KBB vs. Edmunds

Question - book value for the car I'm looking at is about $8k on Edmunds and almost $13k on KBB. That just doesn't sound correct to me.

The car in question is a bit of a rare bird - 2005 Subaru Legacy Wagon GT turbo w/5-speed.

Thoughts?

Neither source is any good at rare birds. Look to model-specific forums, eBay, and a national AutoTrader search to get a better ballpark on performance unicorns.

For regular cars, KBB is always high on retail and low on private party/trade in so dealers can gouge you. Edmunds is notoriously low across the board. FWIW, Edmunds just has a crappy algorithm figure out your value, and KBB actually looks at certain auction results.

Neither is perfect.

That car is a unicorn, you need to hit the forums for pricing. I don't know about the algorithms but my take is KBB is for dealers who want to rip you off. They get to say 'hey look that price is KBB' while Edmunds is going to give a more realistic selling price (except for the unicorns).

I've always preferred NADA.com.

You typically use which one is in your favor for argument sake and then if your a dealer you value its trade in worth based on what the car sells/buys for at auction.

Dang and I thought the 2k difference on the e36 m3 was bad.

They are likely both right. Edmunds probably assumes that they all have broken piston ring lands by now, and need to be rebuilt. Kelly blue book figures the previous owner fixed it by now.

All kidding aside, I love mine but would have a hard time recommending one due to the piston issue. Be sure to check the car out carefully, the problem is not obvious until it really starts using oil.

If you don't have or use Black Book, you are pissing up a rope on pricing.

in the midwest NADA is the only relevant source. absolutely no one who makes their living in the industry, be it sales, insurance, or loans, uses anything else.

Different 'books' for different values...you guys are somewhat confused I think.

NADA is for dealer pricing. Retail is high asking price. Trade-in is lowball, "what they'll get at auction" price. I don't find it particularly useful for real world, fun car shopping.

KBB.com is fine if you use "private party" value. That's the 'street' value of a car sold by Joe Blow in his front yard, and what most cars are typically sold for (also about the same as insurance value). Most people don't use KBB correctly and use 'retail' which, as above, is a pie-in-the-sky price only fools and morons pay.

Edmonds I'll confess I rarely use, but on the few occasions I have it very nearly mimicked KBB private party.

Black Book is a dealer auction pricing guide, and as dealer auctions are pretty much in a different solar system than where we mortals live, I don't give what it says much weight out here in retail-land.

Then there's CPI, Collector Car Marketplace, etc etc.

ddavid is spot on. He's in the auto claims business, like me. Most insurance companies have companies that complete valuations on total losses, so we can figure out what to pay the customer. They work rather well for your typical Accord, Camry, etc... Sometimes we'll use NADA retail as the high water mark. KBB is a book more for dealers. High on retail, lowball on trade. I agree with ddavid that the private party value isn't bad.

But for unicorn cars, as has been said above, I rely a lot more on things like Ebay, Autotrader.com, forums, etc...I find comparables that are actually for sale, or have been sold.

Neither Efmund's not KBB write checks, so their numbers are theoretical, at best. That being said, NADA is what the banks use and is, in my professional opinion (I'm a car dealer) closest to reality

As soon as KBB or Edmunds add a "print check" feature to their websites, I'm going to sell them all my inventory and retire

Well, the owner of the car said it needs its timing belt changed (its almost due) and it just started burning oil. I may be passing on this one.

Unless I can buy it for $6k.

In reply to Datsun1500:

Galves, in my experience, is too low. If I could buy cars for Galves wholesale prices, I'd make a lot of money

I routinely ask about 90% of NADA retail for my inventory, and typically let the customer talk me out of another 5-10% of that. The numbers they list as trade values are spot on to what stuff brings at the dealer auctions around here too.

fornetti14 wrote: Well, the owner of the car said it needs its timing belt changed (its almost due) and it just started burning oil. I may be passing on this one. Unless I can buy it for $6k.

The timing belt is easy, but the burning oil is most likely cracked ring lands. Don't underestimate the cost of a rebuild, these motors are not cheap.

None of them are perfect. If I run numbers on my S2000, KBB gives me trade in values higher than I see private party cars go for, and NADA gives me retail prices 20% lower than KBB trade-in. On my Volvo NADA is just about right and KBB gives values are 30% below anything I've seen in the real world. BOTH KBB and NADA think the Volvo is worth more with an Automatic, which is very severely incorrect.

For anything older, limited production, or with an enthusiast following you need to sample all the sources as well as actual car listings to get a realistic idea of value.