When searching for a new car, truck or suv you should consider vehicle safety a large part of your decision. This consideration should extend well beyond the car you are looking to buy, it should be considered with your trade in vehicle as well.
Car buyers often come into the dealership with a trade-in vehicle and they have done a few web searches to get a value for their vehicle. Unfortunately these car valuation websites base their prices on vehicle original price, depreciation, reputation and condition. The elephant in the room when it comes to trade in value is the safety of the vehicle. If a vehicle has earned a reputation as an unsafe vehicle or it has performed poorly in crash testing, its value will be significantly less than expected. This becomes a problem when a car buyer wants to trade in the unsafe vehicle on a new car.
Modern cars, trucks and suv’s are safer than they have ever been and the addition of driver aides has created very safe automobiles for both the occupants and pedestrians. Insurance rates on new vehicles is dramatically lower than older unsafe vehicles and many young drivers are finding out that the tradition of buying a cheap old car to drive to and from school actually works out better when buying a new car with additional safety features.
Most new car buyers are looking for a vehicle with drivers aides and safety features like heads-up displays, collision avoidance, lane departure notification, automatic braking and much more. The car buyer must acknowledge that their trade in does not have these features and will have less value than trade-in vehicles in the past. Modern automobiles are not only more efficient, safer, better equipped but they are also a better investment than vehicles in the past.
Vehicle safety and advanced drivers features are here to stay and many drivers have become accustomed to having them. Services like GPS, On-star, vehicle info-tainment systems and more have made today’s vehicles much more than just transportation and these features have caused the used car inventory prices to drop to an all time low. Many used vehicles without these drivers features are priced well below comparable vehicles that have additional technology and safety features.
When buying your next automobile, consider the features you are buying and will those features be desirable in the future when that vehicle enters the used car market…
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