I joined the forum a while back to educate myself on the V8V before purchasing and have learned a lot since. For the past 6 months, I've been actively searching for an 09 Blk/Blk, manual and one showed up at an AM dealer with 10K miles. With listing prices all over the place, I have no way of knowing how much to offer against their $89,900. Ideally, I would like to be around the $80K mark but don't know if this is even reasonable. Only options are heated seats and nav but it has sport exhaust and integrated radar. Any tips or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

Not sure a dealer is going to come off the price that much, but what's the worst they can do other than say "no"? You can probably buy it at $ 85k, though, so just get in there and negotiate and don't take it as a badge of honor if they won't come to your price. At the end of the day your haggling will be 5% of the price and in this league of cars that's not really enough to stop you from owning one. I'd consider the price about right for that car. Good luck!

 

I agree with Duane... I found a car that I liked and negotiated what I thought to be the best possible deal. Yes, I could have purchased an AMV8 vehicle for less... but in a color combo that I would not have liked or mileage that I believed to be too high. "Work" the dealer and don't get caught up on the best price thing. The car has already taken a big depreciation hit and will depreciate at a much less aggressive rate than what the first owner experienced. As for negotiating, take baby steps... offer them $80K and see what they counter with. In 2010 I negotiated to purchase my 2007 with a starting offer of $65K vs. their price of $85K... after a week of giver and take we settled on a price of $75K for a car with an odd color combo (Goodwood Green with Red Fox/Black gut)... no cruise, no heated seats, no satellite radio, no blue tooth(!) and no nav. I was able to add everything I needed except the heated seats with a custom installation of the XM-sky dock for the iPhone and an aftermarket parrot blue tooth.

 

Better to buy the best example that you can afford at the time than the lowest cost one that you can find. You'll buy it once but will be paying for it in one way or another the entire time you own it.

If you could predict that extra 5K would mean that the car was pristine and well cared for over something neglected and abused with defects then it would be a small price to pay for such a beautiful machine.

 

Best price, go in there and dont back down. (Somebody had to be the 9th man).

 

See if they will throw in a maintenance plan.

 

I saw a nice one with low miles but did not have navigation. Is it a big thing resale-wise if the v8v do not have navi?

 

Appreciate all of the responses which helps me a lot. The salesman sent me the original window sticker and I was pleasently surprised to see a long list of options. The car is priced higher than similar listings so I'll toss out a number and see where it goes. Negotiating a maintenance plan is a great idea but there are too many states between us.

 

The Navigation systems in these cars are Volvo units and not only difficult to use (except in the newest cars) but clunky. Everyone seems to want them in the cars but then no one ever uses them! I'd not care if my car didn't have it in the least.

 

Another area of negotiation if you are buying a car that is in another state is shipping. I bought a Vantage from an Infiniti dealer in Kentucky a few months ago. They went down on the sales price a couple thousand dollars and also ended up including covered shipping to Texas. That saved me the hassle and expense of flying up there and driving back or going up there with my trailer and towing the car home.

 

Yup, I read that 2012 had the better Garmin-based navis. Did they release a lot of v8v without navi? Should it be a deal breaker? When spending this on a car, I feel like they should come with out, or I am selling myself short.

 

The nav system is universally panned, but I'd get a car that includes it for resale purposes. A car at this level without a navigation system just seems odd to potential buyers.

Although the system is one of the worst out there, it works fine for point-to-point directions. Just don't expect to use the displayed map as a map as it is typically just a bunch of unlabelled squiggly lines on the screen.

 

Call me strange, but for 20k more I would rather have a 2013 model.

http://www.dimmitt.com/inventory-det...EBBAK9DGC17253

 

Venum,
I was in exactly the same boat as you for months now. I wanted a black / black highly optioned very low mileage 2009 for a steal. My wife really thought I should get midnight blue and not black. I just sold an M5 in interlagos blue but I do like the midnight blue. I ended up finding a midnight blue with black interior but with more miles on it that I wanted...right about 19K. We are all faced with trade-offs. I had watched this car drop in price significantly over the last few months. From someone who has been looking for months, AM Vantages are not really moving at the prices being asked and you're right, they are all over the board. I ended up buying the 2009 midnight blue / black this week from a certified AM dealer with the standard one year CPO warranty. The car is pretty optioned out with the sports pack (nicer wheels / suspension), HID, silver painted calipers, bright finish grill, premium sound, memory seats / mirrors, sat / nav, sat radio, and bluetooth. It has the sportshift transmission and I was a bit concerned from what I read about clutch life in these. Since I was buying it from the AM dealer and it has to pass all checks with very low wear limits, they had just replaced the clutch, done the two year service interval, and brake pads.

When I first saw the car, they were asking high $80s. They had dropped the price to $80K and then a bit below that recently. I offered $70K and they said they could do $70.5K without the warranty of $72K with the factory one year CPO warranty. I jumped on this at $72K with the one year CPO once I got the service history and found out it has a brand new clutch and all service just done. All books and records are there and it's got all of the options I wanted. I wish it only had 10K miles on it but I feel I bought it very well overall. I can buy another one year of AM factory warranty for $3,600 and two years for around $6,300. Any thoughts on doing this or taking my chances after the one year CPO runs out? Only plan on driving it maybe 3-4K miles per year max.

Good luck Venum finding your car and I hope this will help as a data point on what one person just paid for a 2009.

 

Newport Beach has a Tungsten and a Meteorite for $108k and $109k new. No memory seats though. You will never find one that has special colors, only the standard ones they couldnt sell.