Hi guys! I'm planning on trading in my 2005 GT (47k miles) for a 2007-09 GT500 here soon. My question: I have black Saleen side skirts on the car (which is performance white) but would it be better if I put the old stock skirts back on? I've never traded in a car before and I'm not sure what impacts value to the dealership.

Also I have a 93 octane race tune on the car now (from Bama tuning) should I flash it back to stock?

Mods:
K&N CAI
American thunder axle-backs
TCI streetfighter ratchet shifter

Thanks a bunch!

 

When trading in a car its always best to return it to stock and most dealers will only
take stock cars as customized ones are hard to sell.

You can resell your aftermarket parts for extra coin for your down payment too

 

Here's a photo....

 

+1 to what Cobra Drifter said, if you still have your old ones, put them on and sell the other ones. It will not affect the price they will give you for the car in any way, but you will be able to sell them for extra cash.

 

It's really all on the dealer, I traded in the 08 GTCS in my sig and they were not worried about any of it, I got about 2k less than I wanted (wanted 20k got 18k), but they guy was pretty fair, I also think it depends on the condition of the car mine was garage kept so it still looked almost new.

 

+1 on the return to stock if possible . I would be interested in buying your TCI ratchet shifter if you plan to remove it and it is in good working condition.
You can make some extra $$$ off selling the parts to go toward future mods on the new car. I can't tell you how many times i've been too "lazy" to return a trade in to stock and then kicked myself over and over wishing I'd taken off the parts I paid all that extra money for, before giving it all the the dealership for a loss.

 

I would re-flash back to stock. As far as the side skirts and other mods you have... no dealership will look twice at 'em. It's not going to add or take away from the value of the car. Like the other guys said tho... swap 'em out and sell the Saleen's.

 

I made the same trade in that you're about to. You will thoroughly love the decision on going with the GT500.

As far as the mods. I would take off what is easy enough to remove that is worth the time spent swapping it out for how much $ you can get for it. Like for the rockers you have on there now. Are you going to get that much more for the black ones than you would for the stockers? I would definitely flash it back to stock. You can always sell your tuner for a $150+ depending on which one you have, or re-use it on a different car. I know on some of the newer year model mustangs the files are larger and require a newer tuner with more storage, but I do not recall when that started. Good luck with the trade-in and let us know how it goes!

 

My experience and that of my friends/family has been that mods may help the dealer sell the car faster, but you won't see an extra dime for them over stock. Better to reverse-mod your car and sell the parts.

 

Another choice is sell the car yourself.