Best source for valuation on current ride?
 

Having never sold a car before, I wonder where I should be looking to set a Canadian value on my current ride - I'll need it for the group buy, to evaluate the dealer trade-in offer. Suggestions/links appreciated - also any "how-to" guides for private selling in Ontario in case any of us need to go that route.

I'd imagine Kelley Blue Book would exist in Canada eh?

Wow, had a moment to do some Google searches and yeah, I didn't find anything in the few tries I did to see if I could help uncover some information... I guess a quick suggestion would be looking at Canadian Ebay or Autotrader ads for a similar vehicle to see what others are asking. May be a bit sloppy way of going about it, but worked for me in the past when living overseas.

canadian black book + kijiji (look at similar car and the asking amount) and make an average you will get your number.

ex.

black book = 10k
kijiji ads = 14k+13k+15k

14k+13k+15k = 42k divide by 3 = 14k

10k (black book)+14k(kijiji ads)=24k divided by 2 = 12k

12k would be a good number, but ask little bit more, so you have room for negociation.



you can aslo go to a dealer and ask for an evaluation, but depending who is evaluating it there might be huge difference.

also note that if your car is really really in mint condition it will value more than average asked price, in other hand if your car is badly maintained then your car value way below the average asked price.

Be sure you are referencing the blackbook wholesale price if considering trading it in... it's usually considerably lower than the "retail" price you'll find on kijiji.

...and then expect the dealers to lowball you even on that wholesale price by telling you what terrible shape your car is in :thumbdown:

Ha - good luck on that, 55k km, well maintained and looks almost new.

http://www.canadianblackbook.com/

This site is good. You can Find out Trade-in value AND what they go for in the market as far as asking prices.

There's ALOT of factors for what determines a used cars value:

-Accident History
-Service History
-Mileage
-If it's a US bought car
-Some cars like Convertables and sports cars are seasonal and fetch more or less depending on time of year.
-The actual Brand of the Vehicle
-To some extent the color of a car can affect value.

^ Thanks everyone for the great info. :happy0180:

Is the paperwork/bureaucracy horribly complicated for a private sale in Ontario?

Your trade in is your biggest weapon, look for dealers that use an internal auction system with wholesellers like the one we use, it's usually very fair and most importantly

ASK TO SEE THE AUCTION RESULT

You can also argue that even having a tradein is a huge crutch in dealing for a new car because youre now playing with numbers on both ends

Well my buy cost will be fixed as I am going with a group buy. So negotiating trade-in value will be independent.

This is a good site too. Your usually better off selling privately than trading in, though the tax savings can help.

http://www.vmrcanada.com/

Thanks for that but it seems a little off base on the calculations, same value for 30k km as 150k km....:bonk:

I imply from your comment that you only pay net HST if you do a trade-in at the dealer?

Correct, but they will typically offer you $3000 to 5000 less than it's worth. The website above isn't super accurate but it's a decent baseline.