GT4 Resale value.

[Steve gee]

Being a proud owner of a JDM GT4 for a couple of reasons, I am puzzled to see the huge price drop in GT4 celicas and would like to open a discussion not start a war.

My main reason for buying a GT4 was to obtain a pre-classic car at a reasonable price and wait it out until it is a classic 25YO in 6 years.

Second reason was it was cheap, had lows km and was cheap as I said.

So imagine my surprise when I saw two GROUP A's in recent times go cheap.

The Red GT4 owned by the Adelaide/Weribee car dealer IMO was too cheap at $16,800, well how about one for $10,300?

I was accepted for my offer on a Black GT4 GR A unmolested in Brisbane advertised on ebay at $12,000.

I declined to proceed with the buy as I have no room to store it but I am really puzzled no I am disturbed by the fact that the bottom seems to have fallen out of the GT4 market.

I saw this same trend on Suzuki swift GTis over ten years.

My family owned three GTI's over the ten years and I still have four rolling chassis with all sorts of modifications out on my farm I can only give them away they are worth zip.

Sold all the motors and boxes to NT Finke Racers for $1000.00 recently.

I still have three gearboxes I cant sell.

Question is, is there a common factor between the drop in GTI prices to rock bottom and GT4's which have in many cases sold for under $5000 and some as low as $2000??

In my opinion the mods do it.

All the go fast mods worth kilobucks decrease the resale bvalue to any but those who know what the mods are worth and what they can do to the cars performance.

Trouble is when you see a huge list of extras, no one will buy without some sort of indeminity against the motor or box crapping out in the first few K's

Car yards wont touch modified GT4's unless they get them for low $$ and so this could be one reason why you never see them advertised.

So you are left to sell to the ebayers and carsales, tyre kickers, time wasters, asking all sorts of dumb questions and many many time syou see what should ba a bargain go BUMP BUMP BUMP and never sell.

The reputation of some turbo charged fours web sites in the general car industry has created an opinion and a reputation that most people only want to modify cars and drive them fast and faster.

and in the end the bottom drops on prices, and on that E site and C site they go month after month without selling .

Sure the asking price is there $6500 or $8500 or whatever but they dont sell.

I dont know what you all think but I think the rot has set in and its probably irreversible.

And I think the next price drops will be the GTR Skylines and the WREX Imprezzas, and maybe then the Mitsubishies if not already.

Thats my ten cents worth, good luck if you are selling but dont show how you ripped out the intercooler and put the battery in the boot because apart for the converted no one really cares for that stuff, not if they are buying..

There is also the Roadworthy issue $90 in VIC now and if its modified usually it fails first inspection.

If people do buy they are they want the car for rock bottom dollar in case the motor gearbox or clutch blows iteself a few k down the road.

cheers

Thanks for reading..