[wangxy83]

Hello guys, I have been thinking about to trade in my car recently for a BMW. The price state on the Canadian Black Book for my current car is rather disappointing! I am wondering is that price going to be the absolutely highest price I can get for my current car( 07 Honda Civic DX-G) beside selling it privately! Is that possible to get higher trade in value of my car

Thank you very much in advance!

[WLS]

Don't know if it works differently in Canada, but in the US black book value is only used by financing company's and only when they feel that market conditions are dictating that the car is only worth 75% of the historical standard value.

For example: In the US if you want to buy a Ford F-150 today for MSRP $32,000 and you need to finance the entire amount, JP Morgan Chase would use black book (instead of blue book) and only offer financing up to $24,000

Try using http://www.kbb.com to get a price. That will be blue book value. Generally if you plan to trade in you should expect to get less than blue book but more than black book

[Road Cone1]

Check here....
http://www.toyota.ca/NWS/english/con...n_vehicle.html

Keep in mind that this is a general price guide and isn't always accurate.

[samps]

Sell your car privately.

[Rossland]

Originally Posted by samps

Sell your car privately.

++

[w2]

Originally Posted by samps

Sell your car privately.

Think twice before you do. Chances are you can get a better price from a private sale, but it may take weeks or even months to find a buyer, you have to advertise, and you have to make appointments and arrange your schedule around potential buyers. If they're smart, they will want to have your car inspected by a mechanic, so you have to make arrangements to bring your car to their mechanic as well. When you do sell, you'll have to worry about whether cheques clear and other things that are generally non-issues with trade-ins. On top of that, any cost reduction from your trade-in is not taxed, meaning if a dealer offers you $10,000 for your car, it is as good as if someone offered you $11,300 on a private sale (in Ontario, given a tax rate of 13%) plus your advertising costs and whatever value you place on your time and effort, and the risk of not selling your car in time: every month you don't sell your car, it depreciates a bit more.

If you have a hot car in a hot market, you'd probably make significantly more if you sell privately. I've tried to sell two cars privately. One went in about 3 weeks for about red book value. The other didn't sell for over three months and I ended up taking a substantial loss selling it to a dealer in order to get rid of it, as I didn't want to store it and try to sell it over the winter. It was my bad luck that that particular model was in low demand, and its value started falling like a stone shortly after I decided to try to sell privately rather than trade. Sometimes, when you gamble,you lose. In your case, there's probably always going to be reasonable demand for a 1-2 year old Civic (depending on where you live) so you should be able to find a buyer, but the final figure that you get might not be worth the effort or risk.

[zone555]

Good analysis of the pros/cons of selling privately w2, couldn't have explained it any clearer.

wangxy83, push your salesman for money on your trade-in. The dealers are hurting for sales and you'll be able dictate the terms of the sale. A couple weeks ago (last weekend of Oct), my current car was appraised and they conservatively offered me the black book value. Not pleased, I was about to walk out and told them I was also considering an Audi A4. Then the sales manager came over and said "how much do you want for your car to close this sale today?". I ended up with close to $2k more than black book. Done. It definately helps to shop for cars at the end of the month when they have to make their monthly quota.

In summary, I went with the trade-in. I know I can probably get a bit more privately, but I just don't have the time to schedule test drives and juggle emails/calls during work hours. Call it a "convenience" charge for not selling it privately.

Best of luck!

[BMW Newbie]

Try this used car site.

http://www.vmrcanada.com/value_menus...s/07hociic.htm

[Civ95]

the dealer will typically look at recent auction prices (to which consumers don't have access), not the black book, nor kbb, nor vmr; at least that is what I gathered from my experience around Montreal dealerships of different brands

they'll likely come up with a price well below that of any of these guides

unless they plan on selling the vehicule on the lot, in which case they probably can pay more than the auction price

seriously, try to sell it on your own; I've done it twice and it was surprisingly hassle-free; just make sure all the info is on your add (to avoid unnecessary calls) and put it up for a reasonable non-negotiable price