Used Vehicle Price Guides Can Be Off by Thousands of Dollars

When supply is low, prices tend to go up. One main reason for the shortfall is due to the collapse of the car rental business. Rental fleets are ordering half the cars they used to, which means they don't have as many cars to sell to dealerships.

On top of this, 2007 and 2008 car sales were lower than usual, meaning less late-model used cars available. Furthermore, the "cash for clunkers" program sent 700,000 functional cars to the scrapheap instead of the used car market.

This shortfall in supply has led to a large increase in prices for used cars over the last several months.

So much so that used-vehicle guides such as NADA Guides and Kelly Blue Book have had a hard time keeping up. Many dealers have been complaining that the wholesale prices quoted in NADA Guides is often thousands of dollars too low.

Car shoppers who will be trading in their used car need to spend more time to determine what their car is truly worth. Don't just go by the guidebooks. You could be short-changing yourself by thousands of dollars.

Read our Guide to Selling Your Used Car to get the highest price for your car.