Understanding Bluebook Pricing when Selling a Car

When you are selling a car, you will either be putting it up for private sale or attempting to trade it in to a car dealer. If you go the private sale method, pricing from the Kelley Bluebook may not apply as much as if you go to a dealer, although you may end up consulting it. It is important to understand what the Bluebook is actually saying before taking it for absolute truth.

Kelley Bluebook

Prices so often quoted from the Kelley Bluebook, commonly called the Bluebook value, are not quite what they seem. They are not, as is often thought, an indication of value of a car. Rather, they reflect the recommended retail price of a vehicle of a particular make and model. Thus, a car’s actual value may be determined to be $1000, yet if retail used car dealerships are successfully selling the same car for $2000, the Bluebook will be indicative of the dealer’s price.

So, if you are selling your car privately and consult the Bluebook to find an accurate assessment of the car’s value, you are looking in the wrong place. What you will find is what they recommend a dealer sell the car for, not its value. If the buyer knows this too, quoting the Bluebook is an exercise in futility.

If you want to find what a car is actually worth to help you sell your car, you will have to look somewhere other than Kelley Bluebook.