so, im contemplating trading in my 99 dakota for something else. its not that i dont love my truck, becuase i do, but there are just days when i HATE it. mostly when its snowing, when i need new tires or when anything on it costs more than $150 to get replaced. now, please dont flame me and start telling me that all vehicles have regular maintenance and tihngs that need replacing/fixing...i know, ive never owned a new car and i dont plan on buying a 'brand new' one now either. ive driven a dodge since was 16, so for about 8ish years, give or take. ive always wanted a silverado though and ive found one that i might possibly be able to purchase if i can get the right deal. ive never done a trade-in or even gone to a dealership (or private seller) with the intent of test driving and shopping around. as it is, the truck i have now was the first vehicle i test drove and bought on my own, i fell in love with it and made a somewhat rash decision in putting money down that day for it instead of shopping around. granted i had been without a vehicle for over 8 months at the time and i was itching to get into a truck again. i dont plan on doing that again.

im getting off topic, i know. im just trying to offer some background info. so, if i do infact go to a dealer with the offer of trading in my truck, what do i do? do i say, ill trade in my truck for that one over there and this is what its worth or does the dealer do all of that 'for you'? i KBB'd my truck and its currently not worth THAT much in the way of anytihng at a whopping $5,000. its a 99 and has just over 64,000 miles on it and will soon have a full set of brand new tires. the rear bumper needs paint and there are a few pock-marks on the hood from rocks and whatever else flying up off the road and off construction trucks. i want to get my boyfriend to do the paint touch-ups as he runs his own car painting business, but hes being a PITA about doing it. i also want to take the R/T decals off the 2 doors and the tailgate. the interior is immaculate, save for needing to be vacuumed. is any of this stuff going to decrease the value of my truck? has anyone here gone from dodge to chevy or chevy to dodge? im a little intimidated by the fact that i know absolutely nothing about chevys, how they run and where stuff is in the engine and i can pretty much put my dodge engine back together if need be.

 

'99 dodge RT? I would think its worth a lot more than $5,000 with 64K miles (unless you mean trade-in value). If it is an RT leave the decals on. If its not an RT remove em. If youre gonna trade it in dont bother with the paint touch ups. If youre gonna sell it private party the paint touch ups will help.

Chevy's are fine trucks. I put 100,000 miles on a '95 blazer and never had any major repairs. My boss (master mechanic) owns an older silverado ('96 ish I think) and even with the 5.7L V8 he still gets 22mpg. The newer silverados are great trucks. The only thing I can think of on the Vortech motors is the fuel injector is one single unit and if it goes bad its a spendy fix. Good way to avoid that is run GOOD gas in it. I run Chevron 89 octane in all my cars and Chevron 92 octane in my motorcycles.

Youre gonna get more money if you sell the truck private party versus trading it in. Then bring that as a partial down payment and set some aside for any aftermarket stuff you want to do to your new truck. (first aftermarket mod I always do is a good sound system)

 

thanks. yeah, i thought my truck would be worth more than 5K, but thats what blue book put it as. its not in 'show room condition', its got some minor things that need to be fixed and its got really low mileage for an almost 8 year old truck. i dont run it into te ground and im pretty sure its still got some years left in it, especially if someone buys it and garages it in the winter and jsut uses it in the summer, which is what i would LOVE to do but i dont have the money or a garage, lol.

yes, it IS an RT (5.9 V8). i just put 2 new tires on the back of it today and im probably getting 2 new fronts next month, if i have the money.

id love to private party sell it (blue book said i could get somewhere like 6K for it in that instance), but ive still got a little more than 6K left to pay on it, and then i would have to get the cash from the buyer, send it into the loan company, get my title from the loan company and get it to the buyer. ideally, id like to sell my truck for $8,000 NOW so i could have the money to finish paying it off and still have a wee bit left over for a minute down payment for a new one. but i get really skeptical that someone would want to purchase an almost 8 year old truck for 8K. i mena, i paid 11K for it in 2005. i tihnk it was overpriced, but i didnt really care the day i signed the papers. anywho, thanks for the info. im wondering if it would be worth my time to have my brother come look at this chevy for me or not...its a 2000 silverado 1500 4X4 Z71 short bed listed at $9,999 with 104,472 miles on it. blue book says its worth $9,200.

 

wow a 2000 with over 100K miles is gonna cause problems. A general rule is dont buy a car with more than 100K. Thats usually when stuff starts going wrong. I would look for one with 75K or less.

It sounds like you just want a 4X4 instead of the RT. In my opinion, I would keep the RT (as much of a pain as it is) until you could pay it down more. This way you can trade it in without rolling the negative equity into your new car.

I am in the same position you are. I want to sell my 1990 Dakota and buy a 2nd gen Dakota. But I want to wait until I can afford to buy a really nice one with low miles and every option I want. Its frustrating but ill be happier in the long run.

 

yeah, the fact that this potential new car have over 100K mmiles on it is the ONLY thing keeping me from going to see it tomorrow. ive had 2 cars with over 100K on them (my first dakota had over 350K but it was my dads and i was only using it in high school and my second car, a van, my mom bought for me without doing a lemon or carfax check and it was a death trap). my present truck had 29K on it when i bought it. yeah, i really would like something with 4 wheel drive, but im probalby going to end up keeping my RT and either then sell it, or keep it garaged in the winter and buy some crappy thing for winter