Ok so i wasn’t sure which area to post this in. I just took a Honda accord that I'm thinking about buying into a mechanic. I thought the guy selling it was giving an extremely good value because he was listing it at about $2k below the private party blue book value for an average condition car. but then the mechanic i took it to looked the value up on edmunds.com which gave a drastically lower value. Edmunds.com actually quoted it at about the price that it was being offered for.

Which value should i go by? Should i post this in a different forum heading?

The specs on the car
2001 Honda Accord LX Coup. 66k miles.
Needs new breaks, has a 1 inch crack in the front windshield. (probably from a pebble)
Has obvious areas where scratches and dings were painted over.
And is a quart low on oil (don’t know why)
Other than that, it seems to be in good condition. the engine and transmission looked good to the mechanic.

The mechanis recomended I offer one thousand less then it is being advertised for. I'm worried about offending since it already seemed to me to be a low value for such a newish car.

Ideas?

 

I just valued it on Blue Book, NADA, and Edmunds. I noticesd that Edmunds does not take into account anything like mileage. You just click on the type of car and it gives you a value. I don't think the Edmunds value is very accurate at all. Both Blue Book and NADA say about $8.5k to $9,250.
What is the seller listing it for? Is it a 4 cyl? Automatic?

 

Edmunds is usuallya good pricing, and there is a consideration of mileage. As well as region.
Kelly Blue Bookis based on dealer "ASKING" price, so it is without a doubt unrealistic, unless you want to pay top dollar.
By Kelly Book standards; If I ask $10,000 for my old Yota pick up that means the truck is worth that much?

 

You look at the KBB "private party value" and "good condition." If you look at "excellent condition" and "retail value" then yes, that would be based on dealer "asking" price. In my experience with appraisals when cars are totalled in the insurance claims I handle, KBB hasalways been pretty accurate. We normally use NADA and add/subtract for equipment, research the market, etc.. for a value on a "totaled" car, most of the time KBB is right on the moneyafter the appraisal process is complete.
I didn't see a spot to input mileage on the Edmunds site, but I'm sure it would have been more accurate if I had input the mileage.
My experience with all car appraisal sites is that you should look at as many as you can, then decide on what you think a good price would be.

 

Good advice. Look at everything. In my experience, edmunds has been more realistic than kbb.

 

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Ditto. I had never even heard of Edmunds till I saw it on here.

 

I've known about edmunds for quite some time but my dealership has always used KBB and NADA. All the banks we deal with use only those two so I can't comment on Edmunds accuracy but I can tell you that on average KBB is a little higher than NADA (average, not always) but most people and about half the banks out there use KBB as a guide on how to price things. If it's 2k under private party value I'd say that unless it's beat up real bad that's probably a good price.

 

x2 ^sir_nasty!

 

When I was looking to buymy car I took the three and averaged them to find an average....I also looked at what a dealer would give me on a trade-in for the same car....I took that in consideration when I made my offers....I got mine that was listed for 19,8K on the sticker for 16,3K certified with 23.5k miles....