I still have the pickup I got in college. And I’m dreading getting a new car.
What should I do with my old one? Can I trade it in? How much is it worth?
If I walk into a car dealer blind, I’ll likely get screwed. They hold all the cards and know this stuff a lot better than I do.
As it turns out, there are several options to easily determine my car value. This is the first step to getting a good trade-in when buying my next car.
If you want to learn the same secrets I have, read on.
Start by getting a value estimate from several different guides. That gives you a better sense for the overall range that you can expect.
The more data you have in hand, the better you’ll be able to negotiate a fair value for your car.
You will need to enter information about the vehicle:
Additionally, you will need to enter your ZIP Code. This allows the online car pricing guide to give you a value that’s appropriate for vehicles in your area.
Fair warning: you will have to provide your email address before you receive the information you want. I’d expect to get a bunch of followup emails and offers. Use a burner email if you don’t want this spam.
Here are the four best pricing guides for cars, and all of them will give you the basic information you want for free.
Be careful with these pricing guides, as some of them have ads that look a lot like the forms in which you’ll be entering information. If you end up clicking on an ad inadvertently, you may end up at a site that doesn’t give you accurate information.
You can use a couple of online tools to help you find prices for cars similar to yours that have sold in your city or region. These numbers can be helpful as you try to estimate the price of your car in a real world setting.
Guides may give you an estimated “value” but the real value is what the car is being sold for currently. Cars are only worth as much as someone is willing to pay.
Understand that the condition of your car may be significantly different than the sold used car that the site is using for data.
When looking at the value for your car on the web sites we have listed, you’re going to find a few different types of figures listed. It is extremely important to pay attention to these different figures, so you don’t make a mistake in valuing your car.
These values tell you what you should expect to receive based on how you plan to sell the car. Here are the four primary values to understand and how they compare to each other.
A trade-in occurs when you’re selling your car to a dealership as part of a transaction where you are purchasing a different car from the same dealer.
With a trade-in, you will receive a price toward the lower end of the range of values you’ll find for your car.
Remember, the dealer is going to be selling your traded in car on his or her lot. So the dealer will attempt to give you as little as possible for the trade-in, maximizing the profit the dealer can make on the resale.
Using a trade-in is popular, though, because it is a very easy process.
If you find the process of a trade-in to be confusing, you’re not alone. Dealerships do this on purpose to make it appear as though you’re receiving a large amount for your car. But they just use the math to charge you more for the car you’re buying.
To eliminate these games, you can ask the dealership to give you a cash offer for your car. Then, if you purchase a different car from the same dealer, request that the two transactions occur separately, so you can see the true price you’re receiving and paying for the two vehicles.
You also can use the cash offer to just sell your car to a dealership without purchasing a car from the dealer. A cash offer will be worth a little more than a trade-in, but it will not be as high as selling to a private party.
The benefit of accepting a cash offer from a dealership is that it is easy and hassle-free.
Many of the car value websites we listed earlier allow you to request a cash offer from dealerships.
Some sites list the price you could expect to find your car listed for on a dealer’s lot. You will not receive this price when selling it yourself, though, so don’t base your hopes on this number.
If you choose to sell the car on your own to a private party, you’ll receive a much higher amount than you’ll receive with a trade-in or a cash offer. It will begin to approach the price a dealership would have the car listed for on its lot.
Private party sales can be a hassle, though. You have to worry about title transfers and creating a bill of sale. If the car has several thousand dollars of value, accepting the large payment by check is worrisome, as is accepting such a large amount of cash.
You’ll also have to post ads for the car, meet prospective buyers, and follow up with people that are interested. There’s a lot more time involved that getting an offer from a dealer.
Your particular used car’s value likely won’t precisely match what a website says. The look and condition of the car is important.
If you’ve kept your car in pristine condition, cleaning it religiously and keeping potential disasters out of the car, your vehicle has a higher value than the person who hasn’t maintained their car.
Beyond cleanliness, these items have the biggest effect on the value of the car:
If the thought of shopping for a car and dealing with a smarmy car salesperson gives you a feeling in the pit of your stomach that’s equal to visiting the dentist for multiple root canals, you’ll find that having data on your side during negotiations over the car is a significant relief.
No longer do you have to wonder if the salesperson is lying half the time about what your car is worth. With a bit of research, you’ll walk into that dealership knowing what you deserve for your vehicle. The cards will be in your favor now.
How to Determine Your Car Value and Get What You Deserve is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.