Hi all,

Noticed (surprised too) at Gary Elliot getting bombarded (in a well intended way) with valuation requests.

Here's my tried and tested method and it usually is 'on the money' (has been in my experience anyway)...

Free Used car valuations for Trade, PX, Private and Retail can be had on the following websites:

Wisebuyers UK

What Car Used Car Valuations

Parkers Price Guide Used Valuations

Glass Used Car Valuations

What I do is get a valuation for private, PX and/ or retail off each one and note the valuation down from each site. Total them and divide by 4 to get the avergae across the 4 valuation sites... Longwinded like me but accessible 24 hours per day and free and legal.

Remember, that's just a suggestion and it's only a guide!

Hope this assists someone...

Cheers

Most do use use a CAP based system but without mileage adjustment (usually costs) they are not always accurate. What car is often well adrift.

You will get a good idea though so thanks for posting this

PS: Wisebuyer is mileage based and is accurate on the couple I tried....

Great stuff, gaz always seems to get asked for valuations willy nilly, wisebuyer is a new one to me so ill bare it in mind for future

OK

Adding all 4 together and dividing the total by 4 was bang on when recently buying a S/C from a main dealer and has always been a good indicator when buying selling other/family cars of varying marques (Glass and Parkers use an average mileage for age unless you pay to be told. Wisebuyers and What Car quote on the mileage you input. I usually guesstimate the mileage adjustment for the other 2 sites using a bit of instinct and common sense).

As mentioned... A guide. Lets you know if you're in the right ball park and they will only sell for what they will sell for... And vice versa!

Another one is :

http://www.autotrader.co.uk/private-valuation/lookup?

Not sure how accurate it is, but I have noticed that it isn't directly navigable from AT any more My plan was idiot-proof ...




Until someone designed a better idiot

What car seems very high based on what I checked a couple of days ago.
The averaging method looks good though.

Let's try my car:
2006 06 4.2 SC - Private Good

What Car: £15,255
Parkers: £16,400
Wisebuyers: £12,779
Glass: £16,500

Average: £15,233

I paid £14k so yeah, close enough. 2006 FFRR 4.2 Supercharged Vogue SE
2007 Honda S2000
2008 Aprilia Tuono Factory

Just had to post that on two occassions today I compared WISEBUYER to our CAP system and it was out by up to £4000 on cars worth £30000 (14%) so please do not rely on it. Its values were too high in one case and too low in the other!

Any valuation sites are only a guide.
They are not always the real world prices.
Best way to value a car is see what others are actually selling for rather than the asking price.
I kept getting offered 10-11k for mine and they kept saying this is the book price. All very well but show me ones for sale at these prices. Anyway I got what I knew was the going rate for model/age/spec etc

Guide is the word...

No exaggeration... In private sales we recently got £3k over 'book' for a Q7 and later approx £2k over 'book' for a top of the range Mondeo Estate.

Both cars were good spec, with low miles, really well maintained/ pristine looked after regardless of cost.

With the Mondeo in particular I had been given a lecture about how ridiculous my private sale ad price was (off a dealer selling a 5 series estate and who had offered me a 'lower than book' PX price before clocking my AT private sale price).. contrary to the dealer's lecture, I got full asking price [for both cars and off the first people who came to the house to view them].

A family member recently bought a 6 month old 3 series and PX a 3 year old 3 series from a main dealer... using the 4 sites average, the PX and cost to change price was spot on, as was the guide for our recently acquired S/C.

Luck? Maybe.. these sites, the permutations and comparable ads are all 'guides'...

Our experience is that it depends on spec, how you present and have looked after the car and what's out there at the relevant time based on your research of the real market... our experience anyway.

In my experience CAP is spot on 95% of the time as its based on actual sales at dealerships and nationwide auction sales values etc - real world values that 90% of dealers use but none of the free sites give you full access.