xpressive

Has anyone noticed that the NADA value for a CR is in the tanks right now? I was unpleasantly surprised when I the bank told me what it was "worth." I had to ask her if she designated the CR or Club Racer model and she confirmed. I had to look for myself.

Has this always been the case for the CR? I know NADA cannot always account for market values.

Vanishing Point

The NADA is designed as a tool for car dealers to basically judge trade in values of used cars. Those values will vary greatly depending on where you live so I won't worry about what they perceive as the CR's value. NADA is behind the curve regarding the CR's rarity, market demand and actual pricing.

Biff_Malibu

The CR is a weird car. There's so few of them, and it appeals to such a hard core, yet limited base of buyers.

The high end automotive enthusiast/collector typically doesn't have a Honda in his/her arsenal, nor are they looking to add one. They much prefer a rare Porsche, Ferrari, etc... There are few that either are younger, and grew up as Honda enthusiasts, or older who have an appreciation for Japanese cars. Limited demand from this segment.

The typical Honda enthusiast at the lower end of the market is looking for a medium to higher mileage, cheap Honda S2000. They want the bargain deal, so that they can most likely put wheels that don't fit on it, and a canister style single exhaust from The Fast and The Furious that drones so much you'll lose your hearing. This is the kind of person who typically ridicules people for paying a premium to have a rare, clean, unmolested example of an extremely well engineered car. "What you thinkin bro? That car's only worth $8,000!!". This segment of the market is definitely not a CR buyer.

I do believe real world values are up. Especially for lower mileage, 100% unmodified examples of a CR. I've tested the market over the last 90 days. I've been blown away by how many people have turned down my offers that are in some cases double what NADA is stating the car is worth.

loserwill

The CRs aren't getting anywhere near what people think they are getting. This isn't a 30k car. At the end of the day these cars are and should be in the low 20s for clean average mileage examples.

Biff_Malibu

What's the basis for this statement? Where do you see clean CRs, with reasonable miles going for low 20s?

Check this out:

Moderate miles, clean, going for an asking price of $30K. Multiple offers. He could have probably gotten $33K for it. https://www.s2ki.com/s2000/topic/116...5k-miles-sold/

Chuck S

If someone really wants a CR they'll pay a premium price regardless of NADA "value." I've paid "more than it's worth" for several items that I really wanted and didn't want to lose for the want of a few more (thousand) dollars! Heck I paid sticker price for my first year CRX (yeah, a loooooog time ago!) and didn't get a choice of color even waiting 6 months for delivery. Was worth nothing when it was totaled.

There's only a few hundred CRs and even the tiny demand exceeds the supply.

It's a sin to race a Club Racer. Get one of the millions of Miatas and race it.

-- Chuck

Dulu

As previously stated, NADA is more of a tool to be used between dealers. Autotrader has higher values for our cars. When I used their site it priced my CR closer to market rate and linked local dealers that would pay their numbers.

To add to jbkonis' point, FD3S is another Japanese car in a similar situation. High teens for a garage queen 20,000 mile car. But market price is almost double that. Probably due to to all the salvaged, modified, or high mileage vehicles that are out there. Reliability stigma also hurts book value as well.

Memo6453

Clean CR's are for sure higher priced... I was offered $29.5k for my '07 S2000 GPW w/25k miles and i said no. I think i should have taken that offer ... i would think a CR in similar quality n miles would have been $30k+

FurY

Ned's ABP that sold recently and was linked above, is a great example of "it's worth what someone is willing to pay." You don't see many ABP's come up for sale, especially recently it seems, so when one does, everyone immediately jumps on it. Given that kind of demand, you are in a good position to ask the price that you want and not budge, because if this guy won't buy, the next one waiting in line will. The buyer may get nervous about finding another clean one any time soon and doesn't want to miss out, so then they're justifying the seller's higher asking because the market demand calls for it.

The Integra Type-R was another one on KBB/NADA that showed a lower value than what they were truly going for in the market.

Sterling Sackey

Tools like NADA are used for determining the value of run-of-the-mill, high production cars. They can't accurately predict for cars that have a strong collector element, like the CR does.