I would love nothing more than to be able to trade my car in. On top of that, I would even take it a step further to say that I would not only love to trade my car in, but I would love to trade it in and actually get something back for it that I could then take and apply to whatever next vehicle I was going to purchase. But, alas, this is not going to be a possibility for me because we are currently living in an economic climate that is not really conducive to anyone with a sport utility vehicle trading their car in (unless you count the Cash for Clunkers program).
People trade in their vehicles for all sorts of reasons. For some of us, we trade in our vehicles because we have just finished making our last payment and cannot wait to jump into a newer car and an even newer car payment (note the sarcasm here). For others of us, perhaps we work for a corporation or some other company in which we get the pick of the litter when it comes to company cars. A great example of this is my father.
When I was younger (and even up until a few years ago), my father worked in upper management at Avis Rent A Car. When he first started working for Avis, they used to allow a large number of their employees to have company cars as long as they worked there. Over time, they changed this policy to only include upper management staff members, but for as long as my father worked for Avis (20+years), he was always afforded a company car. At first, I never thought anything of it, and for a while I can remember being annoyed that just as I was getting used to “one of daddy s cars,” all of a sudden he would have a different one the next day it seemed. Truth be told, he was allowed to switch out cars every year, and for a while there, he did. Whatever new cars came on the market and were being rented out by Avis, my father had one. I didn t realize what was going on until some of my friends in grade school pointed out the fact that my dad always had a new car.
In reality, most people aren t this lucky. My father has since retired from Avis and is now a lawyer, thus he no longer has a company car. I am only too sure, however, that it must have been nice to have that privilege. Imagine that: no car payment ever, no vehicle tax to pay, no gasoline or payment for any of the maintenance or upkeep! Those are the sorts of things that put people in the hole financially! If you do own a car, you should make it a point to occasionally check the blue book value of it, this way you ll be sure to stay up with what is currently going on in the market. Knowing how much your car is worth is great information to have and to arm yourself with as well when you are going to a dealership where they assume that you don t know as much as they do.