Trading in a vehicle can be bittersweet, especially when you’ve spent years enjoying it and putting thousands of miles on the odometer. However, one Oklahoma Mustang owner’s recent experience became even more frustrating when he discovered just how much his former car was worth to a dealership.
The owner took to Reddit’s r/Mustang community on October 15 to share what happened after trading in his 2007 Ford Mustang GT. According to his post, the dealership gave him $11,000 for the vehicle before listing it for approximately $18,000.
What’s especially interesting is that the owner originally purchased the Mustang in 2022 for $16,000, when it had around 60,000 miles on the odometer. By the time he traded it in, that number had climbed to nearly 107,000 miles, making the dealership’s asking price all the more surprising.
The situation has sparked a discussion among fellow Mustang enthusiasts about used-car pricing, dealership markups, and whether older performance cars are worth their increasingly hefty price tags. While dealerships naturally need to make money on trade-ins, the difference between what this owner received and what the dealership is asking certainly caught people’s attention.
Oklahoma Dealership Lists 2007 Mustang GT for Thousands More Than Trade-in Value
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In his Reddit post, the owner explained that he decided to check the dealership’s website to see whether his old Mustang had been listed for sale. He wasn’t prepared to discover that the car was being advertised for more than he originally paid for it four years earlier.
The vehicle appears in listings for Jim Norton Toyota in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as a 2007 Ford Mustang GT Premium with a 4.6-liter V8 engine, five-speed manual transmission, and approximately 106,970 miles. A listing on Cars.com shows an asking price of $18,007, while a separate indexed dealership listing displayed a higher price, demonstrating that advertised prices can vary between platforms or change over time.
The difference between the owner’s stated $11,000 trade-in value and the approximately $18,000 advertised price is roughly $7,000, although that doesn’t necessarily translate into dealership profit. Reconditioning, inspections, overhead, and negotiations can affect the eventual margin, and there’s no indication yet of what the Mustang will actually sell for.
Please note that the Mustang GT used in the featured image is not associated with the in question.
Mustang Enthusiasts Question Whether the Dealership’s Asking Price Makes Sense
The Reddit discussion quickly turned into a debate about how much older Mustangs should cost, with one commenter comparing the owner’s original purchase to their own experience. They wrote, “I can’t believe you paid $16k for a 2007 in 2022,” explaining that they purchased a 2006 Mustang for $18,000 back in 2009 with only 12,000 miles.
Another commenter questioned the dealership’s asking price despite believing the owner received a reasonable trade-in offer. They suggested that the dealership was asking the kind of money buyers might spend on a newer 5.0-liter Mustang, rather than an older 4.6-liter GT.
Interestingly, the original poster clarified that he was actually satisfied with the $11,000 trade-in offer because he had expected considerably less. He also explained that he wanted to avoid the inconvenience of selling the Mustang privately, although he was surprised to see the dealership’s photos still showing his old license plate, keychain, dashboard decoration, and window sticker.
Comments Question the Price of an Older Mustang
Some commenters were particularly critical of the Mustang’s asking price, with one writing, “It’s as clean as a 2007 100k mile GT gets. But $18k is crazy.” Another commenter predicted that the vehicle would sit on the dealership’s lot for a long time, suggesting that finding a buyer at that price might prove difficult.
Others offered a different perspective, pointing out that the market for older Mustangs has changed considerably over the years. One commenter wrote, “Mustangs are only going up in value. Love it!” while another attributed the higher asking price to what they described as a sports-car premium.
Perhaps the most interesting reaction came from a commenter who questioned why the dealership was still displaying the previous owner’s personal accessories in its listing photos. The original poster confirmed that he had left his license plate, keychain, dashboard bobblehead, and rear-quarter-window sticker behind, adding another unexpected detail to an already unusual trade-in experience.