III - Trade In Appraisals

The process of appraising a customer’s vehicle can often time lead to a lot of flack towards the dealer, as well as the consumer feeling like they are getting ripped off. This section is the sole reason I decided to write this overview of how our operation works. I’ll start off by delving into the different kinds of trade-ins we receive.

The first is a vehicle that we can retail on our lot and finance the customer via our banks (generally speaking, 2005 and newer units under 80,000 miles). We dealers utilize Black Book to gauge the current market. Black Book is historically the most accurate and up-to-date statistical book for our industry and records its data daily at hundreds of auctions across America. Because we need to retail the prospective vehicle low enough to our customers, it is imperative that we own it reasonably enough to do so. This means that we are stuck between a rock-and-a-hard-place because, often times, we cannot give customers more money than we would pay at an auction for their trade-ins. However, we always give folks a fair, up front and honest appraisal for their vehicles, and try to give the customer as much as we can withstand for their trade-ins.

The second kind is a unit that cannot be financed due to model year or mileage (units older than 2005 and over 80,000 miles). These are tougher to gauge because our resources are far more limited with these vehicles. Often times, we turn to local wholesalers to maximize the amount of money we can give for a potential trade-in.

Lastly, I’d like to talk about loan payoffs. These are a big part of the equation because if a customer owes more than we can give, the difference is added to the financed amount. Again, WE APPRAISE ALL POTENTIAL TTRADE-INS AS FAIRLY POSSIBLE TO ENSURE THAT OUR CUSTOMER IS TREATED FAIRLY, AS WELL AS ANY POTENTIAL BUYER ON THAT UNIT.