My car has around 6000 miles and a few mods. I'm thinking of trading it in, can anyone tell me how much I can expect to get? Also, if I sell it privately how much can I sell it for?

 

Its too bad there isnt a website where you can enter year, make, model, mileage, options, and condtion to get an estimated trade in or private party value...

 

Doncha just love sarcastic replies?

 

Seriously I would recommend Edmunds; KBB is too high.

 

Your best bet would be to just take it to a dealer and get it appraised. Every dealer will be different, so if you are really concerned about getting the most for it if you were to trade it in, take it to multiple dealers. You could also try CarMax. This will give you an idea of the trade in value. Add a few thousand dollars to your trade in offers, and you have your private party value.

Sites like KBB, Edmonds, etc are not good indicators for trade in value. Dealers use auction sites like Manheim to get trade in value, which the general public does not have access to.

You could also search Autotrader for comparable year/model/mileage to see what dealers are selling them for, but subtract several thousand and you will have a ballpark of a trade in figure. Or, search private party listings to see what people are asking for selling it themselves.

 

This is mostly true. You only approximate a fair trade-in value if you're entering into a new transaction that is very beneficial to the dealer, whether you know it or not. I prefer Edmunds and NADA over KBB, but it's a good idea to become familiar with all three, as well as trolling AutoTrader and Cars.com from time to time. Obviously, the best approach to minimizing the depreciated loss is to sell the car independently... but that's offset by the tax savings of a trade-in. And as some people will tell you, if you go to the dealership you'll get doughnuts. Which apparently is important.

Here's the thing that makes this thread such a SMH moment: the most significant decrease in value for a car is in that first year, particularly for a car at the end of its model run. There's simply no scenario where the OP will be happy. Zero.