Traded in the Rodeo......

[bishop242]

Well, after much thought I decided to sell my 00 Rodeo.
Now don't get me wrong... I loved my Rodeo but at 125,000 miles I found myself constantly worrying about catastrophic engine or tranny faliure. I tried to simply sell it private party but to my dissmay, even though it was in perfect condition with lots of upgrades no one would touch it.. even at well under blue book (the mileage thing scared people off).
I finally took it in to a local dealership and got a whopping $4,000 for it on trade in. WOW after owning it for a year and having paid retail book value for it I figure my monthley cost for owning it at around $600-700 per month.
Anyway, the bright side of the story is I wound up with a beautiful Audi S4 bi-turbo AWD.
Thanks for all the help and input you people have given me! I still have my trooper and plan on lurking around the forum often. I hope I am still welcomed at the trail runs and such!

Eric

[Dober89]

I recently tried to sell my 2000 rodeo also. It was in the auto trader for 2 weeks and I got ONE phone call. Now I have a company vehicle and dont even see my isuzu during the week.

[bishop242]

Originally Posted by Dober89

I recently tried to sell my 2000 rodeo also. It was in the auto trader for 2 weeks and I got ONE phone call. Now I have a company vehicle and dont even see my isuzu during the week.

Yeah, same thing here... paid my $40.00 for the add and got 1 phone call

[Ramblin Fever]

100% agree, when you're finding yourself worrying constantly about it's relability, and whether or not you're going to make it to work, down the highway, etc, then it's definitely time to part with it. We finally did that ourselves with our 21yr old Toyota truck.

Life's too short.

But it's really a shame that owners got jipped on these newer 2nd generation Rodeo's, in terms of reliability. Isuzu's use to be unstoppable, and owners of the 1st generations, especially, never had to question whether or not "they could go further".

Isuzu really fowled that up though, with the 98-99 model years, in particular, having so many issues.

I've had 2 Rodeo's both 1st generation, and they've been the most reliable vehicles we've owned (even topping our recently traded in Toyota) - everything original, and having needed less maintenance then vehicles half their mileage/age.

Just seems to be SOOO many problems with the 98+yrs, and it seems over a 1/4th of them already are on their 2nd engine or 2nd transmission, such a shame for the owners to have to deal with, and I believe Isuzu should've recalled a lot of issues.

FWIW - SUV's, in general, seem to depreciate a lot. If I were a buyer, myself, I wouldn't be going for a vehicle over 100k either - irregardless WHAT it is. Unless I was only going to keep it for a very short time, or I knew the previous owner personally.

Curious, you still own that '91 Trooper?? EDIT: just re-read your post, I see that you do still own it. Do you find it's been cheaper to own that versus the Rodeo you had?

Have fun with that new car, we're having a blast with our much newer Toyota Tacoma V6 that replaced our old worn out 4-cylinder Toy!! Found ourselves going to the mountains every weekend since we bought it.

[bishop242]

Well put RF!
My old Trooper is BULLETPROOF! I am convinced that it will run forever. With plates at $25.00 per year and insurance at $19.00 per month I'll keep it until it croaks. So far, $0.00 in repairs. I bought it for $250.00 with a bad head gasket, repaired it with the "head gasket in a bottle kit", ($10.00) put new plugs in and it has run perfectly for the last 12,000 miles. With a new set of tires you'll be seeing me in the mountains this spring for sure.
I'm glad to hear that you like your Tacoma! We are buying one (03 model) for my dad next weekend.

[Ramblin Fever]

You know the plates on my Rodeo still haven't dropped below $150 and it's 9yrs old.

I still have full-coverage on the Rodeo though, insurance-wise.

Aside from preventative maintenance, don't have much $$$ in repairs. It's too bad your NEWER Isuzu was costing you $600-700 in repairs/insurance/payment. Sounds like the original owner didn't do too good at taking care of it, along with Isuzu's flukes.

Mine didn't even cost me that when I was making payments on it.

Is your Trooper an auto or stick??

[Gizmo42]

Too bad you lost faith in yours. I think I bought mine around the same time you bought yours. I've put some money into it but not all that much considering how neglected it had been maintenance wise. I have no concerns about the reliability of mine. Thankfully mine isnt an oil burner, and not an automatic.

Its getting alot harder to sell cars for what they are worth around here. Had my moms '00 chrysler mini van on auto trader for over a year. Only had 29k miles on it. Listed it originally for half what it cost new, ended up selling it for less then half of that. Protetype has been having trouble selling his mazda 323 also, its been up for sale for a while.

[2000izusu]

i confess we have thought about selling ours. twice as many problems as our other cars but it still hasn't pushed me to the point of no return yet. i'm hangin in there. what is prevening me is the value on it. last time i checked it was 7000 trade in. and thats with 60,000 miles. we usually keep cars until they go to the scrap yard. but just the thought of having to pay for a reman 3.2 is enough to take the red from my face.

[Ramblin Fever]

Yeah, I got VERY lucky on that Xterra that we bought new and then realized we needed an open bed truck. Thank goodness my sister was willing to buy it cause if we would've had to trade it, we would've been REALLY upside down.

Anymore vehicles are just ridiculously priced.

For instance, on this Toy I bought, they originally wanted $24k for it, I told 'em to forget it - no way was I paying $27-30k buy the time all is said and done for a truck that already had 30k miles.

Didn't take them too long to come down to $19k total, out the door pricing. I refuse to pay more then $22k, period, on a brandnew vehicle, and then it better be one that I keep for 20yrs, otherwise, I draw the line at $4k for one that has over 60-70k.

[2000izusu]

were like you. we refuse to pay over 20k for a new car. we paid 20k for the rodeo in 2000 and just bought a jeep liberty for 18,000 out the door ( and they even went to get it, 3 states away) those two are the only new cars we have ever bought. and most likely the last. my specialty is used and i believe you get a better deal also. the only problem with used is finding something you like, but with patients not too hard. my best approach is the private owner who has had the car for sale a while. they can usually be talked down alot. if you do you home work in the forums and find a good solid platform, used vehicles can last 15+ years (as long as your ego can handle very old daily drivers).