trade-in value.....really?

Always assumed that one can go by kbb or nada values for clean retail or clean trade-in. Contacted a non P dealer in Alabama with an 08 C2 for sale. He informed me that dealers dont use advertized values but instead Black Book. About 20% to 30% lower than the other two. I will not give my car away. Is there a site where trading between P-owners take place? Lucas

Trading from owner to owner sounds good, esp. if you have a C4S, Turbo, GT2/3 available to trade.....Nevertheless, if you are the original owner and/ or have alot if not all of the maintenance history on your car, you can find a straight up buyer right here on RL and get some good money as opposed to Black Book value. OTOH, if you find a Pcar you like, negotiate that price down to where you make up that difference. If that doesn't work .....walk away and take your business elsewhere.... my .02

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Yet curiously, the retail prices for used Porsches aren't correspondingly lower. Hmmm, odd. Could it be that most used car dealers are just scum? That would explain it.

What...car dealers are scum, couldn't be....

Well with all due respect to all here.. No one is in business to buy product and sell it for the same or less than they paid for it. So no a dealer is never every going to give you retail for your trade.. unless he is hiding the over allowace in the profit on what you are buying. Regardless... You are only ever going to get wholesale or less for your car when you trade

There are 3 prices for any used car: trade-in price, private sale price and dealer price. The difference between the trade-in and dealer sale prices are what keep used-car dealerships in business. It's legitimate, though, they're not trying to pull a fast one on you. And yeah, they'll maximize their profits any way they can, wouldn't you? Don't just trust their word on the black book value, do your own research on what Kelley Blue Book and Edmunds say your car is worth. High dealer mark-ups are also why person-person private auto sales are so popular. The paperwork really isn't all that bad, but both parties win-out: seller gets more money than trade-in & buyer pays less than dealership/stealerships would charge. However, there are risks/tradeoffs. For one, instead of potentially sitting on the dealer's lot for a few months waiting for a buyer, it will sit on your lot. Loan paperwork and title transfers can take frustratingly long amounts of time, too. And there is a certain amount of trust required between buyer & seller; really no different than the trust you put in a dealership, but people seem to trust dealerships more than normal people for some reason. Also, it's just anecdotal, but I've found Porsche dealerships to give far worse used car prices the other dealerships (and by a large margin) because they often have virtual monopolies and they can always find someone to pay whatever they ask, simply because they're the only game in town and a lot of people just aren't willing to NOT buy a Porsche from the dealer. See also: ridiculously high labor rates charged by Porsche dealers for work any shadetree mechanic can do.

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+1 Car dealers are not scum because you don't like their offer for your used car. Do your homework and don't sell them the car if you don't feel that it's enough money. You can always sell the car on your own and many car dealers I've talked to will readily acknowledge that you can probably get more for it that way. Also, that coffee or soda the salesman offered you when you walked in the door was not free.

Dealers also use auction results. There are "High Line" auctions in several areas of the country and the sales price list give them a true idea where the market is. There is a wide range of retails sales and no reporting program. I like to use eBay and look for "ended sales" within the last 45 days on a product as close as possible.... eBay, for all its challenges gives a real "bid/sale" market....

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I always went by my auction sheets then looked at Black to compare and then put a number on the car. (when I was in the biz. Not so sure about ebay. I do go there for personl ideas on what something is worth.. But generally its worth a little more in person than on ebay.

in the past 5 years of purchasing cars, each dealer, and there have been quite a few different ones that would bring out auction prices. These were always lower than kbb trade in. I always walked.

The strange thing is my saab is listed at 12700 at kbb....but at dealer auctions goes for 14-15000k. Wierd.

Is the problem that all "book" prices are too high? If this is the case, why would the very guides put out by the NADA (an association of car dealers after all) have such bad information? They could change it, right? Or is it that used car dealers just can't get by on the ~20-25% spread between "trade-in" and "retail"? Not that they're necessarily greedy scumbags--maybe they really can't run a business getting $8-10K gross margin on a used Porsche sale. On the other hand, if auction prices are that incredibly low, you'd think there would be a huge boom in agent-purchases?

Most dealers in my area use Maheim auctions results.

There are so many variables in dealer pricing that it is hard to know where to begin... 1. Black Book is the bible. It is printed every two weeks (IIRC) and is based on region. It provides the values that dealers use to trade cars between themselves and represents the real world. It only lists basic options, rather than the big list you get at Edmunds and Kelly. It is not available to the general public. If you want to know what your car's BB value is, look in KBB at the lowest wholesale value. Usually BB is just below that. (On that topic, KBB et. al. are published by the same folks... and are often used by dealers to justify higher prices. We used them at Carmax when I worked there in the 90's to prove how good our prices were. And our prices were high. 2. Another important factor is local inventory, both on the dealer's lot and competitor's lots. No point in paying full trade in on a car if you already have 3 of similar a model. A dealer's job is not to provide used car selection of options and colors when it comes to exotic and sports cars, there is just not enough volume to make it profitable unless you are huge. This factoris killing Boxster values big time. 3. A dealership's main goal is to make money. You cannot blame a used car dealership for acting like a used car dealership. An informed buyer knows what his car is worth and recognizes that a dealership needs to make a reasonable profit on the sale of a trade in. A friend who runs a local dealership often tells me that casual customers have no idea what it costs for him to cycle a car through his shop, once you add up reconditioning, advertising, and DMV paperwork. Most dealers are honest guys trying to get by in a business that is really struggling these days. Do the math to figure out how many cars you have to sell a month to just break even on fixed and variable costs of running a decent dealership, even a small one. The margin is tight. Does this mean that every dealer is honest and forthright? Of course not, they're used car dealers. My rule: I do my homework and I bargain tough. But, I never begrudge a man his profit.

A lot of true information posted by several of the above members. Black Book value, or whatever dealers will be willing to pay for your trade, is slightly lower than KBB's, as a guide for the consumer out there. Most of the time, that is. I have seen many people bringing in their KBB printouts with their trades, and it turns out the dealership is able to appraise their trades at a higher value than KBB's suggested value. Weird...but it's been happening a lot lately, on certain cars, not all. One good example is the Mini Cooper S, it is worth MUCH more at trade-in than what KBB says it is. Advice: Don't be too smart too quick. Check KBB and everything else, you don't need to wield your printout until you get a lower than expected appraised value at the dealership. Because you might just get more! The other thing to remember is the physical and mechanical condition of your vehicle. A bad dent, a sunroof motor, window regulators, or a set of tires, worn interior, check engine lights (very common - this is a risky one for the dealer, as it could be anything!)....they are all big money items to fix to get the vehicle up to par to place in inventory for sale at the dealership. Those will set you back anywhere from $500-$2000 below expectations.

I got my P-car at a dealer and I traded in an 04 Volvo S60R. We set a ballpark on the phone that I was ok with and when it was said and done I got almost 2K above that. I couldn't have been happier with the whole process. I'm the first to say I hate dealers and they always jack you on the trade, but there are good dealers and sales people out there.

If the dealer is having a good month ( or months) of sales, they "may" come down a little further to bring in another sale. Obviously, if they just jacked the poor soul on the previous transaction and were able to get their hands on a Pcar for a low price, they'll sell it a little below market to send it right back out to circulation with very little advertising . they just give it a quick detail and out it goes. IF they have a reputation as a good dealer in the community, then they'll give the car a once over to make sure they didn't pick up a lemon themselves.

Lot of good info, thanks. My brother is the GM of a P, J and L dealership. According to him, the KBB trade-in value is close to what they would give depending on miles and condition and also the car they are trading for. My gripe is with dealers that advertise a low price and then offer an extra low trade-in value. Like you guys said, just walk away.

PM how much you're looking to get for it. I may have a friend that would be interested.

a car is only worth how much someone is willing to pay for it on that day. I listed a mercedes on ebay last year no reserve it got bidded to �4560 but i wanted more, so I managed to get out of the sale. I relisted it a week later it went for �6900.

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Exactly. All of these books and guidelines are meaningless. If you think you can get more than someone is offering you, go find another buyer.

It takes two parties to make a sale happen. A buyer and a seller. If the buyer wants more than the seller is willing to pay, then the sale does not happen. What am I missing here ? Is the buyer an a-hole for not offering more is the seller an a-hole for expecting too much? Neither obviously. A case study...there's a GT3RS for sale here somewhere for $99K. A good price but damnit I only want to pay $50K. How many ways are there to analyse this situation?

So if all published prices are meaningless, then maybe you (dealers, as a trade organization) shouldn't write a book listing them, hmm?

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Why not? It's for their own reference and I've never seen a dealer start a thread upset that they couldn't agree on a value for someone's trade-in...they just move on to the next guy. The people trading the cars in tend to be the ones that get upset, usually because they think they're getting cheated because a buyer/dealer doesn't want to pay them what they think it's worth. Both parties should use whatever tools they like to determine what number they're willing to pay or accept for a used car. The fact that it's in a book or on a web site really doesn't change anything.

Here's my 2 cents, Lawyers, used car sales men and (most) garages.... assume they are lying through their teeth or at least omitting the truth! I've had my fair share of being screwed over (to some the degree or another). But bottom line is I blame myself for not having paid more attention to the details. In the end they are looking out for themselves, just like you and I should be. We live in a world where they'd rather make quick buck and crew ya over than make a little less and have a loyal client... My motto, "question everything"! Cheers, Sid.