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 Are you looking for information on used car values? Or are you really looking for information on used car prices? There is an important difference. Price information is pretty straightforward and we will discuss where you can find used car prices. But if you are really looking for used car values, then that really implies something beyond price.
Values of Used Cars
In the strictest sense, value implies a trade off or balance between price and quality. For example, the price may be high for a car, but the price represents a good value. On the other hand, you might be looking for an inexpensive car that is also a good value.
Cheap Cars
A third example might be what many people refer to as a cheap car. The word "cheap" really implies inferior quality. And while many of us might say we "need a cheap car," what we really mean is an inexpensive car. Cheap cars will break down and wind up costing us more money in the long run.
Now this might sound like a grammar lesson to you, but if you are shopping for a used car you really want to find a car that is a good value - regardless of its price. Even if you are working with a limited budget, you still want to be able to buy a car that is going to run reliably and you want to pay a fair price. So let's break down the concept of value and talk about reliability and price separately.
Finding Reliable Used Cars
Probably the best single source of information on reliable used cars can be found in your local library. Nearly every library in America carries this publication because it is an independent rating agency with an honorable reputation.
Each year Consumer Reports sends a questionnaire to its readership asking them about their experiences with their own used cars. From this information, they've developed a rating system that includes the repair and expense experiences of their readership. They've been doing this survey for years so they have quite a bit of reliability information on thousands of used cars by make, model, and year.
Online Information on Used Cars
But of course you'd probably like to find a reliable used car online too. There are two online resources that are pretty helpful in this area. The first is the Consumer Guide, which has a rating system that allows you to find good values by price range. Their rating system also includes a best buy category that is given to only one used car from each of the 17 price / vehicle segments they've created.
A second online used car rating website you may want to check out is Edmunds.com. They've got a pretty extensive database of consumer reliability ratings for used cars. They provide comments by previous owners and even a link back to J.D. Power and Associates ratings.
We've also pulled together some recent information on dependable used cars as well as information on car safety ratings.
Used Car Prices
We are going to cover this topic in more detail in a future article, but if you really want to find used car prices, then the place to go is Kelley Blue Book's website. This company has been providing car pricing for over 75 years and they are pretty much the standard when it comes to used car prices. And as much as we like to provide a variety of information sources and options to our readers, it's really hard to recommend any other website when it comes to used car pricing.
Kelley Blue Book Prices
In fact, Kelley offers three types of used car prices to consumers:
- The first is a trade in value, or what you might expect to get from a car dealership if you trade in your used car.
- The second value they give you is the used car private party value. This is how much money you can expect to pay for a used car when you are buying the used car from a private seller - not a dealership.
- Finally, they offer used car prices that are suggested retail values. This is the price you might expect a used car dealership to have on the car's window. You should consider this the starting price whenever negotiating for a used car.
We intentionally talked about finding a reliable used car before we discussed price - and we did that for a good reason. That's also the thought process and approach that we recommend that you go through when evaluating used car values. First find out which cars can be expected to deliver reliable performance, then figure out which of those cars fit your budget.
Online Car Loan Calculators
In case you're not sure how much car you can afford to pay for a used car or how big a car loan you qualify for, we can help there too. We offer nearly a dozen online automobile loan calculators that can help you make an informed decision before you buy your next car.
These calculators range in sophistication from simple auto loan calculators that provide information on monthly payments to tools that can help you figure out whether or not it's better to lease or buy a car.
About the Author - Used Car Values
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