More Accolades for MINI’s Resale Value

It’s too bad that their overview of the MINI is still using the older “unreliable” Consumer Reports results. As we read on MotoringFile back in December, CS now labels the Cooper “recommended” because it finally had enough data to make a call one way or the other. Furthermore, charm alone is not enough to drive high resale value, so they’re kind of contradicting themselves – especially if they don’t count performance as a major factor. We know the MINI has had a handful of issues, but by 2006 most of those have been thoroughly rung out. Their summary makes it sound like MINI owners love the car so much that they don’t mind if it only runs 3 days a week.

I agree about supply & demand. Let’s not forget that the supply is about to increase so I expect our resale values to decrease even more that they already have :(

Traded my 05 MCSC in yesterday on a Lexus IS 250. Figured it’s value was at it’s peak as convertible season is just starting and buyers aren’t yet sitting on the sidelines waiting for 07′s. In any case, I was able to drive the MCSC for 18 months with the car retaining 89% of it’s MSRP for the trade allowance (she had 13,000 miles on the odometer).

Hated to say goodbye, but had pressure from the family to get a more pargmatic car.

I’ve found the trade-in value and resale value of all MC and MCS to have dropped drastically from the owner’s point of view. I’ve bought and sold four Coopers in the last 6 months for an average of $3000 less than the prior 6 months.

Recently offered my 05 MCS with 13K miles and in better condition than when I bought it that MSRP’ed for $29K back to the dealer. Their best offer was $21K, an $8K drop (28%in value) from April 05 to Feb 06. They now are asking $29K for it. Go figure.

Resale value for the individual sucks; however, for the dealersip it’s a gravy train.