You will find online trade-in valuations (such as kelly blue book, nada, edmunds) typically to be within $500.00 dollars of each other.
Obviously, not alot of help considering none of these sites actually are willing to purchase your car at these values anyways.
As you have recently found out neither are many used car managers. The valuations, between these guys can range all over the board. The saying in our business is that no two managers will ever come up with the same value. Consumers report, several thousand dollars difference in trade appraisals at the same store from a different manager.
The bottom line is that just like the old horse trading days, smoke and mirrors, and fun and games will always prevail.
Many consumers, wanting to avoid the whole game and shopping experience itself have flocked to places like CarMax and Saturn dealerships. Where there is no negiotiation on buying or selling your car. There's the price take it or leave it. Well, needless to say there is a big winner there and I promise you it will not ever be you!
Buying a car, which 90% of the time entails trading out of an old car is a negiotiation! It is you against heavily stacked favorites.
How you beat the odds is to negiotiate effectively. If they cannot give you what you feel is the value of your trade in. Then leave. Get you a for sale sign and sell it yourself on AutoTrader, Ebay, or Cars.com period.
To determine the true market value of your vehicle find out what similar cars like yours are selling for on these very same sites.
I hope this helps.
Jon Ritter, VP Operations
http://www.getacar.com
972-267-CARS
will In addition, you can assume no two used car managers will ever come up with the same number. So how do you figure your