My Story

I'm not really a newbie. I had a 2009 Prius that I bought about 8 months ago, but I didn't really pay too much attention when I bought it (on Craigslist) and didn't realize until later that it was the _base_ model and didn't even have cruise control! It really amazed me that a car could even be sold in 2009 with no cruise control.

Anyway, over the weekend I noticed that my car was all of a sudden worth about $2000 more than I paid for it. I sold it that night to a dealer and put my $2000 profit to a new 2011 Prius the next day.

I did pay MSRP for the new car. I called both dealers in town and each had only one car on the lot. I didn't have a lot of bargaining power since I didn't want the car that was on the other lot or any of the cars on the way in (that weren't already sold). But, I figure, if I had bargaining power on a new Prius, my old one would still be worth $15,000 instead of 20.

Well, there it is. Looks like a great forum!