Kbb Top 10 Used Cars Under $8,000

Dugl

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May 18, 2011
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OK....the good news is that the 2004 Mustang GT made the list, but are they available for $7,800 with 05's selling for nearly double that ? I haven't done a forensic analysis, but was looking for some opinions.
 
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When I was considering replacing my '00, I looked at used New Edge cars. I found a real clean silver '03 5-speed, cloth-seat GT convertible with 49,000 miles at a Ford dealer. This car looked brand new. They wanted almost 12k for it but eventually dropped the price down to just over 10k before it sold. I didn't buy it because I didn't want a 'vert, or cloth seats.

Based on that, no doubt you could find a decent '04 GT coupe with reasonable miles on it for under 8k. I think a lot of it is going to depend on the miles, and the Ford dealers will only keep the lowest mile trade-ins, so the ones on your Ford dealer lot might be a bit higher. The independents and private sales would be more likely to get you closer to the 8k mark.

I did see a real nice coupe at a dealer with really low miles (in the teens?) but they wanted like 16 g's for that one. It was perfect, beautiful, and had about eighteen pounds of billet aluminum added to the interior. I figured for that $$ I was halfway to a new 5.0 and you can see from my sig. how that ended up.

Good luck.
 
When I was considering replacing my '00, I looked at used New Edge cars. I found a real clean silver '03 5-speed, cloth-seat GT convertible with 49,000 miles at a Ford dealer. This car looked brand new. They wanted almost 12k for it but eventually dropped the price down to just over 10k before it sold. I didn't buy it because I didn't want a 'vert, or cloth seats.

Based on that, no doubt you could find a decent '04 GT coupe with reasonable miles on it for under 8k. I think a lot of it is going to depend on the miles, and the Ford dealers will only keep the lowest mile trade-ins, so the ones on your Ford dealer lot might be a bit higher. The independents and private sales would be more likely to get you closer to the 8k mark.

I did see a real nice coupe at a dealer with really low miles (in the teens?) but they wanted like 16 g's for that one. It was perfect, beautiful, and had about eighteen pounds of billet aluminum added to the interior. I figured for that $$ I was halfway to a new 5.0 and you can see from my sig. how that ended up.

Good luck.

I guess the reason for my thread is that I am seeing 05 GT's in my area averaging $14 to $15k....that's basically double the price for one model year. ....it just struck me as odd. I'm not gonna sell my 05 and go looking for another one though.
 
My dad has a 2005 GT and it is 100% waaaay better in every way even though his has more mileage on it. The car feels a lot more solid compared to my car., the engine pulls extremely well throughout the rpms compared to our 2vs, also the transmission is really the same so that's not a big deal. When I drive his car it feels more refined in the handling, braking, the engine loves to pull, and the overall ride is better. Yet I still like my car bc its mine but from a technical standpoint it is a better car compared to mine.
 
Strange....I try to civilly make this same reasonable technical comparison with the Fox crowd and it creates an uproar.

At which point some numb skull always interjects with "oh yeah, well all I have to do is sink X amount of dollars into my 5.0L and I can beat those S197's all day long"....

To which I usually reply with, "Awesome, now how much time and money do you plan on spending on the braking, handling, ride quality, build quality, comfort, ergonomics, fit and finish, emissions, mileage, etc, etc....just to match the levels of the stock '05....never mind surpass them."

.....that usually leaves them scratching their heads. ;)
 
One thing I will say is that I feel like with the new '13, I need to do nothing to this car out of the box. Of course, I eventually will, but I agree that the S197 platform is a better starting point.

With my 2000, I put on Kenny Brown subframe connectors within the first couple years I owned it. They made a huge difference in the car's stability even in just day-to-day driving, and I credit them with keeping the car rattle-free for the whole time I owned it (170,000+ miles). I threw on the Cobra brakes. I also invested a small fortune in billet "dress-up" items to get the interior where I wanted it. By comparison, the new 5.0 needs nothing.

Granted, these are relatively small expenditures, but the S197 is an all-around better and more modern package from which to start. As said above, that may account for some of the difference (although $8k to $14k still seems like a pretty big price spread to me).

Still, I loved my New Edge GT. It was gutsy and tough, and it was awesome-looking. It hung in there for many thousands of mostly trouble-free miles, and was quite fast enough for its day.
 
One thing I will say is that I feel like with the new '13, I need to do nothing to this car out of the box. Of course, I eventually will, but I agree that the S197 platform is a better starting point.

Still, I loved my New Edge GT. It was gutsy and tough, and it was awesome-looking. It hung in there for many thousands of mostly trouble-free miles, and was quite fast enough for its day.

I guess Shelby even bailed on the Mustang for a few years...maybe things are looking up.
 
A bit off-topic and I know I am preaching to the choir here, but I never understood the panning in the press that the SN-95 platform took the last few years. The point that they missed is that most Mustang buyers are not comparison shopping the way Consumer Reports would have you believe everyone is. We know what we want and don't really give a crap if our neighbor's ride is technically a "more refined" car; we'll throw on a few mods and stomp him in a straight line all day long, and look good doing it!

I think the same goes for the S197 in a sense. Now that everyone is waiting for the '15, the journalists are stepping up their criticism of the current model. It'll be interesting to see the price spread on my '13 vs a new '15 down the line a bit.
 
A bit off-topic and I know I am preaching to the choir here, but I never understood the panning in the press that the SN-95 platform took the last few years. The point that they missed is that most Mustang buyers are not comparison shopping the way Consumer Reports would have you believe everyone is. We know what we want and don't really give a crap if our neighbor's ride is technically a "more refined" car; we'll throw on a few mods and stomp him in a straight line all day long, and look good doing it!

I think the same goes for the S197 in a sense. Now that everyone is waiting for the '15, the journalists are stepping up their criticism of the current model. It'll be interesting to see the price spread on my '13 vs a new '15 down the line a bit.

Yeah, it always blew me away when these rags test the latest and greatest iron. They can never find enough good things to say about it while the car is in it's first couple of years of production, but as soon as the newest model is scheduled for release, the tide turns. By the time it comes to testing the next model, most of them haven't got a single good thing to say about the previous car.
It's funny...most of these editors are the same ones who wrote the first review. Kinda makes you want to take their first article and post it next to their last one and ask how they could expect anyone could take their opinion as credible after reading two such opposing opinions?!?
Kinda how most of the car rags criticize the Mustang for still having a solid axle. Never mind the fact that it's beating other IRS equipped cars handily around the track...some of which are noted for their superior handling (BMW M3 anyone?).....yet they just can't concede that the solid axle may not be nearly as bad as they've painted it to be.
 
Kinda how most of the car rags criticize the Mustang for still having a solid axle. Never mind the fact that it's beating other IRS equipped cars handily around the track...some of which are noted for their superior handling (BMW M3 anyone?).....yet they just can't concede that the solid axle may not be nearly as bad as they've painted it to be.

The current S197 is a well-sorted platform. And I bought mine now because I am sure there will be a few initial bugs with the IRS and high-tech doo-dads of next year's S550, and I didn't want to wait a couple model years for Ford to address any initial issues.

As for the SN-95, I think everyone who was writing about them at the time forgot that one of its great points was that it was a trusted old platform, Ford had worked out as many kinks as they could, and it enabled them to crank out a true performance bargain that really kicked some serious butt back then. It wasn't perfect, but it was very cool and relatively cheap.
 
It's only my opinion, but these new cars still don't look or sound as good as an 03/04 Mach 1 or Cobra. I doubt they ever will to me.


I have a 98 and an 05, and I like each one for their own distinctive style....what amazes me is how all the auto maker's cars take-on the same charateristics for given model years. I mean, when cars went to wrap-around headlights...it was everything from ricers to Chryslers.