How accurate are price guides such as Parkers or What Car?
According to the current issues a Fiat Ulysse 1.9 TD S 97 on a P plate from a dealers in good nick and mileage would go for about 6.8k to just over 7k depending on which guide you look at.
A local dealer to me has one on at 8.5k - no air cond or sunroof - no other extras - the only selling point is it's only done 25k miles rather than 45k which you'd expect for the age.
At most this puts it up to about 7.5k.
I challenged the dealer on this citing the price guides valuation and he quoted Glasses valuation of £7800 and justified the rest on the low mileage and good condition. He did say though that he could obviously knock some off- but probably not enough to bring it down to the Parkers valuation.
Why the difference between Glass and Parkers/What Car?
Don't the newsagents guides base their values on Glass?
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I reckon he's joking - I know it's a turbodiesel but it's a P plate Fiat for goodness sake - I'm sure you could get one a lot cheaper than your dealer wants. Some dealers are like that and they may find someone willing to pay that price - just make sure it's not you!
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the other thing about price guides is that they dont take into account regional variations, which can still in this day and age be very wide...
the same car sold on the lot of different main dealers around the country can go for quite wide variations...
the commonly known stuff like autos are more expensive around london, people carriers will be more expensive where there are more mums doing the school run with fewer dealers to choose from etc... nissans have fans in the north east cos they are made there etc
its amazing the number of people who wont travel to buy cheaper elsewhere
i always find it quite interesting to see the prices when on holiday in remote parts of scotland, as the prices are very hard for me to predict when used to the norms elsewhere in the country...
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Glass's Guide and CAP are the best we've got. But even they can be out of date by the time we get hold of them. Parkers and What Car conduct their own research and generally tend to price cars with less profit for dealers which is fine in a falling market but which can give the wrong impression to punters when the market is rising. Whatever, any serious honest publisher of any of these guides will always say that's all they are: a guide. Though many dealers treat Glass's as a self fulfilling prophesy it is not and was never intended to be.
HJ
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At the end of the day anything you are selling is only worth as much as the punter in front of you wants to pay.
If you are desperate it will never be enough.
as ever
Mark
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Ha Ha, the dealer holds all the cards if you want to make a trade. I wouldn't bother referring to any of the guides as the price quoted for your car will never match your aspirations. I think Parkers and What car tend to quote higher prices thus leading to much foaming at the mouth when the dealer offers you '000's less than you want or may even need.
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Just go to car auctions and see the dealers look at the Glasses guide and bid up to that. They seem to have x-ray vision and do not need to go round the vehicles before the auction starts. I have seen cars apparently sold but come round again to get the same price. The dealers have a maximum and stick to it whatever the auctioneer trys on!
I sold an old Ford Escort with 2 months MOT, clapped out engine also requiring new exhaust with no problems. The dealers just liked Escort Mark 3 at the time even though it was blue! They were outbid by a youngster who had not made the effort to watch it start, see it drive in or open the bonnet during the sale.
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I have always rationalised the differences between Glass's and the'public' price guides as follows. Dealers either price by the seat of the pants, or by referring to Glass's (which they used to keep very close to the chest, not so much nowadays). Glass's therefore leads the market. Parker's and the others follow the market by culling adverts and auctions and reporting what happens, presumably adjusting prices to allow for printing delays and to smooth out the year-on-year decline in value. For small-volume cars it isn't surprising that differences can be large. However Parker's and What Car? can also differ quite widely. In the end a car is worth what buyers are prepared to pay.
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You can actually view Glass's Guide prices online if you visit www.autobytel.co.uk and go to the Used Cars then Used Car Price Guides section.
I've been using it since discovering it a few months ago and it consistently gives considerably higher valuations for cars than Parkers.
Incidently the retail price it gives for the Fiat you mention is £8510!
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