Author Topic: Determining a good price for used car  (Read 3087 times)

stuckinmn

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Determining a good price for used car
« on: July 08, 2014, 08:31:30 AM »
What is the best website for determining a fair price to offer?  KBB and Edmonds have some wildly divergent prices. 

Should I be shooting for dealer trade-in value, private sale value or something in between?  Obviously, as a buyer, the lower the better for me, but I don't want to pass up some very good deals while waiting on the perfect one as my current car is on its last legs.   

neo von retorch

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Re: Determining a good price for used car
« Reply #1 on: July 08, 2014, 08:46:11 AM »
NADA Guides doesn't have Private Party prices, but is based on real transactions between consumers and dealers, and you can expect PP to be somewhere in between. But you also have Cars.com, AutoTrader.com and CraigsList where you can just find lots of cars close to what you want to buy, and see what people are asking for them. That should give you a real world range of what you can expect to pay, with a little wiggle room left for negotiating a better price.

TLV

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Re: Determining a good price for used car
« Reply #2 on: July 08, 2014, 08:46:26 AM »
No consistent answer as far as I can tell. When we sold our previous car, Edmunds suggested $3500 and kbb suggested $5400. I listed it for $6k to have room to negotiate down. The first offer was for $3.5k citing the Edmunds price, but the 2nd (both within hours of listing on Craigslist) was for $5500, citing kbb. I took the 2nd one, obviously.

greaper007

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Re: Determining a good price for used car
« Reply #3 on: July 08, 2014, 10:02:19 AM »
I've heard that it depends on what area of the country you live in.   In Denver everyone uses NADA guide, in other places I've lived it seemed that KBB was the champion.   Maybe call some used car lots and ask what they use?   Or look on craigslist and try to use some reverse engineering for how people listed their cars.

frugaliknowit

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Re: Determining a good price for used car
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2014, 10:03:12 AM »
Part of it depends on the car and how deep of a market there is.

For example, a 12 year old Ford Crown Victoria with 20,000 miles on it will have widely divergent values, whereas a 2010 Honda CRV with 40,000 miles on it probably wouldn't.

You could see what Carmax offers you as a starting point.

ketchup

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Re: Determining a good price for used car
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2014, 10:26:35 AM »
I would look at what the asking prices on comparable cars on your local craigslist looks like.  Could also check out past sales on eBay motors.

LibrarIan

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Re: Determining a good price for used car
« Reply #6 on: July 08, 2014, 10:35:45 AM »
You can at least get an idea of what the car might cost at KBB. kbb.com.