...I have used KBB to check values on vehicles, but dealers in Florida use a Auction Value Black book to appraise your trade it.....I prefer to buy from private owner(s), or if I decide to sell, is to sell it myself....I know that dealers are in business to made $, and they have a lot of overhead to pay for, but I would only go to a dealer to buy a New car...(another SpaceDream) LOL ~> New Car (more like new wheels 4 my skateboard)

Member's, How do you judge the value of your car or other cars you are interested in ? ? ? Please post & share your experience/knowledge~> Thank You
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How Car Dealers Nickel and Dime Your Trade-in So You Pay More

Having All The Data Isn't Always A Good Thing

by: Gary Hoffman


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from this Author

The situation comes up again and again. Customers come into a dealership to buy a new car with high hopes of getting a great price for their meticulously maintained trade-in. The interior is immaculate, the exterior basically looks brand-new, and they have a file folder full of maintenance records under their arm.
But after spending a few minutes with a salesperson armed with a vehicle history report, they are crestfallen. Whether minor or serious, any accidents listed in the report could easily end up costing them a few hundred -- or even a few thousand -- dollars on the deal. They are pitted against the very tool that they may have employed as used-car buyers in the past.
Dealerships say they rely on vehicle histories from firms like CARFAX and AutoCheck to protect their used-car inventories as well as their future customers. But when accidents show up in the histories, critics say, those records become the perfect tool to dampen expectations about a trade-in's value -- justifiably or not. The seller ends up feeling as though a black mark has shown up on a credit report.
"It's very common in the industry to use every possible instrument to get the price down," said Tim Blake, a Miami attorney specializing in consumer and car dealership issues.
It's also part of the drill to point out every dent or scratch on the trade-in vehicle, he said. And if a vehicle history provides documentation, so much the better.
While vehicle history reports are marketed heavily to consumers, the concept originated as an aid to dealerships. CARFAX, the pioneer, was founded in the early 1980s, and only began providing vehicle information to consumers in the 1990s. Dealerships are a major source of business for AutoCheck, another provider of vehicle histories, as well as CARFAX.
Jeffrey Bennett, a professor of automotive marketing at Northwood University in Midland, Mich., says that's just natural: dealers need to protect their customers from lemons and clunkers. But Blake argues that dealerships mostly value vehicle history reports "as a weapon. Sales people like to wave them around."
In the hand-to-hand combat on the dealership floor, it's data versus data. Customers today are armed with incentive and pricing information when they walk into a showroom. The history reports, retrieved from databases with a vehicle's vehicle identification number, offer dealerships an opportunity to fight back. Given their razor-thin margins today, they may see that as a necessity.
Dealers have to protect themselves, too, Bennett said. If a dealer accepts a defective car in trade, it's going to be the dealer who is liable, not the person who traded in the vehicle.
When Bennett was a Toyota dealer, he caught several brazen customers trying to buy a new car without admitting that their trade-ins had been in extremely serious accidents. In these cases, it turned out that the cars had salvage titles. A salvage title indicates that the car has suffered damage equivalent to 70 percent of its value. They would have been nearly a total loss to his dealership.
"We couldn't sell a car with a salvage title," he said.
Minor Accidents Can Mean Big Problems
An accident or two on a vehicle history report might not be an indication that a car has major problems. But perception may be more important than reality. Amanda Levin of Park Ridge, Ill., found this out when she began negotiating a trade-in price for her meticulously maintained 2005 Toyota Matrix with about 87,000 miles on it. Its book value was about $6,000.
She told her salesman about her two minor fender benders. She also mentioned the time the front bumper came loose in deep snow. Although minor, the three incidents were reported to her insurance company because she had a low deductible and could get the costs reimbursed. But that was more than enough to get them into the vehicle's history.
If the Matrix were taken in trade, the salesman told her the dealership might be forced to sell the car wholesale or even scrap it, Levin recalls. The fact that her Matrix might be sold for parts bothered her more than anything.
"It was my first new car," she said. "After taking such good care of it, I wanted it to go to a good home," not wind up in a salvage yard, she said. After some more conversation, she accepted $5,700 as the value.
Bennett says it wasn't likely that the dealer would have scrapped Levin's Matrix under those circumstances. Blake sees even the suggestion as a negotiating ploy.
In any case, dealerships don't really need vehicle histories to evaluate cars, Blake says. "Their appraisers can walk around the car, and not even open a door or the hood, and tell you everything about a car," he said.
"They can tell when a door doesn't have a nice solid line," he said. "They can tell when a door has been repainted. The can tell when the rivets on VIN number on dashboard has been pulled and there is a fake VIN number on the car. They can tell it all."
But Bennett says they do need the information. And their appetite for it is nothing new -- it's simply gone high-tech. Before vehicle histories were available over the Internet, dealers would readily factor information about accidents into their decisions if they could uncover any.
Accidents simply create uncertainty about a vehicle's mechanical condition, he said. "It's just the way things are," he said. "The perception is that a car that has been damaged is worth less than a car that hasn't -- regardless of the level of the damage."
Bennett offers this example: First of all, assume you have a choice of a blue 2007 Dodge Caravan or a red 2007 Dodge Caravan with the same mileage. Then assume the blue one has been in a "superficial" accident -- one in which the airbags did not deploy and the structure was not damaged.
"On the other van, let's say that there has been no damage whatsoever," Bennett said. "No matter how we look at this, the blue van is not going to be worth as much as the red one because it has been repaired."
Before vehicle histories were marketed to consumers, Bennett recalls, a friend of his had to have his car repainted after a contaminant ruined its paint surface outside a factory. "In reality, the car had no real damage," he said. "But the fact that a car has been repainted at all will lower the value of the vehicle," he said.
At a dealer-only auto auction in Flint, Mich., each week, Bennett regularly sees buyers from dealerships painstakingly measuring the thickness of the exterior sheet metal. They want to know if the vehicle has been repainted -- an indication that it may have suffered major damage at some point.
If the exterior was in fact repainted, "the guy might still decide to buy it and assume the damage was minor, but it won't bring in as much as it would have otherwise."
The lesson is clear: In an automotive industry awash in data, it may take more than just oil changes every 3,000 miles to maintain your trade-in's value. It may take a perfect accident record as well.
To get a free CARFAX record check on any vehicle, click here.

 

Vehicles 4-Sale $$$$ Cheap $$$$ As soon as they dry it out they are trading
Wonder `if it's the one you just purchased ? ?
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First off ill say Carfax is a joke it lists my monte as minor left front colision on the history report which we all know isnt the case & i just traded in an imaculant 03 F250 with 97k on it the dealer was upfront with the fact they wernt gonna keep the truck cuz of the milage & this was before they seen it well anyways we went up there to get my Edge & cuz the truck was well taken care of no scrathes dents or any of that they gave over the kbb trade in value & the truck had been in 2 accidents so it all depends on the dealer & how well the vehicle is, & with my employee discount we get i figured id lose on it

 

Good post Space, I usually use KBB as a starting point, and yes you are much more likely to get a better deal from a private party.

 

CarFax is not the end all be all. It lists only what was input to records it searches (which I believe are all public records). It's not the fault of CarFax that the police did not indicate your car was rolled.
I will say, I have all the VINs to my old cars. One day I felt nostalgic, and I looked up on the local DMV/BMV web site, found my first car has a title with the status "Junked". CarFax (when I signed up for an unlimited use package when I was car shopping) reported it as a "clean title" and later I got an e-mail for Buy Back Guarantee!!

As long as you respect that CarFax is NOT 100% (unlike there hype advertising) and use that as a tool to go with other common sense, it can help. Such as, a friend of mine bought from a private seller an '89 Turbo T/A (one of 1,550 produced with a turbo v6), he wishes he did a CarFax. About 6 months to a year later I had a CarFax unlimited use package, ran the VIN to learn where the car had been. In Evansville Indiana his Turbo T/A had a salvage title. Which he would have used that info as leverage on price and better inspection OR walk away (he found the under body has a ton of dings and body damage that suggests the car was ditched, we also believe this explains the cracked trans bell housing).

In my case, I was working a deal on my Monte with a guy 4 hours away. He was a wholesaler and claimed he was not aware of any accidents, CarFax informed me my Monte had one. He claimed the car clean, I negotiated a price that if it met with my approval, it's sold (CarFax helped with that). I looked at the car, it's clear it had a minor something (blemishes and very slight bend on the bumper and a repainted fender, but you don't know the fender's secret unless you pop the hood and 9 out of 10 people would not notice). Either way it helped a little, but it's not a full replacement for experienced hands and eyes looking at a car.

 

Now, Space asked how we determine a car's value when we are shopping....
- 1 - I usually rely on KBB to give me a base value (looking at private party values). If I can get a car in good to great condition (by my opinion, basically drive it away, needs little to no work) and I get it at a price (tax/title/license) at or below the lowest private party value, I did good!
- 2 - Recognize the car. KBB is not everything. Such as, a car with higher demand may have a higher value then what KBB lists. How do I figure that? Check my local market value, look at dealers, private sellers, classifieds in the paper, autotrader.com, anything that is a LEGIT car listing. Look at some of these cars to learn the condition of what is at that value.
- 3 - If it's an out of state transaction and you feel the drive is wasting your time if it's a dud, CarFax. I also use CarFax in most local cars I've looked at. Despite the hype, CarFax is a tool, but not a replacement for your own gut feeling. BUT, if it reports an accident or any funny business, even if you still want the car, this is LEVERAGE!! The car now has LOST value no matter how good the work was done. Now it's up to your ability to negotiate.

When I look at a car, I look/feel the undersides of the doors, check the under body of the car, I will open any storage compartment (most private sellers have invoices of car services done in the glove box, if they left it there and I'm on a drive, it helps track the history in their ownership, also for those who think it's wrong, if the owner did not want that info seen, shame on them leaving it in a car they are letting people test drive, people INSPECT things, like does the hinge and latch work). I inspect the fluids (such as pull the dipsticks out, check the color, smell it, feel it). An old thing was to check the preset radio stations and determine the "age" of who usually drove the car (that's a real sketchy one, but to some it's valuable, to me, bottom of the list).
Try to get a sense of how it was maintained (a clean engine bay from a private seller earns points, as most private sellers don't have a car professionally detailed like a dealership, so more then likely, a clean engine bay was maintained by the owner). Don't be afraid to ask questions (even if you think you know the answer).

And for a car I want as a daily driver, I have NO interest in a modified street car unless I know the mods and the person who did them. Modified cars can sometimes be trouble as they could complicate your reliability of the vehicle (depending on what was done and was it done right). This excludes exhaust or a CAI, those are very basic mods.

I think that overly details a lot of the "top of my head" things. Hope you guys found my ramblings helpful

 

Well when I sell Silver I'm going to get dinged big time. I was in a minor fender bender 2 years ago. I was hit in a parking lot and I reported the accident cause I wanted the jerk who hit me pay for everything cause it was his fault. My car came out in better condition than before the accident cause I had a ton of paint chips on the front. The shop I went to used all OEM parts and there was absolutely NO frame damage. It's not fair to see a black mark on a car fax when it doesn't describe the situation. Oh well Craigslist here I come!

 

I've got to say that when buying anything it is BUYER BEWARE. Having moved from New England to Florida I find that business ethics and morality here are horrible. Here in Florida if you don't have a signed contract with all the T's crossed and I's dotted you have nothing here and sometimes even with the contract you have an uphill fight to get a business to do as promised. Government and the courts down here usually side with the business.
As far as the car dealers are concerned there are way to many that are dirt bags. I don't understand how the attorney general allows the advertising that is done. Here in Florida most dealers advertise in the newspaper with a ridiculously low price and an asterisk to see the fine print. The fine print says with price is good the day of ad only, must have 3000.00 or more in cash or trade equity, must have a 760 beacon score, must pay T.T.T. (Tax, Title,Tag), a disclosed dealer loyalty fee, and 699.00 or more in dealer documentation fees.
Many dealers here also advertise in the classifieds like Craigs list and don't disclose they are a dealer or under another name.
I won't deal with the above type dealers. When I bought my 06 Town & Country I surfed Craigslist looking for it. I went to look at a few. The first one I called on and went to look at they didn't disclose it was a dealer even when I called the number. They gave me the address where it was supposed to be located. I drove there and it was Lakeland Chrysler-Dodge. When I realized who it was selling I was pissed because I went looking for an address but I knew where the dealer was. After that I asked to see the van and they immediately tried to switch me into something else. Turn out the Town & Country I wanted to see had been sold days before. I went to look at another that was advertised as some credit finance company. It turns out after again looking for an address that it is Lakeland Toyota. Again the vehicle wasn't available and after talking at the Toyota store and not being able to be switched into anything else they suggest I try their sister store Lakeland Chrysler. I won't do business with either place and know the same dirtbag owns them both. The van I bought was also advertised on Craigslist. The ad disclosed that the van was offered by Jarrett-Scott Ford in Winter Haven Florida. The ad represented the van well and I didn't feel like I got the shaft when I drove away. I would buy from them again. I finance thru my credit union at work and there were no strong arm tactics employed at the dealership. My 95 Town & Country I bought at Fox Motors in Lakeland. Fox is a buy here pay here lot. My credit isn't great. Usually at one of these lots it is a case of you need a car and they will provide one but bend over cause you are going to pay dearly and they are usually junk. The vehicles at Fox are decent cars and Doug dealt with me fairly. I paid more because I used the buy here program. I paid it off early and I even got a refund on the amount paid. I admit I am knowledgeable about what I am buying and that makes a difference. My 87 Diplomat was the first car I bought when coming to Florida. I also bought that at a buy here pay here. I looked at about 500 cars at different lots and settled on what I thought was the best of the bunch. I bought it at Quality Cars of Kissimmee. They told me the car had been gone thru and past a 100 point check up and was ready for the road. The car was clean. I ended up paying more than double what the car was worth. With in sixty days the gremlins came home to roost. The tranny began to slip. I ended up servicing the trany with fluid and filter. Problem solved. I ended up changing the front rotors and pads and rear shoes. All were metal on metal. Fuel pump, wiper transmission bushings, battery, radiator hoses, belts, and there were other issues that came up. I went back and complained to the dealer. He said I had two options. Leave the lot with the car or leave the lot without the car, either way he wins. He disclosed to me that he hopes I leave without the car so he can sell it again. At that point I got made and told him he was ana**hole. He said no not yet, I am waiting for you to miss a payment so I can come get the car. I said that won't happen. He said the odds are against me. He said most of his cars are sold three times before they stay gone and he had only sold this one twice. He said if I miss a payment he will have the car back before the morning after the payment was missed and then I will have the opportunity to start over again. Once I heard that I got two weeks ahead on my payments and paid the car off in 12 months rather than 36. I also warned him that he better not make a mistake on his books and repo my car or he would live to regret it. I had been told he had a habit of doing that.
The only time I trade cars in is if they are junk. The dealer then usually gives more than they are worth so you feel good about the deal. Otherwise I sell them myself.
Another note about Florida dealers and their document fees. If you by a car from a dealer you have to pay the dealer to do the paperwork. The state of Florida will not register a dealer sold car to an individual. I have issues with my 90 Toyota Supra because I refused to pay the dealer his blood money to do the paperwork. The dealer has since gone out of business and I have a car with a clear title that the state won't allow me to register. I think that is complete BS. After I get it running again I will deal with it.

 

Here in Florida there are very few cars with rebuilt or salvage titles because most are branded for destruction or unrebuildable. I used to work at CoPart when I first came to Florida and 95 percent of the cars run thru there were salvage only and most more repairable. I think the title should disclose how a vehicle was damaged. There is nothing wrong with a vehicle that has been wrecked if a quality repair is made and can be an awesome bargain. I think they should have full disclosure but not barred from the roads as has been done here. When the insurance company declares a vehicle a total loss because it meets the 70 percent threshold it isn't fair really. On a new car that indicates significant damage. On a car that is five or more years old that could be paint that has been keyed or a fender, header panel and hood. The values need to be changed to reflect damages rather than monetary.

 

The problem is it's an accident and repairs had to be done. If someone wanted an original car, even using OEM parts, it's no longer original. Also, most car sales you are working with strangers. As you said, it stinks CarFax has no further explanation of damages dealt.

BUT, those "black marks" are not the end of the world depending what you are trying to get out of the car. Again, I bought a Monte that was in an accident. Also, the seller was having trouble selling it for what ever reason (perhaps people around Buffalo New York don't like the Monte). When I got the title transferred, I had transfer papers from original owner to a dealership, dealership to the wholesaler and the wholesaler to me (this car was not selling). Based on my assessment of the seller, he got a fair price on the car, I paid a little more, but we bought walked away happy.

As I guy who has sold a couple of cars, here's some advice that has worked for me):
- 1 - I've listed any significant repair work I did (and if I can, month/year it was done). This is stuff life bearings, LIM gaskets, radiators, heater cores. I don't list fluid changes. It helps build a maintenance history. I typically have the receipts available to prove the parts were bought too. I list this in a Craiglist posting and signs on the car.
- 2 - If I run a CarFax on my cars before I buy them, I retain it for my records. Have that on hand when a potential buyer arranges to view the car (I sometimes list on the Craigslist ad or the papers I hang on the car that I have a CarFax available from when I bought the car).
- 3 - I also have all my older emission check slips (in case someone asks if it had a problem passing out local testing, I can show consistent results). I don't have those on hand, but if some one asks "any problems with emissions checks?" I respond "No, and I have the old slips to show what numbers it's gotten".
- 4 - In the case of your accident, if you have pics of how it looked going into the body shop, have those available. Also invoices documenting the work done and parts replaced is helpful. It helps support your case as a stranger that this accident was minor.

To this day, I am amazed that my wife and I got our asking price on a '94 Grand Am with a 171,000 miles we sold this past January (shortly after buying an Impala). I listed it higher then what I expected to get for it because I wanted room to haggle (and I honestly listed it higher then what anyone would expect to pay for a car of this age and mileage). I was willing to negotiate, but instead was delighted when the first guy who came to look at it and test drove it said "I'll take it" and left a holding deposit. He told me what sold him on the car was how upfront I was about it and though he did not ask for any supporting documentation I was willing to show him (and offered to show him), he could tell the car was cared for, maintained and worked great. We honestly sold it because there was no need for it after we got a unexpected sweet deal on the Impala.

OK, again, I monopolize this thread with just going on and on and on. Seriously why do you guys set me up for these LONG responses