Questions about used car valuation tools.

[RagTop]

I was checking kbb.com for the private sale value of my 2000 Z28 Camaro because we just bought a new family car and the wife says something's gotta go (not to include my Mustang or the GMC Safari). Given the mileage, condition and our local area, kbb says that it is worth around $5,900. Just for grins, I went over to Edmunds.com and, given all the same particulars, they say it's worth around $4,100. I did the same thing with the 2004 Safari and kbb came up with $9,500 while Edmunds says $6,100. What is going on??? Both take the zip code into consideration. I even used the second level from the top for kbb and the top for Edmunds. Edmunds private sale price is only 67% of the kbb private sale price. Anyone got any ideas why there's such a big discrepancy between the two sites? Anyone have any other sources that I could use to get a third, independent, benchmark? I tried Cars.com, but they use kbb as their pricing recommendation tool.

 

[Horseplay]

You've seen now firsthand just how useful those things can be. Your best source of information would be to look at the prices for similar vehicles currently for sale in your area. Be honest with yourself about condition etc. and you should get a good idea of where to price it.

 

[RagTop]

I took your advice and went onto Cars.com. Figured I should expand the search area to 500 miles because of the age of the car. Now I'm even more confused. Only one private sale of an SS in San Marcos, CA with only 70K miles for $13,299. The cheapest one I could find was a Z28 with 157K miles asking $6,999 at a dealer in Las Vegas. Closest to mine was a coupe at a dealer in Gardena, CA with 134K miles and they were asking $7,495. Compensating for the fact that mine is a private sale, it would appear that kbb is a lot closer to the market than Edmunds, and maybe still a little low. I had a kid offer me $5K for it yesterday and I turned him down.

 

[Midlife]

What people or dealers ask for a car is usually considerably higher than what was settled on. The latter is what these car guides are based upon (loosely, that is...).

When I traded in my 06 Mustang, the dealership offered a significantly higher trade-in value than any of the three major on-line price guides. All three price-guides were similar in price differentials between my trade-in and the price of the used car I was looking at, so I used that difference to make the deal. The dealer was asking for significantly more in difference, however.

 

[stangg]

NADA is always the highest, The difference between KBB versus Edmunds seems to be right about what I've found too. If your selling, use the KBB pricing for your asking price that way if you need to negotiate down you shouldn't be less than the Edmunds pricing. Personally I think edmunds is closest to reality... at least anything we've purchase has come very close to edmunds pricing.

Dealers like to use KBB or NADA and then discount it to make the deal seem sweeter when they knock some off... the good thing with NADA and KBB is it's easier to justify a higher value if you need to negotiate a total loss with insurance.