My car has negative value! O_O

We have the same thing except it’s 10 MINUTES in winter.
After 10 years, you can hear it rusting…
:smile:

Yes, there are plenty of old, non-rusty cars in Los Angeles and the rest of the southwest

But I’d say most of them haven’t been properly maintained, and would probably fail mandatory safety inspections, if transferred to other states. Not for rust, obviously, but for plenty of other reasons

It’s not necessarily a win-win situation

I met a guy in Lompoc, CA in the early 1990s. He had a cherry late 1960s Mustang Coupe. I commented about how the Central Cali weather made for long lasting car bodies. He said that if the car had lived on the coast for its whole life, it would have rusted. He bought his in West Texas. He thought West Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona were the best places to buy a classic like his.

Yup. As long as the dashboard hasn’t cracked from the intense sun, those are great places to get very good-condition cars.

There’s also rock hard and split wide-open leather/vinyl seats and burnt up paint to consider

Let’s face it . . . most folks here do not park cars in the garage, so those things I mentioned are typical scenarios, if you keep a car for 15 years or so

Any rough 20 year old car means nothing to dealer so they’re all going to be worthless. At least that’s the way the dealer looks at it. It’s all wholesale junk just waiting for the wholesaler to show up and drag it, or them, off.

Unless you want to trade it in of course and they allow you the smoke and mirrors 1000 dollars trade in… :frowning:

I looked at what my car is worth on several web sites recently. It is a 2005 Accord EX V6 with 179,000 miles on it. Edmunds was less than half the price at Cars.com! KBB, and NADAGuides. It looks like you used Edmunds, @Whitey. I also looked at advertised prices on line for similar cars in my area and the prices wer more like the last three and no close to Edmunds estimate.

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Most dealers use Black Book and it is usually lower than Blue Book and the others.

IME, once you get below ~5 or 10% of original purchase price, “blue book” is largely theoretical. These sort of cars frequently get traded with “bogus” prices reported (to offset sales taxes); are frequently “gifted” or sold “for non-monetary consideration”; etc. (And, as pointed out, dealers play games with valuation…generally inflating them artificially, then “making it back” on the new car sale.)

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/06/22/best-blue-book/

Here is a new article that indicates that Black Book, KBB, and NADA Guides are all used by dealers to price vehicles. They use at least two of th three to get up to date pricing for trade-ins and sales.

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Unless things have changed, there are 2 Black Books. One the public sees and the dealer subscription version.

I think these books make it too complicated. When I wanted to sell by Camry, I looked at edmunds and kbb but then also looked to see what a similar Camry sells for on Autotrader, cargurus and craigslist. The prices were actually higher than the book value would suggest, at least here in CA even though edmunds and kbb adjust for the zip. I priced the car just a bit lower than what sellers were asking and the car sold in 2 days. The buyer haggled a bit but I had left room for that too.

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That’s the difference between asking price and sales price. The guides are sales price, the ads are asking price. Another good source for the “real” value of a car is EBay. The ‘completed listings’ show what folks were willing to bid.

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In my experience, whatever book you used to value your tradein or what the dealer is trying to sell you, the dealer will be using a different book. “Blue book value is.” “Yeah, we use black book, it’s more accurate.”

Go back next week. “Black book value is…” “Oh, uh, we use NADA.”

Funny how that works, isn’t it.

With all three and maybe more, someone could be loaded for bear and pull their daily favorite quoting agency’s value right up for them.

Anyway, I wasn’t thinking about it as a trade-in so much as a place to start for a private sale. I’m thinking about getting a new car and selling my Accord to my son in law at the buddy price, like trade-in value. It has 180,000 miles, but it I should in great condition and driven mostly on the highway commuting to work.

I’ll let you pay me $82 to take your car. :slight_smile:

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Intra-family vehicle sales are usually not a good idea. Now, I if you give it to him, he can’t complain when it blows up.

;-]

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He asked me about it in the past, and I’m not hiding anything from him. The choice would be entirely up to him. We are both adults, and can handle any unfortunate issues that might come up. In the end, our relationship is more important than the money. I’m sure you will be surprised to know that all relationships aren’t like that.

Sometimes it isn’t about the money. My mother once sold her car to my sister, and it upset my mother that my sister didn’t take good care of it.

The advice to separate business from pleasure is usually a good idea, even if you don’t anticipate all the things that can go wrong.

I am truly humbled by your omnipotence…

;-]

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