buying and selling used cars, confused by pricing

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Oct 3, 2012
Messages
207
Location
USA
Ive decided to get to the bottom of the used car pricing game. I recently sold a vehicle and I had a real time getting a bead on an accurate price. Kelly Blue Book and NADA prices were way off despite the same info being entered and if it wasn't for a friends help from out of state using his black book access, I'd have never know what was a fair price. I'm not talking trading it in or dealing with a dealer, just a sale from one person to another. I've been told NADA is more accurate than KBB but does the "clean retail" price reflect what I'd look to get by selling it on craigslist or is that retail as in what a dealer would charge? I even tried comparing prices with similar vehicles on craigslist and the prices were also way off (higher) from what NADA and KBB said the value was. How on earth are people arriving at these numbers?

Thanks for any assistance on shedding some light on this.

* I am NOT a dealer nor do I plan to be, just curious about this is all.
 
Craigslist people will never pay clean retail, they always want the cheapest price unless you have something specific and desirable like a certain year corvette
 
I will pay clean retail all day long (KBB or NADA) for a mostly original, 1-2 owner 5K-15K mile 1998-2002 Camaro Z28/SS or Firebird WS6/Trans Am. Please offer.

KBB and NADA are fairly accurate for cars that are higher mileage and at least 5-15 years old. They are probably the most accurate for cars with really high miles that are in their last 10-25% of life. They might even be accurate for cars only 1-3 years old, but I never buy in that range so I have no clue.

I watch the values for 1998-2002 lower mileage LS1 F bodies (Firebirds and Camaro's) and those price guides are out to lunch for anything with lower miles. Where they are "accurate" are for cars with 125K-175K miles. You can be taken to the cleaners if you sell a sub-65K mile car based on price guide. My 1999 Camaro M6 with 18K miles lists on those guides in very good/clean/excellent condition retail for around $8500. The car is worth $12,000 all day long. To find the real prices you have to track what actually sells and what realistic sellers are asking (typically the bottom 20% of all asking prices). I would imagine any collector or low mileage car prior to around 2007-2009 is probably out to lunch in these price guides. And the older it is with lower miles (ie cream puffs) the bigger the error.

Why should price guides be off? I submit it's of benefit to the dealers who need to buy based on them or accept trade-ins. Dealers are not constrained by them when selling since they dictate the prices based on true supply/demand....not a price guide. In other markets I keep tabs on, the errors in price guides of collectible markets are quite common across the board....again, to the benefit of the dealers and well-informed collectors.

I recall recently a dealer picking up a 2002 WS6 with around 14K miles (they stated they took it off a "friend's" hands). They didn't know exactly what it was worth but no doubt bought near "safe" price guide levels in the lower teens. After we told them it was worth in the upper teens, they proceeded to list it for sale at $24K-$26K or something. Why was I not surprised?
 
Keep in mind there are huge variations based on region and in some cases, even city to city in the same state / province. You might be looking at a price for a model in high demand in your local, or with near zero demand. There's really no substitute to doing some extensive searching in your local area and asking anyone you might know who knows the local market.
 
Originally Posted By: Tlhfirelion
Ive decided to get to the bottom of the used car pricing game. I recently sold a vehicle and I had a real time getting a bead on an accurate price. Kelly Blue Book and NADA prices were way off despite the same info being entered and if it wasn't for a friends help from out of state using his black book access, I'd have never know what was a fair price. I'm not talking trading it in or dealing with a dealer, just a sale from one person to another. I've been told NADA is more accurate than KBB but does the "clean retail" price reflect what I'd look to get by selling it on craigslist or is that retail as in what a dealer would charge? I even tried comparing prices with similar vehicles on craigslist and the prices were also way off (higher) from what NADA and KBB said the value was. How on earth are people arriving at these numbers?

Thanks for any assistance on shedding some light on this.

* I am NOT a dealer nor do I plan to be, just curious about this is all.



When people post an ad, they always post a higher price to leave room for negotiation.
Especially on craigslist as they are handling the sale themselves to save money. If an item sells too quickly, the Seller always feels that I've priced my item too low.
 
Private Party to PP retail ideally should ideally be less than the retail the dealer sells at. Otherwise, why even bother buying from a private party since they offer no financing and no guarantees/warranty? Depending on the car and the price guides you could get some overlap in these retail prices. If a dealer wants and should get $15K for a car they took on trade-in for say $12K (and would pay $10K cash outright), I'd expect to be able to buy it from a PP in between those prices.
 
Originally Posted By: 901Memphis
Craigslist people will never pay clean retail, they always want the cheapest price unless you have something specific and desirable like a certain year corvette


This. But it depends on a person's "vehicular self esteem".

Something like a toyota that runs and moves will be very esteemed. Never mind that it has 200k and just saw tires and oil changes, and is overdue for struts and other stuff. Because it already has high resale value (vs the average of all makes for the year) people think they'll get even more and so use "high retail" vs average.

A car that's in better than average shape will sell quickly, to the first person to look at it, but you have to have an average price to even get the lookers.
 
Originally Posted By: Tlhfirelion
Ive decided to get to the bottom of the used car pricing game. I recently sold a vehicle and I had a real time getting a bead on an accurate price. Kelly Blue Book and NADA prices were way off despite the same info being entered and if it wasn't for a friends help from out of state using his black book access, I'd have never know what was a fair price. I'm not talking trading it in or dealing with a dealer, just a sale from one person to another. I've been told NADA is more accurate than KBB but does the "clean retail" price reflect what I'd look to get by selling it on craigslist or is that retail as in what a dealer would charge? I even tried comparing prices with similar vehicles on craigslist and the prices were also way off (higher) from what NADA and KBB said the value was. How on earth are people arriving at these numbers?

Thanks for any assistance on shedding some light on this.

* I am NOT a dealer nor do I plan to be, just curious about this is all.


The prices in KBB, etc are a place to start. Depends upon where its listed also. I agree most CL people want a bargain. I have found that you can get a reasonable price on CL, but may take awhile. I sold my Dodge Ram and Jeep Cherokee on CL, but it took a month or two. Never tried a car on EBAY, but thats a possibility.
 
I'd look at CL and local dealerships, see roughly what is advertised. Actual selling price is probably 10% less, on average, for the prices&vehicles that you see for a week and then are gone. Stuff that is listed for months is either undesirable or priced too high.
 
I do KBB, then look at Ebay..to get a feel of what my car is worth..then I ask $500 to $1000 over the price that I solidly feel my car is worth.

I also buy with the same strategy that I have either $500 to $1000 to negotiate with.
 
Originally Posted By: 69GTX
I recall recently a dealer picking up a 2002 WS6 with around 14K miles (they stated they took it off a "friend's" hands). They didn't know exactly what it was worth but no doubt bought near "safe" price guide levels in the lower teens. After we told them it was worth in the upper teens, they proceeded to list it for sale at $24K-$26K or something. Why was I not surprised?



You can pick up the same year Corvette with the same miles for less than that...
 
Nadaguide is what most insurance companies use to determine how much to pay you if you total your car. The asking price has nothing to do with the final sale price. If you keep an eye on craigslist, the cars that are priced low go right away, the ones priced high are there month after month. Retail is what the dealers typically get. Depends on the type of dealer, some sell a little below retail and others sell at above retail. Kind of depends on the used car place. I've noticed that new car dealers that sell used cars tend to have better pricing that just pure used car places. Typically they got a killer deal on the trade in so they don't need to ask as much. Plus they do have to offer a warranty. I got a 60 day warranty on the Mercedes I bought and they got stuck with a bill for 2k worth of work that they had to take to the MB dealer to get fixed. The buy here pay here types are catering to desperate people so they can charge more than retail. So you end up with average retail adding them all together. A good price point at a dealer would be somewhere between clean trade in and retail. For private party, I see anywhere from rough trade in to average trade in as the best price, but there's lots of people out there asking for clean or retail or even more. The even more than retail just tends to be there month after month.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top