Bruce Brown wrote:
True. Years ago a friend of mine, who was the GM at a local car dealership, used to say "books don't sell cars, people do". He was right.
On the book price, I think you'll find NADA uses a formula to determine values as much, or more, than true market surveys. In the automotive world most dealers now use real-time auction information instead of NADA. I recently had a car evaluated; they used an app that read my VIN, they punched in my miles, then it did a search for similar vehicles with similar miles and gave a true up-to-date value. It was pretty interesting to me.
And how close to NADA low retail, was this figure and maybe what most interested you?
Again, a private seller is at a disadvantage and can't be advertising things, like....BUY HERE, PAY HERE...or....NOTHING DOWN AND NO PAYMENTS FOR 45 DAYS...or WE ARRANGE FINANCING AND NO ONE IS TURNED DOWN....
My estimates and valuations are with checkbook or cash in hand and with laying it down on the table and something that usually gets their attention. The last time I made an offer to a consignment dealer, he wouldn't even present it to his client. When I reminded him of his obligation to do so, he demanded $2K and a contract. I said no problem and did the deal with just one counter offer, which surprised this dealer, as well.....or at least he seemed surprised.
Either way and no matter, they made money and more so, on the PDI that was part of the deal, so.........
