auto trader and values

[r1monkey]

I have been watching cars on auto trader that have been on sale for months and months . Two of the cars have gone up by over a grand in the last few days.
I know auto trader are supposed to go by what cars have sold for but from what i can see the car model that i have been watching for the last year just has not been selling in any great numbers. (Jag f type)
I know that some dealers let auto trader adjust the price automatically but i personally think that the prices are being held artificially high by A.T. Especially when the WBAC prices are £10k below . I also know that wbac is not the true market value but it shows up the massive disparity between trade and retail prices if you were to part ex a vehicle.

[andymc]

r1monkey said:

I have been watching cars on auto trader that have been on sale for months and months . Two of the cars have gone up by over a grand in the last few days.
I know auto trader are supposed to go by what cars have sold for but from what i can see the car model that i have been watching for the last year just has not been selling in any great numbers. (Jag f type)
I know that some dealers let auto trader adjust the price automatically but i personally think that the prices are being held artificially high by A.T. Especially when the WBAC prices are £10k below . I also know that wbac is not the true market value but it shows up the massive disparity between trade and retail prices if you were to part ex a vehicle.

i do not think it is what they have sold for rather the current prices of cars for sale.

[Panamax]

It's a market - prices keep moving. Supply, demand, time of year, etc.

Traders need to make a margin for their business to be viable and they need to factor in the warranty obligations on a retail sale.

Many people sell to WBAC for "convenience" so prices will generally be lower than what can be achieved on a private sale.

As regards "asking price" in an advertisement, that's not necessarily close to actual selling price.

[samoht]

r1monkey said:

I have been watching cars on auto trader that have been on sale for months and months . Two of the cars have gone up by over a grand in the last few days.
I know auto trader are supposed to go by what cars have sold for but from what i can see the car model that i have been watching for the last year just has not been selling in any great numbers. (Jag f type)
I know that some dealers let auto trader adjust the price automatically but i personally think that the prices are being held artificially high by A.T.

You don't know that the price increases are driven by AT, the dealers may very well have manually increased the asking prices.

A dealer in similar (ie 'fun') cars on another thread on here said he was putting up his asking prices last week, just because it's January.

Their expectation is that fun car demand and prices will tend to rise through the spring, therefore I guess it makes sense to put the price up now, either the car goes soon for the higher price, or as the market rises it'll go in a couple of months. Better than selling a car 'cheap' now and losing out on a few grand.

I have no opinion on whether the dealers are sensible/justified in doing this, but I don't think it's a safe assumption that AT is inflating prices artificially.

IMHO the more useful (though labour intensive) thing is to make a list of all the cars advertised, then check back and see which sell, those that have sold are likely more representative of where market values are than just what's advertised.