[carl_lazlo]

How does the average dealer assign a value to a trade-in? Do they go by Kelly Blue Book and then work their way up or down depending on the condition of the car?

I'll be doing a trade in on a new 335i lease and I want to make sure the dealer does not undervalue my trade.

Thx.

[CA06]

I believe they normally start out at low blue book. I've found it much more beneficial to sell the car on your own than trading it in. Of course if you can't wait for a buyer, then trade it in.

[canucklion]

one thing you have to consider though, is that when you trade in your car, the value of your used car is deducted from the new car price, and you get taxed on the final amount.

Whereas if you sell it privately, you don't get that 'tax break' that you would otherwise receive through trading in your car.

I'd suggest you to look up big name car selling/buying sites like autotrader.com to see the average selling price for your car (similar equipment, mieage, condition) vs what the dealer is offering for your trade in, and yeah, shop around a few dealers

Originally Posted by CA06

I believe they normally start out at low blue book. I've found it much more beneficial to sell the car on your own than trading it in. Of course if you can't wait for a buyer, then trade it in.

[Gen_E92]

Originally Posted by canucklion

one thing you have to consider though, is that when you trade in your car, the value of your used car is deducted from the new car price, and you get taxed on the final amount.

Whereas if you sell it privately, you don't get that 'tax break' that you would otherwise receive through trading in your car.

I'd suggest you to look up big name car selling/buying sites like autotrader.com to see the average selling price for your car (similar equipment, mieage, condition) vs what the dealer is offering for your trade in, and yeah, shop around a few dealers

So if there is luxury tax in BC for cars from $55000 and up, then that means I can just trade in my car for $30000 without worrying about luxury tax or does it still apply?

[canucklion]

I'm not too sure on that dude, I have a feeling the tax is applied as a way of the BC provincial gov. of getting more money from the rich folks, so it's probably applied regardless, while the sales tax (PST + GST) is on the MSRP-trade in value
someone please correct me if I'm wrong

Originally Posted by Gen_E92

So if there is luxury tax in BC for cars from $55000 and up, then that means I can just trade in my car for $30000 without worrying about luxury tax or does it still apply?

[pincud]

The BMW dealers that I visited are not at all inclined to use the Kelly Blue Book value for the trade in. They are not at all inclined to come up with a fair amount either. They will want to pay as little as possible for the trade in and will find all sorts of reasons to under offer. The most absurd reason so far was this: "Kelly Blue Book is not current and runs a couple of months behind in the values they present." This is, of course, a bunch of BS. You deal with the dealer, you deal with the devil. Both will cost you more than you want to pay and keep you longer than you want to stay.

[nabutes]

Dealers do not usually work off the KBB or NADA guides. Through my experiences with trade-ins, the dealers ALWAYS used Galves. Give it a look...

[JohnnyBQuik]

They use different guides in different parts of the US. Down South, they use something called the Black Book which is basically an auction report. The value of a used car is exacly how much a dealer will pay for it. Reports and guides are useful for estimation, but the Used Car Manager at any given dealership bases his valuation on how much he thinks he can resell it for. If it's something he can put on his lot, you can generally get a lot more for it. If he can't sell it on his pre-owned lot, he must either place it with another dealer or sell it on the wholesale market. Then the value drops considerably. In general, cars out of manufacturer's original warranty or over 50K miles drop in value pretty sharply. You'll generally get more for highline vehicles at a highline store. The local Ford dealer won't pay as much for a Porsche 993 as the Porsche/ BMW store.

kbb.com is useful as is edmunds.com and nadaguides.com

Btw, this is a great forum. I see a E92 in my near future.

[carl_lazlo]

Awsome!

Thanks for all the help. I bought a Galves account for a month and ran the numbers for the car. It was about 3K less than Kelly, but not too bad.