488 Dealer Trade-in Valuation.

I was curious regarding everybody’s approach on valuing your Ferrari when negotiating a trade-in with a dealership for another Ferrari. I’m considering trading in my 2017 488 spider for a 296GTB. I usually find as many cars as similar as mine available at Ferrari dealerships and come up with a fairly conservative average of what they are asking for in a sale price. I typically believe the trade-in value is usually around $15-$20,000 less than what the asking price of the similar model being sold. From what I have learned in speaking with folks in the industry, they need to have that type of buffer to take the car in, go through their thorough prep, and that they are going to have to have it sit on the floor for a while.

what are your thoughts?

 

Dealers need to make money. They don’t take trade ins for good will. Assume a profit margin of 9% so most will offer around 85% of retail to make money and to cover the things you mention as well as room for negotiations. Also the 488 while a great car has done less well on resale than other modern day v8 (458 and f8) due to the high number of cars produced.

Thankfully for you, the 296 is already dry way under MSRP so you should be ok.

 

I got offered $65K trade in for my 1997 f355 spider (gated manual) with 36k miles that is in perfect condition with no accidents and clean title when I just purchased it for $100K and there are none for sale less than $125k. I also got offered $115k for my 992.1 c4s that is also in perfect condition with no accidents and a clean title and has 19k miles. Seems like highway robbery to me. I only lose money on cars when I try to trade up. I'm not looking to sell these cars right now but how can I get a better trade in for my cars when the time comes, or should I just try to sell them myself?

 

Make sure that when you calculate it, you take into account the tax advantage when trading in to dealer. At the price of these cars, it makes a significant difference.
The dealer may offer you $15-20k less than you would expect your car to be worth, but then you may save about that on the new purchase (depending on cost of cars), so it's a breakeven (or close to it) situation, and you have zero stress compared to selling online. So realistically, what you save in taxes, winds up being the dealer's profit. Win/win for both.
However, on cheaper cars, it will not work out as nicely, and probably better to sell on your own.