Euliscool

Since I am gonna purchase a 04 TL soon, i need to sell my current car. As of rite now on kelly blue book, my car isnt worth much and there is a difference of 2000 if i were to sell it privately or trade it in.

Does anyone ever get the full amount of the trade in Value quoted on Kelly blue book from a dealer? Because i do have a person who is willing to buy the car off me, but at the quoted trade in value on Kelly Blue Book.

Any suggestions?

I cant wait till i get my TL... mostly to use the navi... i think i love the navi more than the car hahaha

Tripp11

Supposedly, no dealerships use the Kelly Blue Book anymore.....apparently they go off some "Black Book" which has even lower values than Kelly Blue Book. Don't know this for a fact but I've read it a few times on various forums.

One would think a private party would give you significantly more for your old car than the dealer would offer in trade...my $.02 would be to sell it privately. Plus, if the Black Book is what they use, then your trade-in will be even lower.

Hope this helps.

VTEC=happiness

I went off of the blue book when looking for my TL...the dealer split the difference between the retail/wholesale numbers

Tripp11

Sounds fair to me...plus, you don't have to mess with dealing with all the "potential" private parties.

vothsc

The black book is probably the NADA book. My dealer told me they use current average auction prices which of course are lower than anything we can come up with.

dwhitten

I got blue book value for my 2000 prelude but I am sure the dealer made it up on the price of TL. You always feel like you being taken advantage of. But I do love the TL!

Z Factor

The NADA will have a better base value than KBB to use selling the car.

If you have trouble selling it privately(were you will make more money than a trade), go to CarMax and see what they offer for it.

Rocketsfan

I wanted to trade in my '97 Maxima with 128k miles on it when I bought my '04 TL. No dealer would give me more than between $1500-$2500 for it. The KBB value for it was something like $4300 (from www.kbb.com) and it was in really good condition. I went to CarMax and they gave me $4800 for it - they even went to www.kbb.com and showed me that it was $500 more than the kbb value. I took it.

Pices312

I tried trading in my car and the dealer refused to use the KBB. He had some other book, not the Black Book. When I left him to think about it he later offered me $3,000 less than when I was there. That was an expensive 15 mile trip home.
I told him where to put his offer. LOL

wdoran

From my experience, every dealer uses Galves to determine trade in values. I tried unloading my 2002 Camaro SS on dealers a couple of times. At the time KBB said trade in on my car was about 21k. CarMax gave me the best offer on my car: 16k. Obviously, I'm working on selling the car private party (so I can pick up a TL).

Galves is a summary of what the cars are getting at the wholesale auctions. They don't take into account condition of car. It's a one shot number based on the type of car and the options it has.

I guess it really depends on the type of car, but most cars true value is less then KBB, sometimes significantly less. Good luck!

Hybrid

Galves has a website. Try here: http://www.galves.com/gal_beforeinfo_guidebooks.asp#kbb

and the rest of their site.

mitchdeerfield

Black book is used quite a bit in florida. It is available for free from the USA Today website . .

nickpoore

I had a 1998 Mustang Cobra Conv. with 117K miles.

KBB said $9K to $11K.
Dealership offered me $8200, and refused to offer more.
Sold via eBay auctions for $9500.

Dealership gave me $1000 off 04 TL.

You will generally do better by selling the car private party.
Whenever a dealership gives you a great price on your trade in, it's because they have room to negotiate on the car you're buying.

Good luck.

-=Nick=-

fuque

The problem with books is that they don't write checks.

The only way to determine the true wholesale market value of your old car is to shop it: take it around to at least 3 used car dealers and collect bids. The best bid is the current wholesale value of your car in your market today. Now you at least have a basis for comparison when you go to negotiate with your Acura dealer on the trade-in; if he lowballs you, you'll know it. If he won't pay what the car is worth, tell him to go **** himself and take the car back to your highest bidder. This is exactly what I did when I bought my TL - the salesman at Tustin Acura lowballed me by several thousand dollars on my trade, and wouldn't come up even after I told him I already had a bid that was higher than his. So I walked.

The bottom line is, if you don't know the true wholesale value of your car, you'll never know how to evaluate the offer you're being given. What invariably happens then is you end up getting taken. Spend a pleasant couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon shopping your car; those couple of hours could save you a couple of thousand dollars.

Hybrid

Nickpoore-
The Galves.com wholesale value on the Cobra Convertible:
PRICE REPORT

..:: VEHICLE
1998 FORD MUSTANG COBRA


..:: DESCRIPTION
Engine Type: 4.6L V8
Body Style: CONVERTIBLE
Vincode: [P46]

Standard Features: ABS STD
AC STD
AUTO TRANSMISSION NOT AVAILABLE
CD STD
DABG STD
POWER SEAT STD
POWER WINDOWS STD


Base Price: @ 45,000 miles 12,400
Mileage: 117,000


..:: ADDS & DEDUCTS

As Equipped Price 12,400
Mileage Adjustment -6,425

GALVES VALUE 5,975


..:: COMMENTS




Clearly, mileage is the big factor there. If mileage is not a huge concern to the buyer, the value would go way up. It doesn't look like the dealer was trying to rip you off at 8200. Actual condition is also a huge factor.

So what does this site say a used TL is worth? I checked the TL-S model for 2002 and 2003, both with Navi, which adds about $1,000. I assumed low mileage of 8000 for the 2003 and 16000 for the 2002.
2002 wholesale: 21275
2003 wholesale: 24125
I'm not sure what people are really getting for trade-in, but this would be a good test of the galves.com site. These are supposedly "auction" values.

It probably isn't completely valid to project the used car value to our 2004's, but if you assume the difference is $3000 per year based on the above values, you'd get a little over 27,000 for the '04. The new body style and content would also add to that, and very low mileage, so maybe 28,000 or 28,500. I'd guess 25,500 in a year. All that is purely speculation as there are too many factors involved.