To determine what your car is worth, MotorTrend utilizes data from our sister company Black Book, an auto industry leader in vehicle-value data analysis for car dealers. Black Book's extensive database enables us to calculate what your vehicle is worth based on its age, mileage, condition, options, and accident history—and also adjusts for the going price of similar vehicles in your area. Our calculator will tell you two things: what you can expect to be paid for your vehicle if you sell it privately and what you should get if you trade it in at the dealership.
You can count on the values we give you since we use the same data that Black Book analyzes and then supplies to car dealers, whose businesses depend upon knowing precisely what every car, truck, and SUV is worth.
Yes. You can sell it to the dealership where you're buying your new ride. The dealership will handle the payment to your loan provider and will put any remaining proceeds towards your new set of wheels.
That depends. There are pros and cons to both trading-in and selling your car privately. You'll have to look at your state's tax code and see how it may affect the bottom line. Most times, selling your vehicle privately will net you more money up front, but that could mean you'll pay more taxes on the full price of the new car that you're buying. And selling it yourself entails extra time, the need to deal with strangers, and possible scams. However, in some states you only pay sales tax on what the car costs after the dealer subtracts the value of your trade-in. You might come out ahead in that case. Finally, there are the car-buying services, which can be both quicker and safer to deal with but, like a dealer, will pay you less for your car than a private party.
Yes. People in different parts of the country favor different types of vehicles, which affects their value in that locale. Rear-wheel- drive pickup trucks, for example, are generally worth more in the Southeast than in the Northeast.
No. But you can check out our company's vintage-car auction site, Bring a Trailer, to get an idea of what it's worth. It's also a great place to drool over all kinds of cool vintage iron.
This is a complicated question to answer. Different vehicles depreciate at different rates depending on numerous factors the state of the general economy, what kind of vehicle it is, the brand of the car, how much demand there is for that model or body style, the price of gas, and much more.