammed on a used car sale unless it was local and you had to subscribe to the paper to read about it. Today, if a seller gets ambushed by a prospective buyer or takes a bad cashiers check 3,000 miles away, we all hear about on a twitter feed, Facebook post, etc. Doesn't mean there's any greater chance of it happening to you in your community than there was 30 years ago, but that anecdotal story is worth at least 50% gain over the actual statistical probability in public perception. It probably IS a little worse than 30 years ago, but nobody wants to be the subject of the next internet news story.

And second, probably more reality, common courtesy is culturally a thing of the past. I've lost count of how many prospective employees that just never showed up for their interview, no call or email with a thankyou but no thankyou or anything. And that's professionals with graduate degrees. Its a bazillion times worse in the general population car shopping. There's a good chance that at least some of the people who make an appointment to come see your car will never show up and some that do have no intention of purchasing your car but just want to go for a joyride. No seller has the time to waste waiting on no-shows and entertaining tire-kickers. Compounding the issue is back to #1 as they advise people selling items online to meet in a public place. So its not like you're just hanging out at home waiting on a potential buyer, rather you're sitting in a fast-food restaurant or something with nothing else to multitask on. When you consider all of that, then the difference between wholesale trade-in and private-party retail value for most people seems worth it to just go ahead and trade in.

But what I would suggest is to at least give it shot to attract the right buyer before you jump to the trade in. Post an ad here in the forum's for sale section and to your local Jaguar club. Often they have a dinner meeting in a restaurant once a month. Take the Jaguar to their dinner meeting and let the club know its for sale. Somebody in the club might like to have it or know someone who would like to have it. If there's an independent Jaguar repair shop nearby, ask if they know anyone interested. Do that between now and the time your new car is delivered, then if doesn't pan out, then go ahead and trade it in. I've sold a few cars just by focusing on the enthusiast groups.

 

You guys all mention good points. One I liked was about driving a car with questionably stuff in it. I agree and to me the Jag XF is such a great car I just wish Jaguar would offer an in-service fix at discounted cost for their design issues (ex timing chain that everyone’s talking about now).

With regards to selling the car (back on topic) , with such low mileage and I am assuming u are the first owner...I think one thing we forgot to think about is just keeping the car. To me jaguars are like collectable cars because they always stand out. As someone mentioned when a jaguar arrives everyone noticed - whether old or new. Especially the XF and bigger vehicles that have a larger presence. Add on top of that the rarity of V8 sedans I would keep the vehicle.

For me I love my XF and wish I could keep it for ever but the problem is driveway space. I never owned more than 1 car before so I am not sure about insurance. If u can keep the car then you can drive it in the summer and will be better for the plastic piping inside from getting brittle and cracking due to freezing cold heat cycles.

Im out of drive way space or I would consider keeping my Jag for much longer like a collectable summer car.

 

I'm right there with you. I think I heard Jay Leno say he never sold a car, that he's kept everything he's ever bought. I wish I could be like that. Everybody at our local car shows has seen my cars a bazillion times now and I want to get something different for next season. Money is not the issue but space is. I have to give up something to get something. A member of the local Jaguar club wants to buy my XJ8, but his wife insists that she's not parking in the street so he'd also have to first sell a car to buy another car. And so it goes in this hobby. Maybe we should've been into motorcycles instead.....

 

MY logic is screwed up???

A) I'm FULLY AWARE of what happens to used cars, as I've been buying, selling, trading them for close to 50 years;

B) Secondly, if you possessed any sense of reading comprehension, you would have read that I CANNOT sell the car, NOW, because my wife need it for another 12 weeks or so, and she will not be without wheels, while we wait for the new ride to arrive;

C) And finally, thanks for your usual pleasant, courteous, and very helpful comments....

Very good points, and certainly ones that I've been considering. Also along that line, I certainly wouldn't expect someone to consider purchasing the car without taking a test drive, but that raises other concerns. First of all, I'm not going to let someone just drive away with it, and on the other hand, I'd be less than comfortable going for a ride with some stranger.

Unfortunately, keeping it isn't practical. First of all, we already have 4 cars (down from 5), including the son-to-leave, XF. I just don't have sufficient garage space. Then there's the basic "overhead", such as plates and insurance, as well at least one annual oil change. Then there's the question of when you drive them. My wife's current "summer driver" is her XJ-L. It's 3 years old, and has 7000 miles on it. The 11 year old XF just turned 40,000 miles. Obviously, she doesn't "roll up the miles", and neither do I, especially since we both retired. When I was still working full-time, I was making a 50 mile, "round trip" jaunt, on a daily basis. I was splitting the miles between my 2 "summer cars", and my 4WD pickup, in the winter. I retired from "full-time" work 11 years ago, but after several years of "shuffling cars in an over-crowded garage", I regretfully let one of me cars go.

And since we don't want an EV, and my wife is less than thrilled about even driving, ever since the "geriatric SOB" creamed her, in her 2012 XJ-L, totaling the car, she's been less than enthused about driving in general, hence the somewhat higher riding CUV, like the F-Pace. And hopefully, this will last us for another 10-12 years.

(Sorry about the rambling reply, but I felt you deserved a logical, at least in my opinion, answer.)