ProV1

run any used car on edmunds and kbb, and it seems like kbb private party value is waaaaaaaaay higher than edmunds.com pricing. why is this, and which one is more accurate??

AbusiveWombat

One way to find out which is more acurate is to do a search on a classifieds site (autotrader.com) and see what other similar cars are being sold for.

Poindexter

KBB and Edmunds aren't the most reliable sources for valuing vehicle values. They sell advertising, and they also sell leads to dealerships and other businesses. If they make you feel good about your car, you want to continue visiting their site. The more people use their site, the more money they can charge for ads and leads.

It is something dealers have to combat everyday

I will admit that in many cases they are pretty good - but when looking at your car, you have to be brutally honest with yourself - that is tough to do, especially when your car holds emotional value to you.

CG

Try NADA also. When I totaled a car State Farm paid off the NADA amount and it was much higher than KBB.

track309

Banks and dealers all use N.A.D.A. This guide will provide you trade-in, loan value, and retail value of each car. When the car is appraised, they dealer will almost always start at loan value which is the lowest and start chipping away from there.

As far as insurance companies, they will give you N.A.D.A retail value plus taxes.

Poindexter

Actually, most dealers use Black Book. NADA is for bankers - like you said.

ProV1

i thought NADA was worthless, their tradein values are often thousands higher than what you'd actually get.. same thing for private party values.

CG

When I was a dealer in the early 80's the Black Book was worthless for us in our area. We used NADA only. Times have changed.

hirev

we just traded our 2001 town and country limited chrysler van in on a new tsx...the money that was offered was between $5300 and $8500, for the same new car price...go figure that? that's right, our trade was $3200 difference between dealers for the exact same deal...we told every one what we wanted to pay for the tsx and wanted their best trade price. we got exactly what we wanted in a new car deal and our trade and $3200 more in our pockets by going to 4 dealers in person.

we got the same deal on the new car tsx price, so the difference was what we received in trade...it was obvious that someone wanted out business evern more than some others.

dlq04

My Impression: Edmonds is close. KBB favors the car companies.