Chia
I've been there. I have had one used first generation outback (a 97 bought in 2000) and a brand new one( 2004 LTD). I bought the first, used one, as a certified pre owned after a good deal of looking around at used "by owner " cars.
Here's what I think; if you like research and have the time to educate yourself, you can save some money if you purchase from private seller. Even if you basically understand what you're doing, you still need to have the car you're thinking about buying inspected by a private mechanic of you're choosing. This is more difficult if the car is far from where you live and where your regular mechanic works.
You get peace of mind, even if you "know your stuff " by purchasing from a dealer as Certified Pre Owned... there's a LOT of items that they need to inspect and bring back to spec before it can be sold.
I do not know how well NADA book values translate to the New Zealand market. NADA is what all the pros use in the US. Kelley Blue Book is also a widely used standard but not respected quite so much by car dealers. Anyway, those databases will give you some very good ideas of what cars should be selling for. In my experience the NADA values tend to be a bit higher. In both cases you want to look at Cert Pre Own values. They also list trade in, and "Retail ". Decide on the trim package you want (base, LTD,etc) and the miles you want, and the year. Play with those variables until you find a year,model and miles that fits your budget. Figure how much tax is... and then figure financing
. There are good calculators for this on the web. Kelley BB is online and has a great mobile app. Cars dot com is a great mobile app and has very good car reviews.
Now you start shopping. You can use apps like cars dot com to locate cars... or just find out the Subaru dealers within 150km of you and get their websites or mobile apps.
For example, recently I was looking for a Honda CRV. I narrowed it down to a 2009 base model with less than 50K miles. Nada or KBB was about 19,500. I was planning on getting this car for 17,500 so I was going to have to get a dealer to move about 2000 USD lower than book for cert pre owned. I found, with dealers around me in northern Vermont, they were not going to move lower than 18,500 or about 1000 under book. If I wanted to hold out and push I probably could have made a deal work... but at my price, it was not going to be effortless.
Then I came across a rav 4 at a dealer. The price was about 3000 USD below book. But it was a premium trim pack. I could not quite make the math work. It was book at about 22,000 USD and the lowest they would go was 18,000. A great deal, but I could not do it. A week later I walked back in, offered the same price. The car had not sold yet and they wanted it gone. I got my price.
My points:
Do your homework.
Know the exact model, year, trim pack you are looking for and know the book values
Decide on your bottom line price and stick to it.
Know that for your price, you will finance 3, 4, or 5 years... and what that will cost.
The dealer will expose your bottom line number by getting you into something that's more expensive than you were planning on and seeing where your point of reluctance is.
ALWAYS be ready to walk away from ANY deal!
Don't let the dealer shift the point of discussion from selling price to trade in values and monthly payments you want. The more variable like this that they bring to the game, the more they can manipulate the math and the more obfuscated the selling price becomes.
In the end, it's just a car, but there's real satisfaction if you've done your work and gone face to face with the professionals, got yourself a great car, fully warranteed at a great price.
Also, yes the H4 motors can all lose head gaskets after 130,000 miles. It's roughly 1500 USD to take care of it. Factor that in to your calculation of sales price.
