An idea I've been throwing around...
 

I've got a sport model '04 and have been considering trading it in for a grand touring model with nav given the fact that there are alot of rebates and incentives going on. How much do you guys think the payment will go up? Do you think it's worth it?

Be cheaper to upgrade wheels/tires and buy an after market NAV. What major changes did you want to get out of trading up, besides NAV?

Check Edmunds.com or one of the other auto web sites for trade in prices. You could probably get a grand or two more selling it yourself. The car depreceates quite a bit the first year, shouldn't be too bad for the next couple years, so you might wait for a winter/year end clearance on '05s. By then we might know if '06s might have some upgrades that you'll want, or heelp drop the price on new '05s even more.

Yeah you're probably right on that one...I might just wait it out and see what kind of year end deals are going on, and the possibility of the MS8...I was mostly concerned with getting the NAV though and been reading about dealers practically giving 8's away, I thought I might be able to swing a good deal...but I know that it would probably cost more than its worth...

No...??

What I think he is talking about is the "Sport Package" which comes in auto or 6spd, as all the other packages do.

I just read about one person that put in the NAV screen...check the DIY section. It's costly but probably much cheaper than trading in your 8 for a GT version of the 8.

I personally don't see the great advantage of having factory NAV installed in the 8. I've been following the threads concerning the NAV system on this site, and it doesn't seem like those with the NAV are very satisfied. The current maps are used by the system are at least 2 years old, with updates promised but still not delivered and at over $200 per disk. It would seem to make better sense to buy a less expensive aftermarket NAV or GPS and use the difference for other upgrades.
Realize that if the dealer is willing to give you a great deal on a new 2005, then your 2004 probably isn't worth as much as you might think.

For one thing, right now there's no rebates or incentives on the '05s. Unless you wanna talk about Leases. New ones should come today though, so we'll see. Mazda appears to be updating their incentive page literally as I type this, since they expired 2 days ago and right now the rebate page isn't working.

Secondly, those same rebates kill your own resale. Once the rebates start coming out it becomes much harder to sell Used models, so your trade-in value goes down as well.

It might not go up too much if you do your financing again....since you've already paid a year or whatever, you can add another year on it with the new car and it would probably be pretty close. It mostly depends on what you'll get for your car. And if you really want to do it, sell it private party if the dealer is trying to screw you on it.

I have an 04 Sport Touring with 22,000 miles and it has been absolutely perfect. *knocks on wood* No flooding, averge close to 20 mpg, runs very very strong. My fear in trading would be getting one of these cars that gets 12 mpg, floods, cels, etc. If you've got a "good one" you might just want to hang on to it. I am.