Reliable Used Car Valuations?

[Ligur]

Hi I'm looking at a second car for the wife and she is fairly insistant with sticking with and A4/6 quattro due to the bad weather we have been having.

So far I've been comparing the autotrader prices agains parkers and the prices seem to be £1k-1.5K above what parkers advertise. I know there is always a bit of wiggle room in the prices people ask for but this is a lot on a car when the budget is only 3-4K.

Are they overpriced or is parkers way out on the valuations? Is there a better guide than parkers that you donthave to pay for everytime you want to check the value of a car?

Thanks

[2DDav]

Parkers guide is never accurate, you;ll certainly never find anyone in the trade using it. Guides used by the trade are either the CAP black book or Glass's guide.
Ufortunately I don't know of a free way to check these prices, however your always better to compare like for like cars that are advertised to get an idea of where the market is sitting on a particular car.

[Cupramax]

2DDav said:

Parkers guide is never accurate,

Neither are peoples expectations of what their car is worth either. I've found Parkers to be pretty accurate (within a couple of hundred both times) on what I've been offered p/ex on my last two changes of car.

[NavSat]

http://www.wisebuyers.co.uk/motoring/used-car-pric...

I've found this quite accurate (for a free site).

[300bhp/ton]

Ligur said:

Hi I'm looking at a second car for the wife and she is fairly insistant with sticking with and A4/6 quattro due to the bad weather we have been having.

So far I've been comparing the autotrader prices agains parkers and the prices seem to be £1k-1.5K above what parkers advertise. I know there is always a bit of wiggle room in the prices people ask for but this is a lot on a car when the budget is only 3-4K.

Are they overpriced or is parkers way out on the valuations? Is there a better guide than parkers that you donthave to pay for everytime you want to check the value of a car?

Thanks

The thing to note here is the word "used". There are no set prices, only guides, and how people value different things, means you'll get a variation in guide prices. Then you have the reality that people might well pay above or below the guide prices.

But it's also worth noting, just because something is "advertised" at a price doesn't mean you can't buy it for less with a bit of haggling.

[confused_buyer]

Asking prices for anything with 4wd are high at the moment in the hope/expectation of bad weather.

It is less true than it used to be but the old adage of buy a convertible in December and a 4wd in June still applies to an extent.

[Playsatan]

Watching with interest (thinking of selling my A4 quattro).

[ghibbett]

NavSat said:

http://www.wisebuyers.co.uk/motoring/used-car-pric...

I've found this quite accurate (for a free site).

Thanks for the link. Just put my 2005 330i Sport (40k miles) in and it reckons £7560 for a private sale in good condition. That's certainly more than I thought it would be worth, however I have done zero research on the subject.

[Ligur]

Thanks the wisebuyers link seems to be closer to the mark the prices of the cars that I have been looking looking at though there are quite a few people out there that seem to be overly optimistic with the prices they are looking for.

Looks like we may have to lower our expectations of what we can get for the money.

[va1o]

NavSat said:

http://www.wisebuyers.co.uk/motoring/used-car-pric...

I've found this quite accurate (for a free site).

The valuation it gives for my car is higher than what I paid for it at the start of the year, and the retail value is verging on double the lowest current CAP trade value. I think it may be a bit out of date... not sure if the site is still been maintained?

Certainly trying to P/X at the weekend the values I got seemed to be in line with CAP/ Glasses and a fair bit less than 'wisebuyers'

[Petrolize]

CAP online
https://www.capconnect.co.uk/consumervalues_testin...
Wisebuyers’ seems a little optimistic.

[LukeSi]

Petrolize said:

CAP online
https://www.capconnect.co.uk/consumervalues_testin...
Wisebuyers’ seems a little optimistic.

CAP seems quite pessimistic, values the Panda at 4k and the 3er at 13k.

[Petrolize]

LukeSi said:

CAP seems quite pessimistic, values the Panda at 4k and the 3er at 13k.

I know! Maybe the value in between the Wisebuyers' and CAP is a good indication.

[Cupramax]

Interesting, I got a p/ex quote from a main dealer for a car I was looking at to change a couple of weeks ago. Wisebuyers got what I was offered on the nose, CAPonline £4k pessimistic!!

[milner993]

Parkers dont buy or sell anything and the values they give dont follow the market there a complete waste of time and as a motor dealer a pain in the fking arse people telling me parkers says this yeah but parkers aint buying your bloody motor.

go with your gut mate if it looks over priced you can be pretty sure it is
and if it looks to good to be true you guessed it it probably is.
you can akways ask a dealer what price you should be paying for one and could they locate one as a dealer network is massive everone knows everyone.

hope you get the rite one