Chief Barger

Yesterday I looked at a 2010 ZR1 (on the local Chevy dealers lot) with 4,000 original miles on the odometer. The original sticker price was north of $100,000, and the car is listed now at $61,000. This seems like one hell of a deal to me. The question I have is why would someone take such a huge hit in depreciation to drive a car like this for only 4,000 miles? Tax write off?????

C6ToGo

Tax write off??? You mean I could have been deducting my car's depreciation on my taxes all these years? NOW you tell me!

Chief Barger

If you can show you used it primarily for business purposes, I suppose you could.........

Mayor111

Its not a tax write off - its the current value of the car. I just looked it up in Corvette DNA:

WITH a 3ZR package - in EXCELLENT condition: $60,225 (add $500 more if it has chrome rims)

WITHOUT a 3ZR package - in EXCELLENT condition: $58,025 (add $500 more if it has chrome rims)

Chief Barger

No argument there. But the depreciation is in the neighborhood of about $50K. That's what I'm talking about in terms of a tax write-off.

fake

Are they giving you a full warranty? Is there any shops near you that can work on it? What about parts have you looked into who has them . You can order a new corvette for that price with a history. Just some food for thought!

Chief Barger

I'm not thinking seriously of buying it as I'm completely happy with my "base" 2007 C6. Also, I was just speculating about someone writing off the depreciation on their taxes. My hunch is that someone bought it, hardly drove it, and decided to trade it in on something else. If you assume the depreciation to be $50,000 that means it cost the original owner $50,000/4,000 miles = $12.50 per mile to drive that baby!!!!

R&L's C6

Normal for these kind of cars and I would guess he's going to have a hard time selling it at that.

FAUEE

Some people have the money to do it. I doubt they paid MSRP,. In the grand scheme of things, that's not too bad. If you bought a similarly priced German car, you would lose that in a day if you were still in apple stock, you could lose that in a day.

I think that's a great price. Corvette DNA and others are just not very accurate for limited production cars. Vette DNA seems better than kbb and nada, those arent accurate fir corvettes at all.

Bruze

"Write it off and make a killing!" LOL, that's not how the tax system works.

You cannot come out ahead by having (legitimate) deductions. Deductions, by definition, are expenses. Expenses are money you spent, it's gone. The amount you save in taxes for legitimate expenses is a fraction of the amount you spent.

R&L's C6

My guess is the OP is very young and inexperienced with tax codes in general.

rkj427

Maybe they had more dollars than sense..................

bought my 427 a few years ago, was a GM executive vehicle.................. paid about 1/2 of MSRP and worth the same today as I initially paid............ limited production model

Try and do that with a "new C7" and see how much it retains of the initial purchase price..............

R&L's C6

449er

That 61k price tag is about right for the value of that car in the market right now

Bruze

LOL, yes I was thinking of posting that classic scene but I got distracted and forgot about it.

Unfortunately, that clip shows the average person on the street's understanding of the tax code.

keithhogan

Spaceme1117

You think the depreciation on an 8 year old Corvette is bad; it isn't. Look up almost any similar performance car from BMW, Audi, or Mercedes from about 8 years ago. Most that cost around $100,000 8 years ago, can now be bought for less than the price of a new Toyota Camry.

saplumr

When I was buying my wife's Yukon Denali XL there was a older gentleman trading in 2018 Z06 with 200 miles for a Escalade because he didn't like the noise. C7 msrp was $108,000. He immediately lost $30K.

JABCAT

Which is exactly why I rarely buy any cars brand new, especially Corvettes. There are a ton of extremely low mileage Corvettes out there when the original owner jumps to the next model. Let them take the depreciation hit & you get a practically brand new car 40-50% off original price in a lot of cases. I would love to go through the museum delivery process (that's been a wish since I can remember) but unless I know I am going to keep the Vette I order for a very long time, I'm going to look for one that has exactly what I want (color, interior, options, etc.) that is a couple years old. It might take awhile (searched 2 years for my GS) but I'd rather keep my money for other things while still getting the vehicle I want.

My wife's '16 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited - bought brand new because most used Jeeps I could find had high mileage, were out of warranty & were within a few thousand of a brand new one. I also knew she'd be keeping it for quite some time & they retain their value very well so if she does want to sell it some day for something else, the hit won't be that bad at all.

Bruze

Is the depreciation rate of new cars really news to anybody? It shouldn't be, unless you haven't been paying attention.