I just got my first oil and filter change at Woodfield Acura (NW Chicago suburbs). While waiting, I spied a 2002 Cl-S, auto tranny, with a navi for resale on the showroom floor. It was squeaky clean with 9,216 miles on the odo. I inquired about the asking price of the car. Here is what I was told: "$30,995, but we can probably lower that a bit." The car was silver with black leather, of course. It was dead stock.

I got my silver CL-S six speed on the Saturday after thanksgiving and now have 4,000 miles on it, so I will trade this car again at about the same time, Turkey day or so. So, I am very interested in resale value, and here is the first data point for us to work with.

Apparently, resale value is no problem to this dealer. I also asked about the model being discontinued due to low sales to the guy who approves the deals. He said he will take every CL he can get, and it is not poor sales. He says the factory can't make enough of them fast enough.

So if you see a valid asking price for a CL, or a CL-S, auto or six speed, please post it here. Note condition, model year and mileage.

And no, I do NOT want to hear about the resale value of your BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, etc. This is for repeat CL buyers only.

Also post what you think you got when you traded in your CL-S for another CL or S, here we do need to know what you bought (BMW, Lexus, etc, is OK).

When enough posts are made, I'll sort then out by type and post the averages.

Moderator: Please keep this post near the top of the page, or at least on the first page for a while. This is important to all of us. Thanks in advance.

 

I think resale value of CLS is not as good as it supposed to be because of the transmission.

I don't trust those *trade in* techniques..... Sometimes dealers fool you by giving you what you consider a *good* trade in value, where in reality they rape you with the new car purchase price.
Lets say dealer gives you good trade in and you are happy about it, but then they sell you a new car for 30K, where in reality after long negotiations you can get it for 28K. So here we go for your extra 2K that dealer added to your trade in value.....

If you want to know your trade in value, just go to a dealer and ask him for a quote to sell it ( without buying something back). The price will be lower than what you get in the trade in.
Don't be fooled by the combined number, look at each number separately (trade in and new car price ).

The best thing is to sell it through private seller, you should make at least $1K-2K more from private sale...


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I sold my 2001 CL-S (non-navi) w/ 29,000 miles and in excellent condition for $22,500. A dealer probably would have offered me a few thousand less if I traded it in.

Any dealer that asks that much for a used CL-S is on crack and in the head. That is about $350 above invoice price on a NEW 2003 w/ Navi. Of course there is probably a customer who is also and will pay that price. P.T. Barnum once said that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

 

i think the resale is not because of the tranny, considering the accord, tl, and odysee has the same tranny problem, but their resale doesn't suffer as bad.

I think there are 2 main factors that cause low resale for the cl-s:

1. it is a coupe that lists for over $30k.
MB, BMW, Volvo, etc. have coupes over $30k. But Acura over-produced the cl, meaning there's more out there for sale than people want (how many did they project at first? 30k sales a year?). But MB and BMW produce probably just the right amount to just meet demand or below. Volvo's C70 sales sucks too though, but it's an old car.

2. Who would buy a $30k 2door car when they can buy a BRAND SPANKIN NEW truck for 0% financing or $2500 cash back? These incentives are negatively impacting ALL used cars. And in this day and age, if you can get an SUV for 0% financing or cash back or whatever the incentive is, you sure as hell aren't going to look at a coupe, especially when SUV's and Trucks are the rave!

I think the tranny is less known and has almost no impact on resale than people think. If it was the tranny, then it would have to impact all models with the same tranny, not just the cl.

 

On a somewhat related note - my dealer told me that Acura halted 6spd production in October and just started back up. He said he'll have no more 6spds until March. Could have been a line of BS for not having any 6spds on the lot. Anyone have a 6spd mfg'd after October? If it's true, makes you wonder about the CL's future - maybe kept as is for 2004, brought back into production due to demand??

 

You are wrong about this, I get comments regarding my transmission from people who had never owned Honda/Acura and whom I do not consider car enthusiasts. This one guy I know was like "I don't wana get Acura/Honda - I heard the quality is not good" He did not even know what was the problem.

 

Sales guys are so full of it. I was also told that Acura is having no problems selling the CL as planned by a sales guy about 3 weeks ago. This was because I went to the dealer with my friend who was interested in buying a used CL (even after I recommended he didn't for obvious reasons). The guy even said he wasn't aware of any tranny problems, what an idiot. So I mentioned how many people I know of that are having tranny problems and the fact that about 75% of the cars on his lot were CLs and he just kept getting annoyed because he couldn't come up with any "good" answers for my friend, a potential client.

The one used CL my friend test drove was an auto 2003 CL Type S with Navi with about 16K miles and they were asking $31,995. I basically told him that he wouldn't even get that for a brand new one.

 

i am wrong because a handful of people who comment to you know about it and won't buy a honda/acura?

explain to me how the people you spoke with is representative of the general public that buys accords, odysees and tls, but not cls?

open your eyes. the tranny problem effects Accords, TLs, CLs, Odsyseseseds or however you spell it.

But out of those 4 models, the coupe is the only one people won't buy because of the tranny problem?

if the tranny is the problem then resale problems would be common among ALL those models affected by the tranny, not just the coupe. so if it ISN'T common among all, then the logical conclusion would be that it is ANOTHER problem specific to the cl that is not common among the other models.

 

I don't know if the resale value is lower only for Acura or for both Honda and Acura. You are right, my personal expirence is not an accurate statistical sample that randomly represents the population, BUT so is yours - You can't claim that the resale value have no impact. Just go to non-Acura dealer and ask to sell your car, I bet in 50% of cases they will give you the price and be like "that's the best we can do, you know those cars have transmission problems". Just try it out, you will see......
If you are a smart car's salesman you will use this as an excuse to pay less money, and if you are an educated consumer, after doing some research before buying a used car you will quickly learn that 2001 CLS is proned to have a bad transmission. Even if the % is like 5-10%, why would you take your chances if you can buy something else without known major problems?
The only hope I have is for dumb consumers who do not do their research and just buy stuff

 

again, why is this being focused on the cl/cls?

if someone went to trade in an accord/tl/odysee, would the car salesman say he can't give much for them because they tranny problems too? probably just so he can get it for cheap.

but what about the educated consumer? if they refuse to buy used cl/cls because of the tranny problem, then they also MUST refuse to buy a accord/tl/odysee because they suffer from the SAME tranny problem...after all, they are educated. But are the resale price of the accord/tl/odysee suffering? maybe they are due to the market and incentives, and maybe a small % from the tranny problems, but their resale is way ahead of most cars?

so answer that question, why would the cl/cl-s have worse resale because of a tranny problem, while the accord/tl/odysee have better resale than most cars, even though they suffer the same problem?

and i'm not going by statistics of one or two people, i'm going buy the statistic that hundreds of thousands of accords and tl's have been sold, and their resale is still at the top of the industries....although they suffer a tranny problem. I'm also going by the statistic that there are waiting lists for a minivan that is several years old now, and also suffers the tranny problem.

the tranny is a common denominator in the cl/tl/accord/odysee. So if the tranny is the cause of poor resale, then it would cause poor resale throughout all models that share the tranny, not just one model.

 

Please hear me out and don't flame me but, I really did consider the CL-S before getting my Maxima because the local Acura dealership (Bridgewater Acura) had a few 1 year old ones going for about $26-$27G or about the same as a new 2K2 Maxima. The car was awesome but, I really needed four doors. However, that dealership wanted $31G+ for the few TL-S models of similar age, miles and condition. (As a matter of fact, a couple of the used TL-Ps on the lot were being sold for more than the used CL-S models.)

I really believe that the resale issue with the CL has nothing to do with the tranny, as the tranny issue seems to be applicable to all the Honda Accord variations. I think the market for midsize entry level luxury coupes is extremely soft. (The same probably applies to Cadillac ETC models.) This might even explain why Toyota went in the direction they did with the SC400 when they created the SC430 (though price might have had a small part to play in that one). And the G35 Coupe is HOT right now but lets see how long that'll last before people start thinking "I really need four doors and more room".

Just my $.02. Peace.