I agree 100% with this.
What do you think could be done to improve the value of the Galant VR-4 and how could this benefit your community?
My strongest conviction is that available information is one of the biggest drivers of the perceived value. Lack of information on repairs and maintenance drives the value down as issues that affect non-enthusiast owners turn out to be expensive problems that result in selling at a depressed public market rate or crushing of the car. The best example of this is ECU failure due to ruptured capacitors. A factory replacement will cost you $900. A high-school electronics student could replace just the capacitors for free with $2 in parts.
There is also some spillover from the DSM crowd who don’t have the same consideration of the VR-4′s rarity and are interested in “fast, cheap and easy”. Or new owners who get frustrated or are unable to get the knowledge they need from the community and often damage something or hack something and end up selling for cheap just to dump their problems. These vehicles are often picked up again by like-minded individuals who repeat the process, giving the perception of falling or low value.
After seeing a low in the last 2-3 years, market value of a VR-4 has started to climb up. It used to be that a Kelley Blue Book search would show the car’s value only marginally higher than any other trim 6th generation Galant. The spread is now about 3x. In general I believe that the United States is now more receptive to all wheel drive and turbocharged automobiles than in years past.
Sometimes these cars are removed from the market by those who know how to extract more value from the car, sometimes in a manner that is not very popular.
