Trade in my AUTO for STICK

[b0x]

hey everyone. I own a 2002 GT auto. I have about ~3900 miles on it currently, and i'm thinking about trading it in for a 5-speed.
I was just wondering if it would be a hassle? Would i have to reclaim insurance, and get new license plates and crap? Also, how much do u think i'll have to pay? I got the car for 21k with
- slide moonroof
-upgrade pacakge (ower windows, locks and cruise)
-alloy wheels
-spoiler
-carpet floor mats

thanks
:)

[Slant]

You would keep your license plate, just the registration would be changing, I guess. I'm not sure how much you'd get for your car. I'm guessing $15k??? Try looking it up in the kelly blue book.
All I can tell you is that yeah you're going to lose money by doing this, but I know a couple people who did the same thing w/ GTS and GT, and they don't regret it.

[HilfigerCelica]

21K for an auto GT, isn't that too much?

[MarkyMark]

DO IT NOW BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!!!

[chameleon]

$21,000 for a loaded GT auto celica is about right.

b0x, the biggest hit you are going to take is taxes. You already paid taxes on your $21,000 and you are going to pay them again on your new celica, which is going to make this one expensive Celica GT. Plus, you will not be able to get enough money to pay off the loan from your current celica unless you had a large down payment when you first bought it because, like I said, if your celica cost $21,000 and you financed all of it, once you add tax to that you actually financed around $23,000 plus interest. Even though the car has barly been driven and is brand spankin new, it has still depreciated considerably because since it has now had an owner it is officially a "used car". No way you are going to get any more than $20,000 for your car when you sell it, and you will get a lot less if you try to trade it in, which leaves you with several thousand dollars that you need to come up with so you can pay the bank off and get a new loan for the manual GT. Any way, to sum it up, if you are going to do this you will need around $5000 cash to help pay off whats left of your current loan and put down on the new car to make the payments the same.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't do it though. I mean, do you really want to be making payments on a car for the next 5 years or so of your life regretting and resenting that it is an automatic? If you really want the manual you should go for it! But it will cost you a lot more money in the long run. I know, because I went through all this when I traded my auto GTS for a six speed GTS.

[b0x]

would it be cheaper for me to trade it for an older model GT then? Like if i were to trade it in for a used 2001 or 2000 gt

[chameleon]

Yes, of course it will be cheaper. But if you plan on trading your current celica in instead of selling it yourself you will only get $17,900 for it because that is the Blue book trade in value for it. So I would suggest that you put a for sale sign in the window and try to sell it yourself, you should be able to get close to $20,000 for it that way.

One thing that will help you out a little is the fact that the manual GT costs less than the automatic GT. The automatic transmition is an $800 option on the GT, so if you find one identical to yours with a manual instead of an automatic, it will cost $800 less than the one you bought.

If you are willing to buy a used Celica, you could use this opportunity to upgrade from a GT to a GTS. You can get a used 2000 GTS for less than you paid for your 2002 GT. In fact, check out the For Sale forum on this website. A member here(the anti-rice) has been trying to sell his GTS for a long time now. He was asking only $18,750 with all his mods which included 18" Enkei rims, Molly designs body kit, S-AFC, AEM CAI, real HID headlight conversion and more. Now he has parted a lot of that stuff off so he would probably sell it for even less money. Anyway, if you want a manual, the GTS like his comes with a 6-speed! Oh yeah, the car has 33,000 miles on it but the engine, transmiton, clutch and flywheel only have 2,500 miles on it, which is less than your car has....