So I have been looking at HHRs. Bought a 2008 Tacoma DCSB TRD 2WD with 26K 30 months ago for $20500. It has 33K on it now (yeah I don't drive much) I ride a motorcycle 80% of the time year round.

So the Taco takes up a lot of space in the garage and I don't need a truck. Only two vehicles interst me. Mazda CX-5 (hard to find used for around $20K) and HHRs.

So I find this 08 today with 20K miles With 2LT all the options. They want to give me $5500 and the car for my (paid for) Truck. Emotionally I am all in. But I cannot wrap my head around giving up a very slowly depreciating popular vehicle i don't need or really like for a discontinued low trade value HHR I do Like.

I would have done the deal if they gave me $8000. But $5000 seems way to low for that deal so I walked.

Heres my truck and the car I looked at



The HHR



http://beach-ford.ebizautos.com/shar...2fwebsite.aspx


Everyone telling me I am crazy to give up a Tacoma for an HHR for $5000 in my pocket. I should be getting $8000. They said in three years the Taco with less than 30K will be worth $16000 and the HHR maybe $8000

Am I nuts for even considering this? At any price?

 

You left out the trade in value of the truck. I am guessing around $13500. So, an $8000 2008 HHR. I am once again guessing the HHR would sell for around $10,000.

Do you have access to the internets (duh)? kbb.com will give you trade and sale values. You would have to get a paper and pencil out.

 

The trade value of the truck is $19,000. Carmax made a cash offer for it. 08 2WD Tacoma Rugged Trail PKg 34K miles all the options.


YEah I did all that and every Service came up with an $8000 spread.

Tacoma KBB "good" Trade $20,967 Retail ask $25000
HHR KBB good Trade $9222 Retail Ask $13100


So the "Spread" is $$11,000 Wholesale and $12,000 Retail

Wholesale to Retail would be $8000 Minimum. They "offered" $20,000 Trade value and wanted $15,000 for their HHR.
I would have to get min $8000 to do this deal. The Tacoma is not depreciating as fast or as deep as the HHR. So If I sell the truck to CarMax I would only offer $12K for the HHR and they would likely pass and that would still only put $7000 in my pocket.

Probably should hold out for a used 13 CX-5 Touring and give up a couple Grand. The HHR makes sense if I got paid off.

 

Unfortunately HHR's are sliding in value, blame it on the combination of being discontinued and a slightly softer used car market.

I think you'd be very happy with an HHR, but you might want to consider selling the Tacoma outright, then taking the proceeds and using them to leverage a better deal on an HHR paying cash outright.

 

I just did a rough Kelley Blue Book on the 2 vehicles. I know the HHR pretty well, that value should be close. Possibly not so much on the Tacoma, but close enough for our purposes here. Don't know where you live, so I used my Springfield, Oregon zip.

Trade- in value on the Tacoma: $21,000 approx.
Trade-in value on the HHR: $9,760 approx.
Private Party value on the HHR: $11,500 approx

So I figure if the dealer gives you full trade-in value on the Toyota and only 'charges' you Private Party value for the HHR, that would mean you would be getting the HHR and $9,500 in cash for the Toyota. That might be a little generous on the dealers' part to give you the HHR at Private Party value, so maybe figure a bit off of that, being somewhat generous, lets say an additional $1,000 - so by my figures, a decent deal would be the HHR and $8,500.

- If it isn't in the general vicinity of this deal, WALK.

That's a beautiful HHR, by the way. That's the color I REALLY wanted, but couldn't find one when I was shopping.

 

LOL Tell that to this Ford Dealer!! I see those prices at the Chevy dealer on 11's but I would not buy an LS, I like the 2LT package. Been reading the forums though and wondering about some of the pattern issues. I noticed the dealer did have to grind the rotors on their recondition sheet. Apparently there was warpage. The Carfax does not indicate any dealer recalls or other work being done. There would be no warranty on an 08. Maybe I should wait and read some more about them before jumping in blind.

The car drove fine. was tight. I don't pout a lot of miles on. Probably less than the first owner. I can see the car was taken car of. I just don;t think it's worth more than $12,000. But that is just what I would pay. The market may not agree.

 

YEP you nailed it. Thanks for keeping it real. I think your trade number is high on the Tacoma though You may have figured 4WD. I am in South Carolina. 4WDs are worth less here LOL. People from Virginia come down here to buy them. The dealer offered me another low mileage 08 in 4WD for the same money and I passed.

I was thinking at the dealership if they offered me $9000 I would take it. Now I am thinking $8000 is a fair deal for them as well. But they were very far off and did not even try to move their number. So I walked it. But yeah except for the pinstriping and some paint scraping on the foglight rim. it was flawless. The original owner had used a highlighter in the manual for certain things like fluid capacities and various operations. But they cannot control any pattern issues these cars may have. They traded it with warped rotors.

 

If the dealer turned or cut the rotors 777, they were addressing a symptom of a common HHR complaint. Brake judder is fairly universal when the rear brakes haven't been adjusted regularly. That overworks the fronts, causing the judder.

The self-adjusters on the rear brakes just don't work well (I'm not even sure if they work at all), so those of us in the know adjust the rear brakes manually every 5,000 miles or at every oil change.

Once you do it, you can keep up the adjustments easily, I've got it down to ten minutes now.

 

Wow Just found out the rear brakes are drums In this day and age?

Confirmation of your tip

http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/f...-brakes-92309/

 

With the SS you got 4-wheel disc brakes, the extra 100hp allows them to reach velocities which require some extra grunt in the braking department.

A few folks have converted LS and LT models to 4-wheel discs, but it's not easy, and fairly involved too.

Replacing the front rotors with heavy duty ones, and using heavy duty brake pads ups the stopping ability of disc/drum HHR's.

I use Raybestos/Napa heavy duty parts and have no complaints at all.