Thinking About Trading In Your Car?

The Trade-In process might be the cause of most of the confusion and frustration for car shoppers because there are just so many ways to ‘value’ a car, and every source of information has a different value. Let’s walk through our trade-in process here.

The Technology

In every evaluation we use a market snapshot technology that allows us to see detailed information regarding the broader market and every competitive vehicle within. This helps us to gauge how long we think it will take us to sell the vehicle once it’s on our lot. Here are a few factors  that get taken into consideration (in no particular order):

• What similar cars are priced at, and more importantly, at what price they have sold 
• How quickly similar vehicles have sold in the past
• How many similar vehicles are currently available in the market
• How long similar vehicles have been on the market
• Trim level and how the vehicle is equipped
• Color
• Odometer

Further Research

We also examine the vehicle’s cosmetic and mechanic condition.  We start by deep-diving into the vehicle’s CarFax. We aren’t just looking for any reported accidents, but also the vehicle’s service history–basically all the things you, as a consumer, would be looking at.

Getting Hands ON

Next, we drive the car to check for any signs that the vehicle may have been enjoyed a bit too much in its past.  Things like squeaks and rattles can often be as simple as a trim piece in need of adjusting, or sometimes a sign of something more complex.  We also look at the treadwear on the tires.  Uneven tread wear can be a sign that the alignment is off in some way.  Depending on the age of the vehicle, we will run a diagnostic scan to see the the internal computer is showing a fault code.