Blue book, Black book, what the hell?

[jake75]

I think this is ok as it is relevant to anyone trading in a car for a Vibe. Bought my Vive without a trade so did not have trade-in value issue. Went to trade-in my 2001 PT with 25,800 miles on a Mazda MPV. Answered all the Kelley BB questions and it rated the vehicle "good" (not excellent which is near mint). Kelly BB said it had a trade in value of 9,995. Salesman said his used car dept. could only give me the black book price which was 9,000. Then why do we have Blue Book? Salesman admitted they would not likely send my car to auction - would likely price it at $12,995 and hope to sell it for $11,995. At $9,000 I told him I would keep driving it or sell it myself. Also - the same owners also have a Chrysler dealership and I am sure they would put it on their Chrysle lot. In Ohio the sales tax law puts you at a disadvantage because when you trade-in a car you only pay sales tax on the difference. If you sell your own car and buy new you pay the sale stax on the total price of the new car. Still, I've sold a lot of my own cars and think I could get 11,000 to 11,500 for my PT.

[MrRich]

Sales tax law same in Ontario too!

[cohocarl]

I've never traded in a vehicle, but I believe here in MI if you trade in a car on a new one, you still have to pay the tax (6%) on the purchase price of the new vehicle. ($20,000 new vehicle price - $19,999.99 trade in, you'd have to pay $.01 for the difference and $1200 tax)I don't know what a "black book" is, but the NADA "blue book" is actually yellow.

[ragingfish]

Not so much...the black book tends to be used more in southeastern states...of course, it's still used outside that region...but I know my dealer goes 100% blue book...

[ragingfish]

For thos who are wondering, I did some inquiring as to the difference between blue book and black book values, and got the following answer:quote:They are, essentially, the same thing. They are product names from two different companies -- competing products. Just like Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola are both colas. Not exactly the same, but pretty similar.So there ya go.

[ragingfish]

quote:So you are telling me if I walk into your dealer with a print out from http://www.kbb.com and all the information is accurate, they will give me the price of that quote right to the last number?Wow.. I live in the wrong state. All the dealers I have dealt with here in MI go by black book. And that has been about 12 vehicles in the last 6 years. ( my entire family)I never said anything of the sort. You said dealers go by the black book. I said not so many...statistically, the black book is used more in teh southeast. Your experiences have been with black book. My dealers always use the blue book.And no one ever gets 100% KBB value...again, I never said that.

[etoop]

Heck I've never heard of the black book before.Kelly's blue book said my 1995 eagle vision was worth $850 for trad-in value. Dealer gave me $1200

[redlava]

When I traded my truck in for my vibe the dealership "offered" me 9,000 for my Dakota eventhough blue book said it was worth 13,000. They said that the market was saturated with trucks because of the rising fuel costs and it was March so the four-wheel drive wasn't useful. And I am like "this is IOWA!" "Everybody drives a friggin truck!" Most of that black book stuff is crap, just another way to rip off people.

[jake75]

The numbers reported in these "books" are supposed to be based on actual data. If the black book reflects current (or very recent) auction prices accurate data should be easy to get though one would think a clean trade from a known source is worth more than an auction car. On reflection, I can see difficulties in getting accurate reports of trade-in allowances from dealers, most of whom on the paperwork tend to lump the "discount" and the trade-in together even where it is negotiated separately. That might tend to indicate higher trade-in allowances than really is the case thopugh you woudl think it would be in the dealers' interest to make an accurate report to NADA and KBB. Other information that is easy to get and accurate is the prices being asked by dealers for used cars - factoring in that like new cars most are sold at a discount. CarMax has a lot of listings and theirs are supposed to be no haggle. On the other side of the transaction, a few years ago when I dickered with a leasing company to buy my leased car out at a realistic value, they claimed to be letting me have the car for what they expected to get at auction, yet their number was a good $1,000 over the KBB trade-in value. The bottom line seems to be that the dealers think they need to make rather generous margins on used cars in order to keep their doors open. For the most part they are getting about a 5% margin on new cars (2% over invoice plus the 3% hold back) so they want to get a used car for $9,000 and sell if for $12,000. Any dealer/car salespersons on here care to comment?

[JustinVGT]

I used to work at Carmax as a salesman. The appraisers would base the price of the car you want to sell on the black book. Like you said Jake, it's based on the wholesale auction prices. Since they were no haggle, being a salesman, we actually did not get to know that often how much of a mark up Carmax put on the cars. Later,

[jake75]

But if you had access to the "black book", and you obviously knew how much they were selling the used car for, you would know the "mark-up". Of course most CarMax used cars are "reconditioned" and carry a guarantee right?

[JustinVGT]

Being in sales did not give us access to the "black book". Only the buyer's department really had access. They are the ones that appraised all the cars, went to auctions to purchase cars, and set the store prices. In sales, we just saw the sticker price, that's it.

[JustinVGT]

Oh, and yes, all the cars are reconditioned and came with a 30 day warranty. The Valumax cars aren't inspected as much and the 30 day warranty only covered the engine and transmission. Then you can add on their Maxcare extended warranty usually for like $1200-1600. Now, I quit over a year ago, so I don't know what changes may have been made.