Interesting. Subbies really do hold their value

[Clovis]

Back in 2002 my dad bought a brand new VW Passat. This was unexpected - basically the old car (a 92 grand am) suddenly lost a lot of power, turned out to be a blown head gasket.

Anyhow, I mentioned to him at the time he should have gotten a 02 WRX.

So now they're talking about selling the car. It has a lot of nice features and only 60k miles. I like driving it, it's very comfortable.

Private party value of a 02 Passat with 60 miles and the features it has= $6,300

Private Party value of a 02 WRX with 60k miles and the same features = 12,000 - both of these cars at the time had MSRPs around $25k, in fact the VW may have been a tad cheaper but certainly both in the same range.

That makes me feel better about getting the '11 WRX - know that if I ever decide to sell it at the traditional 3 or 5 year marks I should have $8-10k equity (putting 3k down but that basically covers taxes and about $1000 "down").

Considering the 09 WRX's are still selling for $21-24k at stealerships, I feel pretty good about buying a brand new one for $26,000 out the door (includes dealer handling, title and sales tax) - base model with a few upgrades - the mirror w/ compass and homelink, center armrest, floor matts.

-Clovis

[FlyingMoose]

Yeah that was really a deciding factor for me when I was choosing my car. I checked out a used 07 STI with about ~50k km up here in Canada and the dealer was asking for $36k!! (this was in February of this year!) It wasn't a Subaru dealership and I told them I could pick up a brand new 10' STI for about $1500 more and they showed me the door. It's not on their lot anymore so I'm assuming they got close to what they were asking..