To begin calculating a price, research the wholesale value of the car
— that is the price dealers are paying for the car. Pricing guides
published by the National Automobile Dealers Association’s Official
Used Car Guide will tell you the wholesale price of your car. Other good
price guides include the Kelley Blue Book and Edmund’s Price Guide.
These books are sold at newsstands and bookstores and are available in
the reference section of most libraries.
Find out how much vehicles similar to yours are being priced at retail.
Check out similar models in the classified ads of your local newspaper.
(You can find the automotive classifieds for more than 100 newspapers
online here on cars.com.) Other resources include local publications that
specialize in private-sale vehicles, such as Auto, Auto Mart, Auto Trader.
Check out how high local dealers are pricing equivalent vehicles.
If you have a special-interest or collectible car, check Cars of Particular
Interest (CPI) Value Guide or Hemmings Motor News — which are available
at most large newsstands — or the classifieds in motoring magazines.
You also can consult members of a local car club or a professional auto
insurance appraiser.
Once you know the wholesale, trade-in and private sale values, you can
come up with a price that should be lower than the dealer’s suggested
retail price but higher than the price a dealer would pay for a trade-in
or the wholesale auction price.
The hardest thing for people is their emotional attachment to their cars.
Many people think his or her car is the nicest one there is, which it
may be. There is still a limit to how much the car is worth.
Also, the value of your car has nothing to do with the loan payoff [the
amount still owed to the bank]. Many people feel that they should get
whatever is equal to their loan payoff for their car. The two are unrelated.
If you are upside-down [owe more than the car is worth] as they call it,
don't worry. Most people who have a loan payoff are.
