Beware
of car prices based off Kelly Blue Book. Kelly Blue Book values have some of the highest used car prices in the industry.
Some folks call it the Kelly Screw Book. So...How can I find out what a car is worth, really?
Here's the article....
Kelley
Blue Book Can Make Buyers Blue and The Dealer Green (With Your Cash)
For the past
year or so, the publishers of The Auto Channel have been increasingly
concerned
that car buyers who utilize the Internet have been getting
screwed by believing that Kelley Blue Book on-line is an unbiased fair
and honest source for used car valuations.
Although
the owners of TACH are capitalists to the core and believe that
companies have an obligation to legally make a profit…when
market power enables sellers to dishonestly exploit buyers, it's time
for us to make this untenable situation known to our viewers.
Because
most car buyers have been convinced that, Kelley Blue Book on-line is
consumer friendly, and most dealers know it's not, Kelley has grown to
become the de-facto benchmark for "Real" used car values…but
with this success we believe comes the so far unmet responsibility to
actually be honest and impartial.
In
spite of the ongoing research that we and others have done which
consistently shows that KBB values are definitely not fair and are in
fact complicity tilted in the dealers favor, no publication or
broadcast entity has taken up the gauntlet for
disclosure…until now.
TACH
believes that just because KBB is “everywhere” does
not prove that it is impartial and honest.
Kelley
Blue Book’s widespread tacit endorsement from even the most
upstanding auto manufactures and dealers web sites, has imbued Kelley
with an undeserved impartiality, one that that really doesn’t
exist.
This
pervasiveness continues to lead to the belief by consumers, that
because Kelley Blue Book pricing is used by "everyone", the used car
values it espouses must be unbiased and impartial.
Well
our long standing argument that the used car prices in Kelley Blue Book
are not unbiased, but unfairly tipped in the dealers favor, has been
endorsed by the admission that appears in an article in the Money
Making Minutes column which appears in this weeks Ward’s
Dealer Business magazine. The publishers of The Auto Channel believe
that this boondoggle is so pervasive and far reaching, that consumers
should be alerted to what is really going on, to that end we are
re-publishing the article in its entirety...here it is.
The
Article has been submitted by ASTN and is titled “ Show Your
Trade-in Customers the Facts”:
“Many
customers are now doing homework on the Internet prior to coming in to
negotiate for a purchase. Most have visited an on-line service to get
an invoice and to get a feel for what their trade is worth. But it is
amazing that people seem to believe everything to get off the
‘net’ (sic). The information has legitimacy simply
because it came from the computer! In trying to determine how to work
with these folks and still preserve a reasonable gross, some dealer
personnel have discovered that the Internet can actually work for them
on occasion.
When
working a deal that involves a trade-in, appraise the trade in the
normal course of the deal. However, now, before serving up a trade
allowance, go to the ‘net and log on to www.kbb.com (Kelley
Blue Book). Pull off the information regarding the trade-in value for
the customer’s car. More often than not, KBB values are more
conservative than your appraisals. When that happens, simply present
the KBB value to the customer. It is a value from an impartial
authority straight off the Internet. Customers have trouble refuting
these values, and many times you are able to secure the trade for
hundreds of dollars lower than the value at which it is eventually
booked.”
Well
there it is…Buyer Beware! When a dealer employs the Kelley
Blue Book used car values, run out of the showroom as quickly as you
can and do some more research before you really get
screwed…check the value of your car many
places…On-line: right here on TACH or Edmunds or NADA or
Chrome Data, spend the time to visit other dealers in your area, also
check the classifieds both on and off-line…but check and
compare valuations before you accept Kelley Blue Book’s
prejudiced low trade-in value or inflated high retail value.
Also
visit the RepairTrust resource link @ www.repairtrust.com/resources.html
As
a dealer friend of mine said… “ Only the sharks
use this book” …but hey, there sure have been a
lot of shark attacks these past few months…always be wary of
smiling people thumping a Blue Book.
-Bob Gordon
President and Co-Publisher
The Auto Channel
www.theautochannel.com
To learn more about eliminating repair scams Click Here
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