Right now I’m selling an awesome electric car for what I would think is an insanely good price, and yet it’s a hard sell for complicated reasons that really only apply to electric cars. Here, allow me to explain my experience selling my first electric vehicle.
Back in the spring of 2023, I bought the cheapest BMW i3 for sale (by a dealer) in the country: A dark gray 2014 model with 135,000 miles on the clock for $10,500. For a carbon fiber car with a world-class interior, backup camera, self-parallel-parking feature, and an extremely good quality build, I thought it was a fantastic deal.
But the deal just got better. Because the California Air Resources Board requires all hybrids to have batteries covered for 10 years, 100,000 miles, BMW actually replaced my high voltage battery (which had dropped below the 70% state-of-health threshold) absolutely free. So now I have a fantastic range-extended electric car with a brand new battery, and I only paid $10,500. Over the past year, I’ve fallen in love with the i3, so much so that I subsequently decided to buy the ultimate version of the car, a 2021 i3S Giga World.
But it gets better. Now I’m having my car’s AC compressor replaced, also thanks to that CARB warranty, meaning the two major failure points on the BMW i3 are brand new. My i3 is basically a brand new car if you consider the value of the new components compared to the value of other wear components on a 145,000 miles vehicle, and if you get in and drive my i3, you’ll see that it feels like a new car, too.
Of course, now it’s time to sell the car (since I don’t need two i3s), and the process has been… different. Certainly different that I’m used to, as I’ve had to navigate some things that just don’t apply to ICE-powered vehicles.
Obviously, selling the car for the same price that I bought a 135,000 mile i3 with an old battery and compressor seems a bit silly. Yes, a year has elapsed and EV values have crashed, but the car has clearly gained value. And if you look at other i3s on the market, you’d conclude that, too.
[Note: Because discussions about money tend to get folks riled up, just know that this article is a discussion about some of the complex factors that go into selling my particular car — things I’ve never dealt with before in an ICE. In the end, the market will decide the value of my car, and I’m not really concerned about that. I am still learning about a few elements of the used EV market (esp. in regards to warranties, EV incentives, and tax rebates), and I’m sharing some of those learnings here. -DT].
It’s All About Mileage
The issue is trying to communicate that to buyers for whom EVs are a new concept. The average American car-buyer looks at a car’s miles and uses that to assess condition (I do to a certain degree, as well). My i3 has 145,000 miles on it, so the average consumer naturally thinks: “Uh, there are 10 i3s with half as many miles for less money; why would I buy that one?”
The answer, to us car enthusiasts, is obvious: A new high-voltage battery is a huge deal. And a compressor is also a huge deal. Those combined obviously outweigh the benefits of having 70,000 fewer miles on the suspension and brakes. Especially since it’s not clear that my 145,000 mile car is going to have more suspension/brake issues than a 70,000 mile car. At least, you would think.
Impressing this upon buyers has been a challenge. Getting folks away from the “miles are everything” mindset that they’re used to is just not going to happen because there was really never an equivalent before. Even selling a car with a brand new engine isn’t quite the same, since ICE cars have complex drivetrains that wear out with miles. With EVs, drivetrains are simple, so a new battery really goes a long way towards refreshing a car. What’s more, a new engine often indicates that an engine was poorly maintained, whereas a new battery just means… time has elapsed and the car got a new battery.
To be sure, miles don’t not matter; if all things are equal, they tend to indicate wear of certain components like suspension and steering and brake parts, plus they also are used to stand in as a representation of how much time the car was in service. And since time tends to degrade things like blower motors and other long-term-wear parts, miles are no doubt a worthy part of the “what condition is this car in” calculus.
But clearly a car with 145,000 miles and a new $30,000 battery and $5000 compressor is a better buy than a car with even 50,000 miles on a worn out battery and a compressor that can kill the whole car any second. But that’s a hard thing to impart upon someone, especially when cars tend to be valued by major valuation entities by mileage on the odometer.
But is is not my only issue.
Things Are Complicated: Tax Credit
The lack of understanding when it comes to the sheer value of a new battery/compressor is among my primary problems, but arguably as problematic is the way the government has set up the used EV tax rebate. It really, really hurts my sale prospects.
You see, an electric vehicle’s eligibility for the used EV tax credit (which is 30% of the sale price up to $4000) does not depend upon whether or not the vehicle has been used for the credit previously. My BMW i3, for example, has almost certainly never been used to receive a used vehicle tax credit because I’m fairly sure I’m the second owner.
And yet, I cannot offer a buyer the used EV rebate because of this unfortunate rule:
To qualify, a vehicle must meet all of these requirements:
- Have a sale price of $25,000 or less. Sale price includes all dealer-imposed costs or fees not required by law. It doesn’t include costs or fees required by law, such as taxes or title and registration fees.
- Have a model year at least 2 years earlier than the calendar year when you buy it. For example, a vehicle purchased in 2023 would need a model year of 2021 or older.
- Not have already been transferred after August 16, 2022 to a qualified buyer.
- Have a gross vehicle weight rating of less than 14,000 pounds
- Be an eligible FCV or plug-in EV with a battery capacity of least 7 kilowatt hours
- Be for use primarily in the United States
The bold print above may lead you to think “oh, it says qualified buyer, and you weren’t qualified for the rebate when you bought it.” Unfortunately, “qualified buyer” basically just means any buyer. And since I bought my car in April of 2023 (eight months after that August 16 date), the car is no longer eligible for a used EV rebate. Ever.
This is a huge issue when trying to resell an electric car. Why buy my i3 at my $12,000 asking price (or even at my own purchase price of $10,500, which is what I listed it at before the compressor went in) when you could just try to find a $15,000 later model and knock off $4,000? You basically get a $15,000 car for $11,000 instead of a $12,000 car for $12,000.
But there’s more.
Things Are Complicated: CARB Warranty
But there’s more to my plight here beyond just struggling to get buyers to understand how big of a deal a new battery/compressor is, and beyond being unable to offer buyers that tax rebate. To people who live in CARB states, my new compressor may not actually be a huge selling point.
The battery is still a huge deal, and who knows, maybe an educated buyer will understand that and buy the car for 12G’s (it is likely the cheapest, loaded Giga-World i3 with a guaranteed good battery in the country). But here’s the thing: If a CARB-state buyer picks up a BMW i3 with significantly under 150,000 miles on the odometer, they really don’t have to worry about the compressor. At least, not for a while.
That’s because the compressor — in CARB states — is covered by a 15 year, 150,000 mile warranty. My i3 will be out of warranty in 5,000 miles; if someone were to buy the aforementioned hypothetical 75,000 mile BMW i3 for less than my i3, they can be comfortable knowing that if their compressor goes bad, BMW will cover it until their car is 15 years old or has 150,000 miles on the clock. Their battery, too, has a 10 year warranty, so if a buyer picks up a 2015 or 2016, they could theoretically get a new battery should theirs fail.
But see, that’s a big if.
If a buyer were to pick up, say, a 2016 BMW i3 for $9,000, they’d be thrilled that they got a newer car with way fewer miles for $3,000 less than my car. But there’s a good chance their battery will not drop below the 70% threshold by year 10, and there’s a chance that compressor will hang on for 15 years.
We’ll ignore the compressor/15 year warranty since that’s six or seven years out, and buyers don’t care about that. But the battery thing is a big deal. When that 10 year-warranty passes in the next year or two, the buyer could be stuck with a car that has a 75% battery state of health. With my car, instead of driving a vehicle with an eight year-old battery that has 75,000 miles on it and probably an 85% state-of-health, you get a brand new battery. And if you’re worried about the 145,000 miles spelling the end of that 15/150 warranty, never fear, for the compressor is brand new.
[NOTE: Here’s an i3 for sale on Carvana. It costs $13,590, and it clearly has a worn-out battery, showing 39mi of range while full. Yikes!].
Again, it’s a bit complicated to explain.
My i3 Is A Great Deal To A Very Specific Customer. Very Specific.
So here’s the thing: Yes, it’s hard to convince buyers how valuable a good battery and compressor are; and yes it’s gonna be tough to sell the car at $12 grand given that it’s not eligible for the used EV rebate; and yes, CARB-state customers are going to say their car is still in warranty anyway.
But to a very specific customer, my 145,000 mile BMW i3 perfect. But that customer is very, very specific.
BMW i3 customers are already rare given that it’s a relatively low-range small car in a country that loves big trucks, has range anxiety, and is overrun by increasingly-cheaper Teslas with more range. But even among those folks looking specifically for i3s, I need to find a customer who a) Doesn’t live in a CARB state and b) Isn’t eligible for the IRA rebate.
For example, imagine a single person making over $75,000 AGI (or perhaps they already took a used EV credit within the past three years) and living in, say, Texas, looking for a budget-friend i3 for commuting from a suburban ranch to a workplace in town. If this person wanted a loaded i3 Giga World with a guaranteed good battery, they’d have to buy a 2017+ i3, since the 2017s had great batteries that degrade minimally. But then they’d still have the concern about the compressor; if it goes out, they could be legitimately hosed.
For this out-of-stater who doesn’t have the security of the CARB warranty and who also isn’t looking for an IRA rebate-eligible i3, you could argue my i3 is the best deal in the country. But my god is this a ridiculously specific person I’m looking for.
Yikes.
Anyway, I just thought I’d share that, since some of these issues are ones I’ve never had before when selling ICE cars. There was no IRA rebate to factor in, there was no ridiculously long CARB warranty, there wasn’t a massive knowledge gap in the general public about EVs.
Maybe I just need to be patient, or maybe I just keep the gray car and let the Grail go. If it’s between that and letting a perfectly good i3 go for a song, the cheap bastard in me will probably win out… It usually does.
Wait…
Is this still available?
Jokes aside, I truly appreciate this article as it does give a lot of thought about what the majority of used cars in the not so distant future will be. Battery performance test results are going to be stat we see listed next to mileage in the ads. Kudos for things to evaluate and selling/buying points of view.
A couple of things.
A/ Everyone needs to chill out about this. David is presenting something that in the future is going to be a quite common predicament. The fact that we are all reading and commenting on it says something.
B/ Was the ‘Texas buyer’ a snide reference to the first arcticle where ‘a subscriber’ from Texas used this forum to get deep into red/blue politics and complain that David was not allowed to change from a spaghetti showering parts dishwashing part tetnus rust fueled frozen Jeep wrencher?
Actually, no! Sounds like I missed something!
Great article and vigorous comments! I think David is searching for Mr. Spock (someone who can evaluate the purchase with cold logic) who also lives in non-CARB state and is not eligible for the EV tax rebate. Unfortunately for him I think logic-driven people are not attracted to brands with slogans like “Sheer Driving Pleasure” and “The Ultimate Driving Machine.”
My brother and I are engineers, logic driven people. We’ve been attracted to BMWs multiple times. After much consideration, the best BMW value for performance, initial cost and cost of ownership is an e36, hence why we own and daily an e36 M3.
We drove an i3 when new, it was a riot but also gave me the worst case of vertigo I’ve ever experienced all due to the aggressive regen braking. I do think the i3 is a fine car, but it’s also outclassed by most other EVs so people looking for a cheap EV with some performance are flush with better options.
Too true!
This has really got me thinking about the difference between high-mileage, older ICE cars vs. EVs.
Consider the same situation: 10 years old, 145K, but an ICE vehicle with new engine instead of EV with new battery. I think the EV is considerably more valuable. I think I run screaming from the engine swapped ICE.
Great, thoughtful article, thank you David. I don’t understand why you’re getting some of the flak you are getting here in the comments.
Also, as Usernametaken said, you may want to just take a bath on this one. You have to value your time and effort in selling things.
Much appreciated!
Yeah, whenever I see a high-mileage car with an engine replacement in its description I immediately close the ad. Why did the original engine fail? Was the replacement done correctly? Is the “new” engine even any good? Assuming the answer to the first question could be neglect, what other things are going to break?
So, to me, someone saying they have a 145,000 mile car with a replacement engine does nothing to the value at best, lowers it at worst. I don’t know if corners were cut in the engine replacement or if parts that shouldn’t have been reused were put back in.
I would apply the same logic to EVs, but with a caveat. If the battery was installed by some guy in his garage, or the battery was restored by cracking it open and replacing dead modules, that’s not worth anything to me. But David’s situation of a fully brand new battery installed by experienced techs and there’s still a little bit of a warranty left? Ok, now I’m on board.
I’d buy a 500,000-mile Phaeton with an actual brand new engine in a heartbeat. Wait, no, Mercedes, that’s a bad idea. lol
Mercedes.
Consider this before auto closing the ad.
Many new engines are just that, or rebuilt by good shops, or people at home.
A new engine comes with a warranty. As you mention in your comment.
But to be honest here, an engine (used) installed by the guy in his driveway is usually something I approach with a lot of doubt.
Very true Col! The cars I’m usually buying high-mileage have depreciated so far that a legitimately new engine is worth as much or more than the car itself is…and you’re still left with a 145k-mile VAG product when you’re done. lol
So, whenever I see a “new” engine advertised in, say, a 150k-mile first gen Audi TT, it usually means “junkyard engine” or “taken out of a parts car.” But I would buy a used car with a legitimately new engine, but I’ve never seen that in the market I buy in.
I offered to buy DT’s i3, too, but I’m even more of a cheapskate than he is, so even the $10,500 he originally paid is more than I’d pay.
I have bought some used stuff with junkyard or owner rebuilt engines a few times. But have always felt like I was perhaps driving a ticking bomb. Being able to see receipts, etc. can make it a lot less stressful.
And as an aside, I enjoy your camping stuff a ton.
I’d trust a junkyard engine swap a lot more than the unknown-guy-rebuilt-in-his-garage engine.
The junkyard engines all come with a (short) warranty, so if the first one is bad the junkyard would replace it (yes, the labor is on you, but that’s the main gamble with the used engines), while a rebuild can end up bad in a thousand different ways, even if done with extreme care by an experienced engine builder (not to mention all the different things that get replaced/renewed or not, as part of the ‘rebuild’).
Agreed.
I have been doing my own rebuilds for 50 years now. Stuff that I don’t have the tools for gets farmed out. Like heads, block, etc. Guess I’ve been lucky because have never had any issues with my engines.
Junkyard engines scare me because you don’t know anything about them, unless it’s still in the car. Then one can examine the car to get a general idea of what kind of owner it had.
And I never trust how someone else rebuilds an engine in their garage. Have actually torn down some of them, and discovered some really stupid crap. But that’s life.
$10,500 is what he paid a dealer. He’s now doing a private sale and somehow thinks he’s owed an extra $1500 for 10k miles worth of engineer farts and two trips to the dealership for warranty repairs.
I’m not sure I understand this “he thinks he’s owed” mentality. Nobody thinks anyone’s owed anything. I’m just listing a car that I took a risk on and bought really broken for $1,500 more now that it’s not broken. The market will decide if it wants it; it may not! But based on what I know about the i3 market, I ultimately think it will IF I can find the right buyer (whom I describe in the piece).
You’re literally ‘I know what I gotting’ because the market is very unlikely to value the car as highly as you are.
Your $10.5k purchase price was before the surge in cheap used model 3’s and very cheap leases on Hyundai / Kia EVs.
You want to explain to people that somehow ~145k miles is pretty much the same as much lower mileage. Even though it may be true as an ownership experience, it is definitely not the case when it comes time to sell.
This car has essentially ALL the strikes against it when it comes to a used car.
I wish you luck with the sale, and hope that the fact that your reach can help you find the oddball buyer you require, but for a non-published civilian selling this vehicle your price is going to be a bit high.
I don’t disagree with many of your points! Based on what I know, I do think there’s a buyer to whom it very much is worth 12, but maybe I’ll end up being wrong, here; wouldn’t be the first time! I’ll keep you posted.
I’m sure I will read all the updates. I hope you make me eat my words.
Seems like you are in the clear.
https://www.theautopian.com/why-my-electric-car-is-so-hard-to-sell/#comment-483787
I also have that same reaction for most newer cars, but exceptions can be made for older ones as illustrated by this actual conversation from when I bought my ’82 Jaguar XJ6:
Me: So, what was this engine out of?
Seller: Not 100% sure, I think it was a Camaro. It’s a 350 – there’s some paperwork that comes with it, but I’ve never went through it.
Me: Any idea of how many miles are on it?
Seller: The engine? No idea. Same with the car – the odometer’s broke. I can say the oil only has around a couple hundred miles on it, although it’s been several years since I changed it.
Me: Any other overall issues with it?
Seller: Just the electrical – the lights all work, but that’s about it.
Me: So… if I try to drive it home tonight, what’s the best you can do [asking price: $3500]?
Seller: Uh.. idk, $2300?
Me: Sold!!
We did make it home even though we couldn’t open the windows or sunroof and it was 90+ degrees out that evening. I’ll never forget my daughter, who was six at the time, drinking a comically big Gatorade and sweating like crazy saying “Dad, this is the coolest car ever!”
We still have that Jaaaag. Fixed the electrical (most of it was one bad relay), put over 25,000 miles on it, and used it for quite a few of my daughter’s driving lessons. Sometimes you have to roll those dice!
Also, when manufacturers replace engines under warranty or extended campaign, it’s often just the long block…not anything attached to it. This can give people a false sense of security, because they think they’ve got an all-new engine and should start their maintenance schedule all over (if they do any maintenance in the first place).
When my sister’s 2014 Soul threw a rod due to the 2.0-liter defect and Kia replaced it, they transferred all the hoses, belts, pulleys and accessories from the original engine. It was the same for my mom’s 2012 Sonata Limited 2.4, which also threw a rod due to an assembly defect.
Better yet, a shower, since it’s just about lunchtime in L.A.
“take a bath on this one”
I think he prefers showers
(w/ spaghetti)
the big question then is if you say swapped a 100K LKQ engine for an original 279K motor would you disclose this or let the buyer think they just have really good running 1/3 million mile car.
Sounds like the classic “dont put too much cash into an old junker, you wont get it back” kinda scenario.
The market value of anything is only what a buyer is willing to pay. You can logic out an asking price all you want but ultimately the market will let you know if your price is good or not. Maybe it’s worth more to you than it is to any potential buyer. In that case you get to keep it.
I recently sold my very nice but high mileage C6 Corvette. Initially priced it at $17K. Based on shopping every C6 I could find within a one day drive radius this was a very good asking price. Over 2 weeks I didn’t get one serious inquiry. I dropped the ask to $15.5K and sold it in a few days. I think I sold it too cheap and the buyer got a fantastic deal but now I can look for an interesting replacement.
There are 2 types of sellers: at ‘market price’ and willing to wait, or below market price for a fast sale. I’m the latter, my stuff usually sells within a couple of days to the first or second comer, because I value that selling speed more than the extra $ I might (or not) get. To me vehicles are always depreciating assets, so losing money on them is “baked in” from the moment I buy them. (I’ve never bought 1960’s Ferraris 🙂
I’m almost always the latter seller, too. I don’t like keeping things around. If I can’t sell a car in a week I drop the price until someone bites
One thing you may be overlooking about high-mileage vehicles is the cosmetic interior/exterior wear (or expectation of). If I’m shopping for a car with more than 200,000km I’m expecting the car to look *used* – worn seats, faded switchgear, maybe some broken trim, stone chips, faded headlights, etc. This may not be the case for your car but I think for a lot of people, especially in the luxury car segment, will be turned off by the expectation the car will look a little tired on the inside and outside after so many miles – and that won’t be any different for a used EV.
Totally agree!
DT. Are you saying the replacement battery has a 30K cost?
Really? OMG.
Good luck finding someone to buy it.
Yeah, EV batteries get stupid expensive. I have an even worse example, too. The 2012 – 2016 Smart Fortwo Electric Drive had a starting price of $25k when new.
Every single one has a fatal flaw where leaving the 12V battery dead or disconnected for about three weeks will kill the HV battery. The HV battery’s management program assumes that a prolonged loss of 12V power means that the car has been junked. So, after three weeks or so of no 12V, the battery will fully discharge the cells to zero volts, then store a permanent code disabling the charging system and battery pack.
In theory, this is supposed to ensure that someone scrapping the car by hand doesn’t get injured. In practice, every spring people in the Midwest and the East crack open their garages to find bricked cars. The same for seasonal Floridians, but every winter.
Mercedes-Benz used to charge $23k for each new battery, but as the supply got low the price eventually reached $30k. It blows my mind that people even had that kind of money to spend on fixing a bricked city car. Now, there aren’t any batteries being made anymore so the cars are beginning to drop like flies.
What the actual hell. That sort of thoughtless disregard for “things we didn’t think of and so could never happen” piss me off so so badly. The notion that a car could sit for three weeks with a dead battery is so inconceivable that it should be rendered inoperative? I want to kick the ass off whoever’s brilliant idea that was. No, don’t provide a safe, intentional way to discharge the battery. Don’t provide any tools to discard or recover it. Just bake in a deathclock and ship it.
Ugh.
I suspect that the real issue with selling this is the fact it is a niche car to a niche audience.
Put a decent Camry or F-150 on whatever public site and once you fend off the idiot crowd, you’ll get your price. Everyone knows what those are. Great. Easy sale to the masses.
This has to go on a specialty site. Bring a Trailer. Some i3 forum.
This isn’t a buyer problem. It is a marketing problem. You’re trying to sell wagyu beef to the McDonalds crowd. One doesn’t market wagyu beef on billboards.
Marketing, David!
Right!!
BMW has a huge marketing budget and they couldn’t market the i3 successfully.
“You’re trying to sell wagyu beef to the McDonalds crowd. One doesn’t market wagyu beef on billboards.”
McDonalds does:
https://www.beefcentral.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/McWagyu.jpg
Just mention the quadraphonic Blaupunkt stereo and people will be begging you to take their money for your BMW EV.
I’m throwing my two cents in the “disagree” jar. Doing maintenance, even if it’s really really important, potentially car-ruining if not done maintenance, is still just maintenance. It’s table stakes. It might have this much more value to *you* DT, but that doesn’t make the whole secondhand EV market wrong. As Jb996 said it’s worth what someone is willing to pay for it.
It is indeed. A new battery does add some value to most i3 shoppers, but it ain’t a lot! Especially not when compared to mileage!
A fantastic textbook example of how incentives mess up markets
Yup
I agree with your general comments about EVs and how outdated mileage ideas hasn’t caught up with them. I’d argue that’s also somewhat the case with ICE. Perception is everything. I think most people tend to filter by price, then mileage, then they look at condition. If enough people think 100k miles is still a lot for an ICE car even if that’s no longer the case and really hasn’t been for quite a while (depending on the car) and yours has the highest mileage around, they won’t bother to look further unless the price is lower. Add EV to the equation and a lot of people think the battery is going to be at death’s door at 100k. While they may or may not be true (your ad mentioning a new battery at 145k would not help that perception, but that’s OK, as they won’t read it). I find it difficult to blame them, though, where a battery replacement is so expensive on an EV. If people don’t want an ICE car with its engine at perceived high mileage when they are much cheaper to replace, why would they roll the dice on a battery? Plus, even a dead ICE car in otherwise decent shape still has some market value to someone who is willing to DIY an engine swap to drive or flip. Who’s going to do a high voltage battery replacement where the part is as much as a new car? A pro maybe, except that there’s no money to made flipping it.
Sure, your battery is new, but most won’t read the ad and having a higher price on top of it only makes it likely they filtered it out before even getting that far. Compressor is new, too, but only the few odd people who know these cars well enough to know how important that is and who are looking to buy one would care. These just aren’t desirable cars to most people, so it doesn’t matter all that much what was done to it as most people aren’t going to be considering it if they even know what it is. If someone was intrigued enough to look into it, they’d find limited range and performance compared to more mainstream EVs. To most people, it’s small, has weird styling, isn’t AWD, isn’t a CUV, is an EV, is a BMW (and one without the appearance people associate with a BMW so that it won’t even appeal to broke people who think they’ll impress someone with the badge), has what people likely perceive as BHPH-lot mileage nearing EoL stage (for a BMW), yet isn’t cheap enough to pick up the pool of people who just need a car—any car (and here, too, there are basic form and reliability—perceived or real—factors most people are looking for that this won’t meet). The innovative engineering is a major turn off to people who are looking for basic, reliable transportation that needs infrequent repairs that are cheap as possible and maybe DIY friendly. You really are looking for a very specific, unusual buyer and EV is just part of the problem in this case.
Well put
The problem is that you’re selling as an engineer but the buyers are shopping as accountants. And in my many years of work experience, those two departments just do not see eye to eye (and yes, for better or for worse I’m in accounting)
It’s my experience as well lol
DT. Just because you are famous now does not mean. People want to buy your shit.
This is an absolute head-scratcher of a comment. If it’s sarcasm, it’s missing the mark. If it’s serious: wow.
I for one would definitely buy David’s i3 if there was a spot for it in my driveway, but then I like to live life off-script and I love meeting like-minded oddballs. That’s how our ’49 Beetle came to live with us.
https://classicmotorsports.com/articles/how-this-humble-beetle-made-it-to-the-amelia/
Just trying to be myself here. The comment was meant as a joke.
But also as a fact for him to remember.
DT has a way different take on money, time, and value than some of us others do as the comments below mention.
And how do you define missing the mark please?
A LOT of judgement here, by someone who does not know me at all.
Consider that maybe? Just sayin’…
No shade on DT here. He knows aboout me and is expecting me to throw shade at every chance. YMMV
DT. Just cause you be famous world wide does not mean people want to but your shit. Even if you are marring an international woman of mystery.
I do. (See what I did there?)
Range the first question ALWAYS asked. I know. We have two Bolts. The i3 is a gross underachiever regardless of odometer reading. Size is another problem. Americans don’t like tiny shitboxes, and the i3 is about as tiny as you’ll find on the continent. And then there is the odometer. Six figures would require a great leap into the burning checkbook area. Sorry you’ve fallen in lust with an oddball. A good match, eh, but not for most.
Totally true
People aren’t that logical when it comes to mechanical things. The same holds true with houses. Nobody gives a fuck if you’ve just dropped tens of thousands of dollars putting a new swear line in, or a new AC system with all new ducts in, or an electric air filter into your furnace. These are all things my dad has done in the last few years, while confidently declaring, “This house is going to be worth a ton of money for you when I go.” But I know the truth. It’s a 120 year old gorgeous house, on a tiny lot, with no closets, and a weird bedroom layout, and 1-car detached garage. It’s not an easy house to sell, because it requires a very specific buyer.
The house’s negative attributes are independent of the updates. The updates should definitely make the house more appealing to a buyer, but the fundamentals of the odd layout and lack of land will reduce that interested pool. The closest car example I can think up to match the house would be like having an old, undesirable car that’s in mint condition and impeccably well kept. It will sell quicker and maybe for a small premium over a more typically worn one, but the buyer looking for that particular car in any condition will be harder to find, so it will likely sell at bottom of the market to someone just looking for any car. If the house had a more desirable layout and land, those updates would pay back with higher selling price and/or faster sale with a larger pool of interested buyers. Of course, this is assuming a market where people are buying. Around here, almost any house is worth at least $400k and even that is smaller condo territory.
Absolutely. The buyer needs to be interested in the home first, then the condition or upgrades can cause further interest. Nobody shopping for a home is searching primarily for fresh sewer lines. Also, if the home is priced too high for the neighborhood because of perceived upgrades it’s not going to get potential buyers in to see it.
A home is expected to have a functional roof. You don’t necessarily get to charge more for the home because it has a recent roof, but you will be expected to sell for less if the home has a leaking roof.
Yeah, I think that’s one of the other rules of RE, that you want to have the shittiest house in a great neighborhood rather than the other way around as I’ve heard that multiple times and it makes sense. Like, when we renovated the last house, we kept the quality to the level of the house and made more than we spent back. We didn’t get cheap junk, but didn’t go all out on high end, either, as it was a mid-range neighborhood and it sold immediately partly thanks to the appeal of being one step above the obvious ubiquitous flipper-quality junk updates people saw in most comps. OTOH, while the high end stuff is expected in a high end house, spending several grand more on fancier faucets and the like wasn’t going to get us more money there, so we didn’t bother.
I did the same thing on the last place. I spent more than I should have on kitchen cabinets and appliances because I was still living there and I wanted those things. Although that convection oven didn’t get nearly the use my wife claimed it would see. I’m not bitter, though.
Have to keep with the esthetic of the area, too. There’s a house for sale near me now that looks like a Miami cocaine palace. It’s a renovated farm house in a neighborhood of old farm houses or newer homes built to look like old farm houses. It has half the land of other homes and is priced a solid 40% higher. It may have a chance closer to the city, but it’s been sitting without any interest for months now.
There’s a mansion near me that was used in a Larry David movie that’s been abandoned for years. I think the last I saw was $10M in a neighborhood of low 7 figures and it’s styling is really ostentatious where the other homes are pretty classic New England looking. Don’t know what they want for it now, but it’s all overgrown and I imagine infested with creatures.
It eventually sold for $2million in 2021 – which is the price that address had sold for in 2002 before they built a 10,000sf monster there.
Damn that’s cheap when the town bought an old house next door on the pond for almost that amount to knock down as it is/was restricting the height they could allow the reservoir to reach.
It looks like it’s off the market, but nobody’s doing anything with it. Zillow estimates under $4M, which is really cheap. I imagine it needs a LOT of work. Even just furnishing 10k sq ft costs a fortune. Location isn’t that great, either—it’s on a pond, but it’s a reservoir, so there’s not much one can do on it and it’s right on the road, so there isn’t great privacy.
I was surprised to see it right out on the road for a lot of that size. I guess if you’re the person who wants to own / occupy this home, you want it to be seen.
Or, is the area on septic? With the conservation offset from the water, they may need the rest of the lot just to accommodate a 7br septic system.
The living room is almost 1000sf and there is an 800sf family room. Filling that with furniture that looks correct is going to cost infinity. If you use regular-scale furniture in those rooms you’d need to use multiples of everything. In the end it looks like a hotel lobby. You need to have big things custom made to fill that space.
I watch a lot of abandoned videos and I’ve seen them go through a few mansions in CT that went through two or three owners until the last stretch buyer got foreclosed. They always leave behind some furniture. It’s usually a big (for a normal home) sectional that barely registers as existing in that much space.
I mean, the kitchen looks like the range is five paces from the island. WTF is the point of that? It’s not like a commercial staffed kitchen, just high end domestic appliances spaced way too far apart for actual use.
The other problem with all that furniture is, not only is there so much of it if one goes to downsize, but it won’t fit many other places if one moves. The main kitchen in our house is also badly designed. There are a lot of weird design choices in most of the layout, but that’s also how we were able to afford it (plus some luck). I suspect the rich people who originally have big houses built tend to stick their hands into the design with predictably bad results. I also don’t think they cook anything themselves going by the kitchens.
I think everything is on sewer here, but I would definitely assume it is for that house as it’s on a reservoir for drinking water and was built fairly recently. It’s also right on the road for easy hookup.
What that house has going for it, is it’s location. It’s a very expensive and desirable location. And it’s a gorgeous old house. It just has the limitations that come with “old and charming”. But people are too stupid to give a damn about mechanical updates, certainly not in a monetary sense. Yes, those updates will make it sell easier, but nobody pays in value what those updates cost, no matter how desirable the house is.
I’ve lived in old and charming and found the reality to be more like haunted and inefficient. Better than wood shavings and chewing gum McMansions, but they have other problems unless someone basically gutted it and went with completely new everything, which costs a fortune and then the buyer is still going to be rarer as a lot of the old room sizes were small, stairs steep and narrow, floor plans outdated, and everything is really crooked. The updates your father did are the kind of things you expect a house to have, so I can see why they wouldn’t help. If the location is the major seller, some buyers might just be looking to knock it down and replace it. Depending on how they do it, it could be quicker than a gutting and refitting, too. Someone stuffed four 3-story condo units in two buildings into what had been a modest yard built out of those prefab LEGO-like stackable sections and they went up in a day or two and on sale in something like a few weeks. I remember going to work in the morning and a crane and trailers with the building sections lined my street. Came home that night and either they were both up or one was (this is a 20+ year old memory).
“if you’ve just dropped tens of thousands of dollars putting a new swear line in”
I know it was a typo, but I now want hot and cold running profanity in my home.
LOL! My dad is a contractor with no off switch, so that may have been subliminal.
Remember – copper for the motherfucking supply lines and shit-ass PVC for the drains.
“shit-ass ABS for the drains.”
FIFY
Samuel L. Jackson’s house?
Despite what you think your car is worth, its value is determined by the market.
Good luck finding that mythical ranch-to-city Texas commuter.
Did this one have the range extender? I’d be tempted to get it if it were and you somehow haven’t sold it come 2025.
This article is the definition of “no low ballers, I know what I got”.
I price my stuff to sell and it sells quickly. If you price your stuff to earn maximum profit, enjoy hanging onto your stuff.
I find gifting things is the way. Even cars.
One can purchase a large dose of good karma by giving stuff away.
And it also feels really good to do so at the time.
Must be nice to either have so much that you can gift a five-figure item away or to need/want so little as to be able to do likewise.
I mentioned this before, but the problem with a new battery or new engine is that people ask more for the car, but on the next sale there will be almost no return on that extra cost. The only exception to this rule are niche enthusiast vehicles like sports cars or off-road trucks with known issues like IMS bearing that hold their value well already.
I am kicking myself for passing up an almost fully loaded 2017 REx with Tera earlier this year for $10,500. It had the “business” screen and so no adaptive cruise control and at the time I had been seeing other great deals like a fully loaded 2018 REx for $13k and I thought I could do better. Now I’m scrabbling for a nice 2015 or 2016 with most of the features I want for around $10k.
Right. Why buy a 60AH model with MOST of the features and an old battery/compressor for $10, when you can buy one with ALL of them with a new battery and compressor for 12!
(Is the rational thinking, but as noted, it doesn’t necessarily work that way. And also, if you can get those with the IRA discount, then I could totally see why they’d be more compelling!).
Axiom: A thing is worth what people are willing to pay for it.
No one is buying a 2014 i3 for $12k, even with a new battery.
Therefore, a 2014 i3, even with a new battery, is not worth $12k. QED
Like I said, to an out-of-stater who can’t get the rebate, it really is the best i3 deal there is, so I wouldn’t say “no one,” but that’s SUCH a specific person. Whether I find them, who knows!
How likely is it that someone who isn’t an i3 enthusiast will come searching for it. though? Yes, you had your gold i3 shipped in from Charlotte, but most buyers aren’t going to look all that hard and I suspect it’s more likely that an i3 enthusiast is going to live in a CARB state than not.
Serious question: how much of a pain in the ass would it be to put a carseat in an i3? I’ve been seriously considering one of these for a while, but my kid’s gonna be in a carseat for at least 5 more years. I don’t even necessarily mean how little legroom will the adult sitting in front of it have. I mean putting the damn thing in.
FWIW I has a coworker who thought nothing of doing exactly that with a Mazda RX8. Pretty sure an i3 will be a piece of cake by comparison.
Google says the RX8 has a fraction of an inch less than the i3, but the by-the-numbers rear space is sort of different than space-needed-to-maneuver in to get the right fit…which is why I wonder.
I don’t know if miles are always that important, back in 2010, I bought a 2009 Grand Marquis certified preowned from a Lincoln-Mercury dealer with 15,000 miles on it. Last year, I bought a 2008 Crown Victoria Police Interceptor with 144,000 miles, its at 165,000 now, and it doesn’t really ride or perform any different than that nearly-new Mercury I once had, if anything, it actually handles better, and, so far, has been indistinguishable from brand new as far as reliability goes. So, my take is, assuming you really look the car over thoroughly before buying and are satisfied its in good shape and has been well looked after, then miles are mostly just some number. Granted, I usually get rid of cars well before 100k, so don’t have a whole lot of experience in this regard, but still.
(I do have two vehicles with unknown mileage, because 5 digit odometers and 60+ years old, but, pretty sure they’re not that high, due to their unrestored status)
Bottom line, a well-maintained high mile EV with a totally brand new battery is not something that would scare me.
Agreed, and I think it’ll take some time to find someone of a similar mindset, but they’re out there.
I think it would be the same story if you install a new engine into an ICE car
David, you are looking for a very specific buyer. Unfortunately, I think this person already owns your i3.
It’s honestly possible lol
There are lots of opinions regarding your story, but very little logic about a solution, IMHO. The value is what Carmax or some other reputable vehicle retailer will give you. Or you can spend way too much time trying to explain your unicorn to folks that don’t believe in them. Personally, I think your just interested in publishing a goofy story.
Nah. Carmax is a notorious lowballer and when it comes to older vehicles, especially so. Its true value is what the market will bear without any of the explanations.
I’m sure I’m stating the obvious here, but have you joined the owners groups for the i3, both forums and on the social medias? I’ve joined a few model specific groups in the hopes of scoring my dream car. The nice this is you’re in front of your target audience people who have an interest and knowledge about the specific car.