How accurae is KBB and NADA for pricing?
 

I need some help. I am looking at a very nice and maintained 2003 x5 4.4 with 93K miles. The car has been for sale on Craigslist for about a month now and asking 16K. When I go to KBB I get $14,500 and NADA I get $13,200. The reason why I am asking is I have a Mercedes CLK430 and I put mine up for sale this past summer for KBB average price in good condition and did not get email and went to a Mercedes forum and they said the cars don't at all at the KBB prices as they tend to be high.

What do you all think a fair price is for this car in good condition?

KBB price is usually high. If you are dealing with a dealer use Galves: Better than Kelly Blue Book for used car values! as baseline as that's what all dealers use to price when you bring your car for trade-in.

I use KBB and NADA as a reference, but also Autotrader and Cars.com to see what other people are trying to sell their cars for.

Black Book

This is a new one that i've just noticed popped up recently.

Darn,
you have to pay for these.

Try talking with your bank or credit union. My credit union will give me the wholesale price for what ever vin# I give them. Even if I am not borrowing money to purchase the car they will at least give me the wholesale value of the car. Reason being is that they will only loan up to wholesale amount for used cars.

Try Edmunds.com and appraise it there. They seem to be pretty close to reality.

KBB is always high. Edmunds is definitely closer to real value. That BlackBook one I posted I have yet to see how accurate that one is.

Edmunds is really low. For the 2003 x5 I am looking at it has a private party value of $12,100 and the person is asking $16,000. I was not going to pay anything close o $16K but was not expecting Edmunds to be so low. The car is really nice but the remote door locks dont work and the drivers side power seat does not work based on that and the Edmunds price could not see offering more than $11000. Think they might be insulted.

The Black Book is what the majority of dealerships use. Deals more with wholesale prices.

Not comparing even similar species of cars, and strictly anecdotal, but we got $2Gs more for the CEO's registered pos '03 Honda CRV, than any of the car worth sites showed...the dlr selling us her new Hyundai Tuck wanted the sale, and admitted he had a serious buyer lined up for her traded-in CRV. I was very surprised at the trade-in price for that 3rd world pos.

I think much of one having success in selling their car is based on the ever changing vagaries of supply/demand, locale, wholesale lot action, dealers' needs, etc.

The OP's target car has 93k miles, and has been floating on CL for a month; I would offer the lowball of any of the 'value rating' agencies, at most, imo.
GL, mD

:iagree: Ask for as much as you can get. There's no harm in trying.

It depends what options are on it, if it has cold weather, premium package, etc. Mine was 2003 4.4 with both packages, non-sport, 64K miles, I bought in 2008 for 18,500 private seller. He was asking 19500, KBB was 21500. Just for some reference point..hope it helps. But I would say 13K would be about the right price at that mileage assuming it has same options. But with the known defects, maybe offer 12K max, start at 11K...and work up?

First off its a buyers market so the seller should be happy to have an interested party. So yes low ball and don't worry about insulting, they want to sell it more than you want to buy it. If they don't want to deal just move on, plenty of X5's out there.

If you are really interested in it have an inspection done and just lower your offer price according to found issues. AAA has recommended shops that do an inspection for less than $100. Please have an inspection done before buying.

The two items you listed as not working, remote locks and power driver seat, these to me would be necessary for daily operation. I bet the seller already got estimates for the repairs and figured its not worth fixing.

Define well maintained?

Things to look for:

Slipping transmission
leaking valve cover gaskets
worn suspension bushings

The inspection would cover this.

GL