Help me understand

[trust]

this is totally irrelevant and is just something that Ive been trying to understand. How do we value Jeeps? When is a given price ridiculous for one jeep when another that SEEMS comparable or even to be less, is a steal?

Ive beeen spending alot of time at my mom's about 300 miles away due to some health issues with her and I've driven past a place and seen their sign from the hiway and thought on my last visit that Id drop in and see what they offered. It appeared to be a 4x4 customization shop and as I drove up I was not surprised to see a slew of cookie cutter jizzed up JKs. No surprise there but I looked in the window to see some other Jeeps inside, including a nice looking J truck, so I went inside. Of course a Salesman immediately descended on me and we started talking. I asked if they did any older jeeps and whether or not they took trades which he said that they did both and mentioned that they had a nice 06 LJ in the back, so we went to take a look. I mentioned I might want to trade my Scrambler and he said that they had one of those too. was intrigued... 82 Scrambler, $12k, hmmmm I had mine listed at $13K so maybe I wasnt out of line....

in back there was indeed a scrambler, I think, looked like one anyway. Nice metallic grey paint, hard top, new tires, etc. So I got to looking at it.... Replacement tub with diamond decking in the bed floor and angle iron...stuff... in the bed doing who knows what, all covered by a new coat of bed liner. Ok, so far my body is better and is stock but their paint is better, not sure how to score that, In the cab, now it gets a bit weird, there is a horn button through the speaker grille, an ignition key in the dash, but not where mine was in my 74, it just appeared to be in a bare spot. It had an aftermarket turnsignal set up ike I installed on my 47 Plymouth when in HS. OK, maybe its an early column, nope, not like any Ive seen before.... thats when I shut the door and asked again the price to be sure Id heard it right, yep $12k,and thats a great deal for a rare vehicle.... I dont recall the LJ, seems like it was low mid 20k range, whatever. And the J20 was on consignment, recent restoration with a claimed 18K miles for 22 or 24k

So I wonder, I see basic, nothing special (to me) jeeps with good paint go for thousands more than faded, slightly mismatched paints but with all the good hard parts, often with similar or inferior (in my mind) or unlicenseable drivetrains in them. Is paint the most important consideration? curb appeal is the principle driver to not only pricebut even salability? If so I guess a trip to Maaco would be worth a couple K$ more in trying to sell mine...

Does color matter too?

Enlighten me gents

thanks

 

[Ron84cj]

I have wondered the same thing. I think when it comes to less common vehicles I think a lot of people don't really 100% know how to put a number on it. About 13 years ago I bought a 1929 chevy truck that ran a drove good. Overall a true survivor. I bought it for $2500. Still to this day I have no idea what it's worth because I have never seen another one for sale and neither did the seller. Sorry, I know this doesn't help at all.

 

[tower210]

Value

Unfortunately, anytime you are selling something that is rare, and can vary in condition dramatically, values could be almost anything.

Our Scramblers are rare compared to other classic 4x4's of the same vintage; but not exceptionally so (like postals or worldcabs). I think the easiest value to assess for Scramblers is the unmolested originals with low mileage. These guys can be assessed by a recent history of auction results for similar original scramblers.

Outside of this group; we typically have the restoration candidates, restorations, the restomods, the "drivers" and the off road machines. Unfortunately, in my mind, all of these are worth exactly what you can find someone willing to pay for them. The quality of restorations that have already been done varies dramatically. We all have seen here on the site that buying a correct restoration candidate and buying all original parts to restore a correct quality scrambler could easily end up with $20-60K into it not including labor. The ceiling for scramblers (as far as I know) is somewhere around $40-$45k at auction. There seem to be lots of "jeep places" (typically small dealers and shops) that put a cheap coat of paint; 33" Tires; and a new decal set and try to flip them for $15-20k. Anyone who has been through this process with a CJ knows that there are too many small parts and pieces that need to be checked or replaced or if you try to drive that CJ daily for any frequency it will drive you nuts with 30 year old AMC reliability. I've been through and replaced what feels like 60% of the parts on mine (full wiring harness, fuse box, full front axle, full rear axle, transmission, carburetor, battery, etc....) and still struggle through items that I would never have go wrong with my DD (I had the top half of the mechanical fuel pump break on Saturday spraying fuel everywhere; but it was a part I hadn't replaced yet.

My advice would be to figure out what category your rig may fit into when selling; clean it up as best you can, and post as many large, high resolution photos as you can in the places that you are offering it. Offer as much detail about the upgrades that it has as you can; and why you made the choices you did (swapping to a 350 is a perfectly defendable upgrade because parts are cheap and available).

Selling is usually about convincing buyer you are offering more value than you are asking in return. Anytime you trade something you are going to concede value for the convenience of a two hour solution to your jeep upgrade; unless you happen to be trading something in very high demand (I sold my 2003 WRX for 2,300 less than I paid for it 3 years later with 50k miles on it). In my opinion, many times built up nice looking trail rigs can be one of the best values to buy already built.......but you have to convince the buyers that you built a vehicle making the right choices and that all of the changes from stock are easy to see, understand, and work on.

My 2 cents.....

I really do like your scrambler too......

82 Scrambler, 258 w 4.0 head and EFI, 999, Rear Dana 44, locked 4.10s, 5" Alcans, asymetrical, reverse shackle, Bilsteins, mastercraft seats, rockhard cage, Warn, internal spline hubs and a bunch of odds and ends.................This is a great list of hardware......

 

[trust]

thanks for the perspectives guys, I sometimes struggle to accept that everyone doesnt think like I do, even when they should..... To me well done mods increase value if they are mods that work for what I as a buyer want to use the vehicle for, strict restoration for Concurs aside. But when I see one cobbled together and painted or with terminal frame rust and its being gushed over as a steal while another one that is solid and well executed but showing some use iss ignored.

Oh well, takes all kinds and we all buy what we buy to satisfy our own needs or interests.

Thanks guys,