Edmunds v KBB Car $'s Miles Apart

If you've read my other post, in the market for a 996. Budget around $40k. I'm going nuts trying to reconcile prices. If I enter the exact same car, my hypothetical being a 2004 C4S cabriolet, 35k miles, silver, Outstanding/Excellent condition, and no major add on packages, Edmunds gives me $35k for private owner and $38.7 for retail. Seems OK, but you enter the same car into KBB and you get $49.9k for private and $54.3k for retail! Really, an almost $15k swing? What am I missing here? Any other pricing guidelines out there? Thanks

There is always NADA. Fwiw, specialty vehicles like this has never really been that accurate on the two mentioned. I tend to look at places like autotrader, cars, etc to get a more realistic representation of the market. For example, I would never sell my e30 m3 according to those guides.

No one would pay $54k for an '04 of that type. No chance. You can pick up an '06 pretty easily at that price. Not a 4, but here's an example. Sloan is always full boat retail, you never see a deal at his asking prices. http://sloancars.com/3735/2006-997-c...t-11621-miles/

Quotes source post: 10353799

I bought my 00 C2 Cab last month and found that they are both largely useless ranges. Pull up a car on ebay and use the ebay kbb link to get it's value, you'll find it's even worse. The "ebay" kbb values do not match the www.kbb.com values. I actually did send one owner the Edmunds numbers as a negotiating tactic showing him my offer was inline with market but he still turned down the deal and we remained 2,500 apart. I partially financed my car and can report that my bank used a number similar to the high KBB for value -not that it matters. I know people mention that the dealer uses the black book- I believe that shows up to date sales info - but others here would know more. Perosnally the gauge I used was based on research -this board, other boards, typical car for sale sites, ebay and then trying to buy 2 other cars (where I could not get the owner or dealer to what I considered a fair price). There was about a one week gap from the time I got an accepted offer (on the car I now own) and the PPI. The previous owner told me that during that week he took the car to the local dealer pretending he was buying another car and he said the trade in they we're willing to give him was the same price I was paying...I have no idea if he was truthful, but I don't think he had any reason to lie as the PPI was complete and I had given him the check. I'm also not sure if that means I got a good deal or not, but that was the price "I" was willing to pay. So does the dealer trade-in price represent market value? no idea. The obvious advice is start low and negotiate from there based on how much you like/want the car. I think the more time you're willing to spend looking, the better chance you have to find a great deal. Easier said then done for most people (me included, I only spent 3 months looking).

KBB is alway high. When I sold cars we used it to convince buyers they were getting a good deal. There are no solid, absolute numbers available to the general public. Dealers use Black Book and they consult weekly wholesale auction prices to price their cars. If you know someone in the business they can give you real numbers. Two valuations I like are Edmunds TMV and the website cargurus.com. Edmunds will usually be in the ballpark, while CG will give you averages based on actual cars listed for sale. One thing that will make a 2004 C4S cabriolet tricky is their relative rarity. Car Gurus only lists 17 for sale at dealerships nationwide. They may miss a few, but that is not a lot of inventory to choose from. Dealers know this and price accordingly. Supply and Demand is not just an economic concept, it's a fact. Good luck!

Thanks, guys. I figured the truth lay in between. You are right there is no substitute for research.

Clearbook (part of truecar) will give you 'black book' pricing, definitely more accurate than KBB... They put retail/private/excellent/2004 C4S w/ 35K miles at $37,100 with a range of $35K - $39K. Seems about right... But if that was my price range, i'd be looking for a 2002 Turbo with 50K miles, which books out at almost the exact same price spread.

Point taken about the turbo. Thanks for the Clearbook lead.

While KBB and NADA may both be a bit high, Edmunds is laughably low on any car you look at, on any transaction type (private vs. dealer). Compare them to actual *auction* transaction prices via Manheim, or general asking prices on Autotrader. Unless Edmunds thinks you'll be able to get 35-40% off (starting!) every Autotrader asking price...I think I know who may be in the wrong. My best guess is that they have failed to update their pricing logic in light of the massive used car price increases that happened post-2008. Clearbook (I had not seen until this thread) seems to be getting closer, although still lowballing it. Their "price certainty" seems to have a low "confidence," if I can call it that, probably due to the very small sample sizes for any model year.

35k sounds about right for the example you quote

+1 for a turbo in that price range.

trucar all the way! At this point $20k is about top end for a 996 anything (non-turbo). And at $20k we're talking full leather, convertible, immaculate condition. If your budget is $40k then you are firmly in 997 territory (or turbo.) I suggest buying as much as you can afford, getting past model year 06 or so might even get you a car that hangs on to a bit more value over time. Thats pure speculation on my part but one can always hope.

Quotes source post: 10356546

Have you shopped for either 996 NA's or 996TT's recently? I've had my eye on the market for Turbos for months now (had sourced one for my father, another was potential for a friend). High 30's @ 5x,xxx mileage is about as cheap as they come, in the kind of condition you'd like . You can always get lucky, but I don't bet on hope. On Autotrader for NA 996's, the cheapest "Premium Listing" 996 is a 2001 with a blown engine @ 12.2k asking; highest is A 4S Cabriolet w/ ~10k miles @ 49.9k. Out of "Featured Listings", cheapest is a 2001 theft recovery w/ damage, asking 13.7k; most expensive (from what I can see, page 10 of 10) is a 2003 4S w/ ~45k miles asking 39.9k. Autotrader themselves have down an average price of $33,470 based on 1224 vehicles. Granted that number is a mean and not a median (so it will exhibit some upward drift due to GT3's, GT2's, and Turbos), but the small listed quantity of the "exotic" 911 line will not likely be enough to pull it up substantially. I feel quite confident that a "median" base 996 (no Cabriolet, no S, no 4) with a solid history and ~65k miles, is roundabout a 19-20k proposition. Adjust for options, mileage, etc from there.

Quotes source post: 10356546

$20K for top end 996 anything (non-turbo) in immaculate condition? Maybe that's what you're hoping to find and maybe you will find one special situation...but your number does not represent market price. I saw a few beat up early MY996's that would have probably accepted 20K. Might also depend on your location. 20K for an immaculate 996...no I would not agree.

FWIW, I seem to notice that the really GREAT deals don't last for more than a couple hours before being pulled down and the reason why people can't find or give proof or evidence of these said deals. Thanks to the internet and all these bot type programs out there, the great ones get taken really really fast, and others that appear to be great on the surface have already been passed up by the initial vultures that inquired about them first and found something not to their liking, hence sloppy seconds. I once undervalued something that I listed on eBay and it sold in less than 30 sec from when the ad went live. Fastest sale ever for me.

Quotes source post: 10356546

I am sick of this nonsense. Show me an ad or prove a completed sale for my car's equal - a 2002 with 60k in outstanding condition - for $20k. Seriously.

Quotes source posts: 10354051, 10356743

I used to use Edmunds, but now I mostly look at CarGurus for pricing analysis. Their scatter plots, info about how long the car has been for sale, any price adjustments, etc... all very useful data. I spend waaaay too much time monitoring 996 prices on SF Bay Area CL (home to about ~7 M people) and I see the exact same pattern. My experiences are: #1 - There are less 996 cars for sale out there than I first thought #2 - A surprisingly large percentage sit for months and months -- which should contradict #1 (?) #3 - Then examples will come up (usually about one per month) that are priced to move and they're gone within a few days. But back to CarGurus... For those that aren't familiar with it, it can summarize asking prices by year and mileage. It gives you a very good view of the "spread" - who's being aggressive, who's a dreamer, etc... This morning, I sampled national asking prices for base 996 C2 Coupes , manual transmission, for each of the available model years: Generally I assume you can typically negotiate a 5% reduction from most sellers' asking prices... Karl.

Quotes source post: 10357627

I've never seen a 3.6L 996 with that condition/mileage for that low. But I do think you can with some patience (I define that as looking for at least 6-months) that you can get good/great condition, 75K-80K mile 3.4L for $20K (especially a '99)... Karl.

Quotes source post: 10358499

Exactly! And while those are asking prices, as opposed to transaction prices, even if buyers drive dealers down a couple of thousand this data shows that good to excellent 996.2s are generally running in the mid to high 20s, just about where I bought mine for 3 years and 25 thousand miles ago. This data also reflects the $21k trade-in offer I received recently from a dealer. As far as I'm concerned, my 2002 has depreciated very little since I purchased it and its any decrease is related more to higher mileage than to declining value.

Quotes source post: 10353799

First, my second hand info mainly from service managers at Porsche dealers is Cabs really depreciate. While SM's are not directly involved I've heard about the Cab owner who comes in to trade in his car for a newer one, or like happened the other day a guy was in to sell his Cab outright, and the conversation between the customer and the dealer that comes when the Cab owner hears what his car is worth can really be heated. The word is that the only owner for which a Cab is worth the premium is the 1st owner. Subsequent owners, not so much. Since you are considering a Cab I would think you would want to gravitate to the lower values. 'course if it were me looking for a used car I would do this anyhow. Not my job to find out why there are differences of opinion between these sites. However, I would also follow some cars to try to learn for how much they sold for compared to what they were being offered for. At a dealer, used cars have a very high markup. Figure 20% or more. I mean do the math. The dealer probably has no more in the car than what its wholesale (auction) price is and often the word is whatever is in the "book" is actually more than the dealer pays. Dealers often claim to work from the "back of the book" when offering one a trade in value. (Sure sometimes the dealer offers more than the book (happened to me after some negotiation when I was trading in my 06 GTO for an 08 Cayman S). But the dealer probably has something in the new car he can play with to sweeten the trade in offer, even though in the case of the new Cayman S it was discounted from a MSRP of $60.6K to $50.6K. Kind of suggests the markup that a new car has too...) Anyhow, the dealer offering something from "back of the book": This is to some extent though the flip side of what a car salesman will tell you when he's trying to sell you car. If you are a buyer, everything a car salesman says is intended to get you to buy the car as soon as possible and pay as much for car as possible. The flip side, if you are a seller (trading in a car), everything the car salesman (now functioning as a car buyer) says is intended to get you to sell the car as soon as possible and take as little money for the car as possible. Anyhow, compare the wholesale prices to the retail prices and you'll get a feel for what kind of markup there is. One technique then is to follow the market via a select handful of similar cars and learn when you can what a comparable car actually sold for vs. what it was listed for. Note too how long cars remain for sale. You have to consider possibly letting a good car or two slip past as you develop a good feel for the market prices. OTOH you could be looking at saving thousands. (Case in point: an 03 Turbo was offered for $62K. I bought it for $57.7K. I developed a good sense of the market for these cars and was able to negotiate a lower price. I'm sure the dealer still made money. Or... note the wholesale values for cars you like and start from there. You can always offer more for a car. But it is nearly impossible to take money off the table once you put in on the table. Doing the above takes more than just a willingness to make a low offer. You have to back up your offer with some data. Rattle off a the details on a number of similar cars available. Be intimately familiar with these cars. Show the dealer you have viable alternatives to his car. Indicate you are a serious buyer and will buy a car today if you get a car at a price you believe is agreeable. Be sure your offer is being communicated to the GM or sales manager. A salesman can only say no. Only the GM/sales manager can say yes. A salesman will say no out of habit and if you offer less than the car is being offered for he will say no, no, hell no, because he sees his sales commission falling to the floor.