Vehicle Market Value Calculator

Vehicle Market Value Calculator: What Your Car Is Worth

Vehicle Market Value Calculator: What Is My Car Worth? Calculate the true market price for your car so you can sell it faster. Don’t pay for a professional car valuation. The most common question asked when selling a vehicle is, what is my car worth? There are many factors that determine what your car is worth so first let’s look at the top 3.

What Affects Vehicle Market Value?

  1. Age and kilometres are the obvious factors.
  2. Car depreciation is usually the biggest factor that affects the resale value of any car. The amount is usually related to the supply and demand of that particular make, model and even colour.
  3. Buying habits have changed enormously resulting in smaller cars or city cars becoming more popular than traditional larger family cars. Like the Aussie Falcon or Commodore.

Of course, there are other variables to factor in like repairs and serviceable parts that need replacing because they’re worn out. Also, if the vehicle has a valid safety certificate and logbooks including a service book. You see, a full-service history tells the buyer that the seller/owner has put back what they have taken by routine servicing and replacement of periodical servicing.

To better understand the mechanical condition, use my used car buyer’s checklist to guide you and learn what to check when buying a used car from a private seller.

Now when you’re buying a used car the seller is usually asking the price he/she owes the lender or finance company. No law against that and not what the car is worth. The good news is calculating a true market value for a used car is easy if you follow this simple formula and do your research. You will have your used car price guide.

How to Get Private & Trade Car Prices in 3 Steps?

A great tool for selling a car, trading or buying second-hand cars for sale is the Red Book car value guide. This is where you can find private and trade valuation prices for different makes and models of used cars on the Australian market. Including list price when new. Other information includes:

  • Running Costs
  • Car Insurance
  • Vehicle Overview
  • Optional Features
  • Full Specifications
  1. Go to the RedBook website (opens in a new tab) and under the cars tab, you will find the research tab.
  2. Put the make, model and year into the valuation tool then click the “Search” button
  3. You will be displayed a vehicle match, from here you can click “More Details” to see the valuation of the car and other details of that model displayed.

Once you have chosen your model then scroll down until you see the Valuation Prices in the top right corner

Let’s say you have the Maximum Private Price (Retail Price) of $15,000 & Maximum Trade-In Price of $12,600. Both are based on the Minimum Average Kilometers.

Use the retail (private price guide from RedBook) and trade-in values (from RedBook) to estimate car value then use the formula below to calculate the true market value.

Vehicle Market Value Calculator to Calculate True Market Value

Free Vehicle Market Value Calculator
vehicle market value calculator

If the vehicle has a retail value (Private Price Guide as shown in the image above from RedBook) of 15,000 dollars and a trade-in value of 12,600 dollars (Trade-In Price Guide as shown in the image above from RedBook) the total is 27,600 dollars. 27,600 dollars divided by 2 is 13,800 so the market value of the car will be 13,800 dollars. The true market value is the average of the retail and trade-in values.

How to Negotiate Buying a Used Car?

When you’re buying a used car it’s important to never accept the seller’s asking price and to know these three things before you start negotiating to pay the right price. It’s a well-known fact that cars depreciate once they are driven off the showroom floor but how much depends on many market influences. This depreciation can be hard for some sellers to accept because they may have an encumbrance on the vehicle – there is an outstanding loan attached to the vehicle.

For the seller to be able to sell the vehicle he/she must be able to pay back the outstanding amount to the lender so you can buy the vehicle with a clear title. Best to ask the seller if there is any money owing on the vehicle after you have made a complete product decision and buying decision.

You don’t want this to be a negotiating factor because you could end up paying more than the current market price just so the seller can pay out his loan.

How Much to Offer Seller?

To pay the right price for the private sale of used cars you need to negotiate but before entering into negotiations you need to know three things:

  • The seller’s asking price
  • Market price
  • Your offer

A seller will usually disclose the asking price but if not you can ask them this question,

“What price are you hoping to achieve?” (NOT “What is your best price?”)

You want to open the negotiation and using the words hoping to achieve allows for more room when negotiating.

Answers to the other two questions can only come from your market research and inspecting the vehicle.

How to Protect Yourself When Buying Privately?

After you have negotiated with the seller it’s now time to protect yourself before handing over your money and taking the key. Learn how to check if a car is under finance for free, written off or stolen for free with a PPSR certificate.

Also Please Note:
The information contained on this page is for general information purposes only.
All reasonable steps have been taken to ensure that this information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. Also If you believe that any information we have displayed is inaccurate, please contact us immediately and we will take all reasonable steps to correct it. Finally, this information is a guide only and cannot be used as a reference to a point of law.