Don't forget Market Prices!!! (archive)

Not to flame Jim for his method of determinging 850 values, but also consider checking actual asking prices on autotrader.com, yahoo.com and excite.com classifieds to see what 850's with similar year/mileage and "described" condition are going for. Obviously you should be suspicious if the dealer is selling at below what you are finding for equivalent cars in your area.

As a note, two things seem to make the early 850's pricing a bit volatile (from $15k to $35k)as compared to listed Book Values:

(1) Service--they are very sensitive to skipping service due to complicated systems and the expense in correcting for skipped service.
(2) Production Volume--very few were built. As a result, not many turn over compared to for instance Honda Preludes. Without as many data points, the population can become skewed, as it seems to be toward the low end. Another good example of this is the 1988 M5 which Books for about $9.5k but everyone is currently complaining about not being able to find good ones for less than $15k. Several past messages have been posted by people complaining that they have encountered similar $20-$25k 850 "bargains" that turned out to be expensive fixer-uppers when checked out.

Greg Kovecses

1991 850 6spd (link below)
1988 M5

http://www.mindspring.com/~gkovecses/850.htm

Follow Ups:

Re: Don't forget Market Prices!!! Jim Surdick 14:35 4/05/2000 (3)
- Re: Don't forget Market Prices and mechanical! brian 15:15 4/05/2000 (2)
  - Re: Don't forget Market Prices and mechanical! sam 19:24 4/05/2000 (0)
  - Re: Don't forget Market Prices and mechanical! Jim Surdick 16:13 4/05/2000 (0)

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