Revealing the NADA Used Car Values

Most people in the US consider NADA a very reliable source of the used car pricing information. But to fully understand what car value it produces, you need to learn more about the foundation on which it is built. Here, at Indianapolis car dealer Indy Auto Man, we buy and sell cars every day, so we are ready to answer the most vital question of the customers: is NADA estimation value accurate and reliable?

The NADA (National Automobile Dealers Association) guide is a set of customer reports, very similar to the KBB. However, the two guides have many differences when it comes to the accuracy and inconsistency of their message to the public. Read our KBB vs. NADA comparison to find out more about how each source calculates the car value.

National Automobile Dealers Association is a trade group that incorporates thousands of car sellers in the US into the NADA Blue Book.

The National Automobile Dealers Association’s Blue Book Guide is the official retail value list, allowing you to see and compare car prices at multiple points of sale. And in spite it sounds reasonable and simple, it can be difficult to determine the future value of a particular car due to the general discrepancy between the values ​​given in the NADA and KBB guidelines.

NADA representatives are promoting the NADA Guide as a list of the most reliable, valid, and proven vehicle market value information compared to the KBB Guide and the Edmunds Pricing Guide. NADA provides data from a unique set of points that other guides do not have is correct because others do not have access to car dealer sales exclusively affiliated with this association. As a result, NADA uses hundreds of thousands of sales transactions to derive an average directory price list. But is this a fair market value that consumers can expect? Of course, it’s not. Read about other types of used car values here.

Here, at Indy Auto Man, we do not use the NADA guides as a reference and recommend our customers to compare our valuation with the KBB offers. And here are the reasons why:

• NADA algorithms use only the dealer selling prices and do not include private sale values. This means that even if the dealership sells the same car (same make, model, year) in the same condition (same mileage and wear), its price won’t be of much value to you. In fact, official dealers tend to raise the selling price of cars higher than private sellers. What’s more, NADA guides don’t always consider discounts or incentives offered by car dealerships.
• The vehicles used for analysis in the algorithm are usually sold in very good condition. Individual sales tend to be vehicles that are rarely in an equal state, with a small percentage falling into the similar parameters of car sales from dealers. For this reason, the NADA used car value may not be the best indicator of the selling price you can expect for your vehicle.

Read also what factors define the used car value .

The best way to get a true market value when selling a used car in Indianapolis is to check the evaluations from the guides, get offers from local dealerships, consider trade-ins and other specials, and choose the option that will suit you best.