kwagner

Anyone ever hear of a dealer process called a Courtesy Trade? Something where you can locate a buyer and negoitate price on your existing vehicle, and then have the delaer process the transaction thru their books and apply a portion of that sale as a down payment on a new car purchase.

gpopvet

In Pa. we get our sales tax back on the difference in price which is 6%.

roscoe118

When I bought my C5 in February from a Corvette specialty store, I sold my Mustang GT through autotrader, and the buyer was close by so the store allowed me to use the sale price of the Mustang as a down payment on the Vette

It saved me $1100 in taxes , plus I sold the car for $1500 more than they were willing to give me in trade (and the whole deal came about on the Friday night before the Saturday that I was going to do the trade in thing). The only thing is the Vette store charged me $250 to process the paper work , and wouldn't budge from that number. I'm not complaining, however.

I don't know if a dealership would do the same process on a new car, but it would be worth asking. I wonder if/what they would charge to do it, if they did it.

So the short winded answer to your question is YES.

RoscoesC5

It is also called an "in and out"

Good luck!!!

jschindler

Yep. I've done it many times. But I usually have done it at dealers I know well. The dealer is having to do some paperwork for you, and legally they could have some liability for the car you are selling as the buyer is technically buying it from the dealer. But the dealer is making no money on them.

funtimes

I sold my C-5 and have a C-6 on order here in Minnesota. The local dealer agreed to run the transaction through his books with the following requirements. I had to buy a 1 year warranty on the C-5 and pay a $100 processing fee. I am saving a net of about $1000. The downside is the dealer has use of old car money until the new one comes in. He tells me Minnesota law requires this. You need to trust that your dealer is financially sound on this deal.

John George

Can you tell me how this transaction saved on taxes? I'm missing something in how that works.

jschindler

In many states (like Texas) you only pay taxes on the difference on a trade. So, if you have a buyer for your car, you ask the dealer to take your old car as a trade, and sell it to your buyer at no additional profit. You likely are getting more for your car than if you actually traded it to the dealer, but by running it through the dealer, you save sales tax.

Here in Houston, if I sell my current car for $40K, and run it through as a trade, I save 6.25% of the 40K, on taxes on my new car - a savings of $2,500.

c2jones

Wow.

This forum can really be quite the insightful domain.

I'll have to check this trade/tax saving thing here in Florida.

need-for-speed

Yes, the motivation for the "in - out" is usually sales tax.