When is it considered a good time to trade in?

[tomato]

Originally Posted by Loren

Given your situation, I think you should keep the Yaris forever. Why would you bother trading in a car that you only drive 5k miles per year as long as that car is reliable and meets your needs?

Thank you very much for your detailed answer, Loren. I'm relatively new to the world of trading cars (Yaris was my first acquisition through a dealer) and reading about people's experiences helps a great deal to understand the process.

To answer your question honestly (hold your flames everybody ): because while I think the Yaris is a good little car overall (wouldn't have bought it otherwise), I think in the long term I'd feel more comfortable with a car that has just a tiny little bit more power under the hood.

Not that I'm drag racing or driving like a jack rabbit or anything, but in certain driving situations (like trying to merge in and out of a busy freeway or change lanes when @$$holes in far more powerful cars won't let you, or trying to get out of the way FAST if you have to for whatever reason) the Yaris lacks the acceleration necessary to do it and it makes me feel somewhat vulnerable on the road.

If I still lived out in a rural area, I wouldn't even think about another car right now because in my opinion, the Yaris is ideal for driving on backroads, but for this area with crazy freeways with merging lanes and all that other city driving non-sense, I don't know, I sometimes feel that the Yaris is a little borderline

So anyway, that's why I'm keeping an open mind about trading for other similar cars that may show up on the market.

I've always purchased used cars long out of manuf. warranty in the past, and was looking for a 2 to 5 year old car to replace my old 1987 Honda CRX HF, 5 speed, because she was starting to show her age and demand more costly repairs; but in this economy, people are hanging on to their good used cars so I ended up including dealerships in my search.

There are not very many hatchback, subcompact, manual transmissions out there, and that is the style I really love. I test drove the FIT (which was probably a better car for me) but the Yaris costs less and, I don't know, I had a connection when I saw her on the lot, I don't know how to explain it, probably visual appeal, so...

I paid off the Yaris right away because financing was too expensive at the time of my purchase so I don't owe anything on it. I'm a little jaleous of the people who can take advantage of the 0% financing they have right now, to be honest ;)

Trading in has one advantage: you get an immediate release of liability. The dealership gave me $500 for my CRX (I almost walked out the door when they offered me $100 so they upped the price a bit.) I may have gotten maybe $700 on Craigslist for the CRX but not much more, so no enormous loss, I guess.

I sometimes wonder if I should have gotten the Matrix or the Fit instead.