Hello. I've been looking to buy another S2000 since having to sell my old one to pay for college a few years ago. I'm trying to gauge how much to pay for one but I've noticed that looking between the 3 value sites there is a LARGE discrepancy. My zip code is 29229.

For instance, one I'm looking at is a '00 NFR on black with 95,000 in pristine condition, private party sale.
KBB: $14,894 excellent private party
NADA: $10,700 (clean retail)
Edmunds: $6,108 private party

The weird thing is, if I'm on KBB and I click through the years leaving everything else the same (miles, etc), the price actually goes DOWN when I go up the years until 2004. I'm not sure how that one works...?

I'm also looking at an '05 GPW on tan with 75,000 miles in pristine condition, private party sale.
KBB: $16,831 excellent private party
NADA: $17,150 (clean retail)
Edmunds: $14,349 private party

I know there's a lot of controversy between the 3 sites, but I'm just looking for a "fair" deal, not to beat anyone up or anything. I would even pay a little more than fair if I loved the car. But if I'm looking at 2000's the price range is so wide that I don't know where to start. Obviously I'm not going to pay $14,000 for a '00 with that many miles since I can get an 05 with the same mileage for the same price... right?

Any help would be VERY much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

i'd suggest looking thru the classifieds on here and autotrader to see what the pricepoints are on other cars of the same year with that sort of mileage to get a general idea of asking price and then go from there.

It seems some people are willing to price their car to sell it and others price their cars at what they think it is worth to them, and not a potential buyer.

 

Use autotrader. Search Radius 300Mi. You can check ebay and the classifieds here too. That should give you an idea. Kbb/edmunds sites are not that accurate. You may find wild ranges across mileage and years. Eventually you will be able to find a private party that will sell at a low price for the car you want.

 

Us as the owners have made the market value for these things. You can never go off of those sites.

For instance, a GPW in good condition will always fetch more money than other colors... if sold privately, not at a dealer.

 

I actually use the used prices thread to figure out how much to pay.

This is somewhat technical, but this is what I did to figure out how much to pay:

I compiled a spreadsheet of the model year, mileage, price and purchase year from posts in the thread. Then when I found a car that I liked, I filtered the spreadsheet for that model year and purchase years within the last year or so. I then used these data points and plotted the mileage and price. I then found the trendline that best fit the data (basically maximizing R^2). I used the equation and plugged in the mileage values and you have an estimated price.

For yours, I looked at 2000 and 2001 model years and I got an estimated price of $10,127.5.

 

I will echo the dealers throwing the prices off. When I was looking the dealers were about 5k higher than the private party sales in many cases. I think the most important thing is to find your budget for the car and then find the absolute best car you can within that budget. For instance I new I wanted the lowest miles I could find and a year that would still get me the best APR and I wanted to be under $20k because that was my limit.

I ended up finding a 05 NFR (my preferred color) with 22k miles that was totally stock for $19,500. It was exactly what I wanted and was a price I was comfortable with. I also looked at an 08 or something GPW that was very nice but it had double the miles and the dealer wanted $25k for it and I would have had to pay sales taxes and probably get nickle and dimed during the process.

The point is find the price you want to pay and then find a car that matches. I keep hearing about clean cars popping up under $10k but I have yet to see one and you also see dealers asking for close to $30k for the same thing.

 

Prices vary by region but I'll toss out a rough estimate of what you might expect to pay a private party right now for a clean car with ~50-60k miles based on year (again this is a complete generalization and I'm sure you'll see people disagree). Just a starting point for you based on what I've seen over the last 3 years on this forum and for sale sites--

00-01: 10-12k
02-03: 12-16k (most desirable years for those obsessed with 9k redline)
04-05: 13-16k
06-07: 17-21k
08-09: 19-24k

For a dealership, add 2-4k to each number above.

These cars really are all over the place with price. You'll hear about people who find a perfect 02/03 with 30k miles who paid $10,500 but they just got lucky. Then you will see others who paid $17,000 for an 04 with 90k miles. Did the second example get a bad deal? Not necessarily, but they sure didn't get the best deal either.

 

07 in NJ for $50,000

http://newjersey.craigslist.org/cto/3783447487.html

Levi

 

^^ LOL i saw that post and i almost emailed the guy saying thank you. i bought my 06 3 years ago for 13k with 50 on the clock. and its worth more now with my current mileage of almost 90k. us as a community will keep the price high. just gotta keep an eye out and be ready for a deal when it shows up. not that i would ever sell my car but its nice to know it can still fetch that kinda money.

 

I will second these ranges. If you're just starting your search and trying to figure out what Years your budget can afford you, i'd say this is a good starting point.
If you aren't particular about needing the 9k redline or 'it has to be white' then these are fine. Otherwise people will bump theirs up with a premium, and some will certainly pay the premium asked.