I got my free upgrade to Touring today

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oko

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Actually it was better than free - I made about $220. I traded in my 2018 base model with a touring 2018. With the tax rebate, I will make (hopefully) about $220. 1 more year of warranty, brand new car with all leather seats, navigation and powered seats. Also the dealer had a lot of options on the car, tinted windows, door protector, locking tire stuff (don't know what it is called).

I thought a lot if this was worth the trouble, but in the end decided to go with it. Those in CA can probably make more than me by doing a trade in. One thing I thought about was waitng for 2019 model, but I doubt the dealers here in TX will get 2019 models, and if they do, I doubt they will discount it that much.
 
Congratulations! Sounds like you got a great deal. While many people here looked at both Base and Touring it's pretty rare for someone to have owned both. Will be interesting to hear how you compare the two. Base comes with quite a lot, Touring mainly adds higher level interior decor, power seats and built-in Nav. But if you notice anything else different be sure to let us know.
 
My base model had an early VIN (less than 1600). This one is at 21K. So I am guessing some of the differences I noticed (if real) are from that: The new one seemed to have better LKAS and better adaptive cruise (seems to notice lane changing cars in the front faster), but it might just be psychological.

My wife did not like the suede parts of the touring, she liked the base model's leather better.

Other than that, my Android auto somehow stopped working after I installed a 3rd party rom, so the navigation felt good.

We've yet to see if the power seats with memory will make a difference in our lives (I doubt so).

I was afraid that I am risking the "angry bees" problem by replacing the car, but, knock on wood, no angry bees.
 
Based on differing experiences with LKAS I suspect that it's not all due to different road conditions, but I suspect that not all systems come aligned the same. Although I haven't heard yet of someone taking it in to be aligned and reporting an improvement over the original alignment.

Android Auto stopped working on your Base or your Touring? Did removing the third party app fix it?
 
2002 said:
Android Auto stopped working on your Base or your Touring? Did removing the third party app fix it?
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It's not the app, it's the whole operating system (Android) upgrade. I have an old phone that still works pretty well (Note 3). But neither Samsung nor TMobile upgrades its Android any more. Previously I upgraded to Android 5.0 via 3rd party ROM, and had no problem with Android Auto (AA). But some apps stopped working with Android 5.0, so I upgraded to 6.0 via a different ROM. At that point AA stopped working (both in base and touring).

There are many ROMs I can try, but with built-in navigation, and bluetooth connectivity, I don't think I need AA anymore.

Some people might ask why I upgrade my $30K car in a year but not the $600 phone in 6 years. Well, if our government starts tax credits for phones, I'll do that one also :-).
 
What I did is simple: I just bought a brand new Clarity Touring 2018 and traded-in my 1 year old Clarity Base. One dealer asked for 10K out the door for difference, the other one asked for 9K. I negotiated down to 7.3K and paid 7.3K cash. The dealers at TX are getting rid of all Clarities, since they can't sell them at all. The sales guy told me that anything more efficient than 15mpg is a hard sell in TX.

At the end of the year, when I get my $7,500 tax credit, I will have a profit about $200 while getting a brand new touring.

If you can find a dealer that sells Clarity Touring for, say, 29K and value your trade-in as 24K, you can profit even more (I guess you'll pay around $6-7K with taxes, title, fees etc.)
 
oko said:
The sales guy told me that anything more efficient than 15 mpg is a hard sell in TX.
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That's sad. Predictable, but sad. I wonder what it will take to change that.

I live in a similar environment. I had to go to a dealership in another town to do the test drive because the local dealership couldn't even spell "Clarity". Then I made the bad decision of talking with the local dealership, and they assured me that they could simply do a car swap and sell me the car I driven. "We do it all the time." So I bought the car from the local dealer because I already had a relationship with him based on owning a CRV. That's when I got the email from the folks who had been so helpful at the other dealership and got royally shafted in this "we do it all the time" swap of cars. I still do not know how they did it, but the local dealer delivered the car with no bars on the battery charge gauge ... I have not seen that since. I didn't even think it was possible.
 
MNSteve: Did you request the battery report? I was also worried that the battery may have lost capacity, since the car has been in extreme Texas sun for some time (manufacture date is 10/18). So I wanted the battery report. The sales guy had no clue, but I am glad I printed out the sample report from one of the threads here. I told him it is a 5 minute thing that the service can do. Waited about 20 minutes, and he came back with the report: It showed 55.1 Ahr. That was a relief. The sales guy thanked me for teaching him a new thing :-).

If original battery capacity is 55, it looks like Clarity does not lose capacity under the hot sun, unlike Leafs.
 
oko said:
MNSteve: Did you request the battery report?
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No, at the time I took delivery of the car I was totally ignorant about things like that. Given that the predelivery work had been done (plugs installed; tire pressure adjusted) I assume that it was done by the other dealer - the one where I did the test drive.
 
how much did they value your trade-in? and how much discount did you get on the new car?

when you trade in the car, they deduct that from the taxable amount of the new car right?
 
This sounds like a cool option. And one I might contemplate, except for the fact that in retirement, most years we have little or no income tax liability to credit the $7,500 against. 2018 was an exception, which is what spurred us to make our Clarity purchase when we did.
 
S L . said:
how much did they value your trade-in? and how much discount did you get on the new car?

when you trade in the car, they deduct that from the taxable amount of the new car right?
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I don't have the paperwork near me, but it was roughly 30.5K (touring cost) and 24K (trade-in allowance). And that's correct, you pay the state tax only on the difference.
 
oko said:
And that's correct, you pay the state tax only on the difference.
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Which is how I paid $0 tax when I traded our Niro on the Soul EV. I really hope to work this hustle, it’s definitely worth a shot. There is also that tiny bit more information the i-MMD (i think that is what the call the center display) gives you for how you are doing from an economy standpoint. I don’t remember what that looked like at the moment though.
 
This sounds like a cool option. And one I might contemplate, except for the fact that in retirement, most years we have little or no income tax liability to credit the $7,500 against. 2018 was an exception, which is what spurred us to make our Clarity purchase when we did.
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Anytime someone finds a way to legally keep money in their pocket, it should be applauded.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
This sounds like a cool option. And one I might contemplate, except for the fact that in retirement, most years we have little or no income tax liability to credit the $7,500 against. 2018 was an exception, which is what spurred us to make our Clarity purchase when we did.
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What some people are able to do is if they have money in a IRA or a 401K from their former employer, you can roll that into a Roth IRA by doing something called a Roth conversion. From a tax point of view it's similar to taking a payout on the IRA or 401K withdrawal so you have tax liability, but meanwhile the money has gone straight into another IRA. Roth conversions on their own can be a good idea anyway because once converted you no longer pay tax on any profits in the Roth account.

Of course the standard disclaimer - check with your financial adviser. I have heard that doing the Roth conversion is pretty easy but if you do it yourself make sure you do it right because mistakes can be made and it is not reversible.
 
2002 said:
Roth conversions on their own can be a good idea anyway because once converted you no longer pay tax on any profits in the Roth account.

Of course the standard disclaimer - check with your financial adviser.
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I listened to two tax advisors debate this point once. One of them was adamant that your strategy should always be to defer paying tax for as long as possible because the tax might go down. The other was equally adamant that you should pay the tax as soon as possible because it might go up.
 
2002 said:
What some people are able to do is if they have money in a IRA or a 401K from their former employer, you can roll that into a Roth IRA by doing something called a Roth conversion. From a tax point of view it's similar to taking a payout on the IRA or 401K withdrawal so you have tax liability, but meanwhile the money has gone straight into another IRA. Roth conversions on their own can be a good idea anyway because once converted you no longer pay tax on any profits in the Roth account.

Of course the standard disclaimer - check with your financial adviser. I have heard that doing the Roth conversion is pretty easy but if you do it yourself make sure you do it right because mistakes can be made and it is not reversible.
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Since we're talking finances, funding an HSA should also be considered. Chances are one day you will be glad you did.
 
2002 said:
What some people are able to do is if they have money in a IRA or a 401K from their former employer, you can roll that into a Roth IRA by doing something called a Roth conversion. From a tax point of view it's similar to taking a payout on the IRA or 401K withdrawal so you have tax liability, but meanwhile the money has gone straight into another IRA. Roth conversions on their own can be a good idea anyway because once converted you no longer pay tax on any profits in the Roth account.
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Interesting. But I’ll be turning 70 1/2 next year, upon which partial withdrawals will be mandatory anyway. But likely not enough to generate $7,500 in tax liability. Not sure if it’s worth the hassle of converting to the ROTH at this late date. I guess I could always withdraw more than the minimum to get to that $7,500 tax liability without converting, but that IRA needs to last (hopefully) at least another 20 to 30 years.
 
Interesting concept but it brings to mind a few questions:

Did you buy the first one in Texas?
If so, did you take advantage of the $2500 state incentive?
If so, did you keep it for over a year before trading in for the Touring?
 
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