ATVs, Motorcycles & Boats – How to Calculate Your True Trade In Value

 

If you made it to this page you are one of thousands if not hundreds of thousands struggling to figure out what your Boat, Motorcycle or ATV’s Trade In Value is. I wish there was a simple cut and dry answer for you.

Cut and dry is definitely not the case. Before we start let’s make sure we know what we are talking about first.

If you are thinking about going to find a side by side for sale but you need to part with your previously enjoyed Pre-Owned ATV, Motorcycle, or Boat you have a retail and wholesale value. The wholesale value is what the dealership purchases your vehicle from you so you get you that big trade in tax credit from the government and then the dealership reconditions and resells your vehicle.

Whereas the retail value is what you would get for your vehicle if you sold it privately, usually its not much more than taking advantage of the tax credit from your dealer. Not to mention it’s way less brain damage than having someone coming to look at something and never show up.

For finding out the trade in value you have a few different avenues to go down.

 

• Use Online Classifieds
• Instant Trade in Value Appraisal Tools
  
• Auction Values
• Word of Mouth
• Bring it to the Dealership

 

Research Online Classifieds

The internet is a wonderful place to locate and use Resources like Craigslist, Ebay, and local buy and sell groups to get an idea of what your trade is worth. Using this technique sometimes can be misleading and provide you with some misinformation.

Just because that boat is listed on a site for (X) amount of dollars doesn’t mean that’s the actual value. Lots of things come into the equation like what is the condition of the one listed? What are the similarities and differences? Does this boat have a larger motor than my boat? Is the trailer included?

Look at the age of the listing, how long has it been listed for? Frequently whoever is selling it is asking an unrealistic market value, which is why it’s still for sale.

Think of it this way if it was a great fair price and in good condition it wouldn’t still be for sale would it? It would be parked in the garage of the new owner.

If you do find consistent research and feel the research is warranted keep in mind when trading it that it is the dealers business to purchase for less than selling price as that is how they keep the lights on and how you get the big tax credit for trading.

 

Using Instant Trade in Value Appraisal Tools

When it comes to getting an idea of the ballpark of your trade it doesn’t get any easier than finding a dealer that gives the current and future customers this feature.

Using an online instant trade appraisal tool takes the guesswork out of the process. Most tools use current prices they aggregate through auctions, dealership sales, and current wholesale values to find a trade in value. In short they use REAL up to date numbers based current market trends.

If you complete the appraisal tool and are shocked by the trade price don’t be alarmed.

These tools use large amounts of data points and combine them to find an average. It’s just to provide a ballpark number of what the current wholesale value of the boat is.

If you think your boat is above “average” you don’t have to worry as nothing is set in stone, it’s just giving you an idea.

Did you get too excited at the price of the appraisal? Again it’s just to get you an idea and the numbers aren’t final until the future customer or dealership does a visual and mechanical inspection.

If you have a magnificent well-kept amazing trade the value usually will go up but on the other hand if it comes in and needs a lot of work then it could go down.

 

Auction Values

Using auctions to narrow down your trade in values are a great way find out current market price of your trade whether it’s a boat, ATV, side by side or motorcycle.

Most auctions track their historical sale prices through the auction and you can use it as price guide. Do you have any public auction houses in your area or are they dealer only?

Most cities likes Winnipeg Manitoba have auctions which run both private and public auctions weekly. Getting a membership to access their data is sometimes a bit easier than having to provide a dealership re-seller permit and tax numbers and jump through all the hoops.

If you’re lucky when you sign up you can get access to the company’s historical values for free. Sometimes they a monthly payment on your account to get access to the data.

Below is an example of auction data vehicle summary. For this example we used a Polaris Sportsman 450.

On a quick glance below you can quickly see the current Wholesale Book Value is $3610. This means that if you were just using one set of data points you would automatically assume your trade was worth $3610 dollars. Look a little harder this can be misleading

If you dig deeper into the report you can see that in the past 12 months (We set this time frame on the auction site) they had 26 Polaris Sportsman 450s go through the auction with an average value of $3365.

So in this case the wholesale book value is not actually the true market value

 

Auction Value Deep Dive

Lets dig deeper

 

The report below is the auctioned vehicles condition report, you can clearly see that there were some great condition Polaris Sportsman’s coming through the auction.

The auctions highest score is 100/100 based on huge detailed condition report the auction completes and provides to buyers.

Below can see the nice ones are averaging $3766 through the auction so if we look at this the wholesale number is only $3610. On the other hand the less nice ones are averaging $2400 so the wholesale value is way out.

 

This next table below shows the sales based on a month.

As you know boats, ATVs, snowmobiles are all seasonal and as such the market and time of year dictates the prices.

If you want top dollar don’t trade your snowmobile when ice cream melts faster than you can eat it.

If you want the most for your vehicle you need to trade it in-season or accept some seasonal depreciation.

 

This next chart doesn’t have much data as in most cases ATVs never get huge miles on them because in Canada they aren’t road legal.

With anything the overall condition, along with the mileage affects the trade in value.

Every day you own it in theory its worth a little less and every mile you put on the vehicle it brings the trade in value down until you hit the “If it runs its worth this much” plateau.

This is simply the cost of ownership

 

 

In a nutshell that is some of the valuable data you can receive from auctions to help you determine the trade in value of your vehicle.

If you don’t have the ability or access to get this data you can always ask the boat dealership if they can help

Most large dealers have access and accounts setup and are already paying the fees from the auctions.

Or if you just don’t have the time you can just use our Free Trade Appraisal Tool as it uses a large amount of auction data collected with other data streams to determine current market value.

 

Word of Mouth

When you go out boating, off roading or riding a motorcycle do you ever come across someone with a similar vehicle?

You start talking and you have the same thing in common, you both have or know someone with the same vehicle.

You get talking about those options you didn’t know existed, recent trips and places to ride or boat.

These are some of your best resources you can get as the average person upgrades his vehicle frequently. Call them to ask if they’ve been riding, maybe they know what your bikes trade in value is.

It’s likely that you guys aren’t the only ones that have encountered a few guys on their travels. Maybe one said “Hey I loved that bike, I just sold it last year” or some version of that.

Use this process, call a few friends someone in your group should have an idea.

 

Dealership Visit

Visiting a dealership is by far the best most accurate way to get a real trade-in value number. They have the knowledge, they have the expertise, they have probably sold 100s of vehicles just like yours.

Most dealers have good resources and incorporate all of the above ways to narrow down what your trade value is.

They look at inventory, do online research, they have access to auctions and numbers that aren’t public.

They even can call a friend and their friends who are other dealers with more knowledge in the industry. That dealer has as much if not more knowledge to use as a resource.

Ask your questions while your vehicle is professionally appraised. Find out if that scratch down the side affects the value.

Look at other vehicles while they appraise and talk to their on site professionals.

This step always gets done eventually, doing it early can streamline things and save you time and confusion.

It’s easier to ask face to face than scour the internet for hours.

 

Finishing Up

Determining the Trade Value of any product as you can see is not as straight forward as some people think.

Easy ways, hard ways in search of fair market value of your boat, ATV, side by side or motorcycle.

If you can harness some of the information above that should help you. Having the right tools and knowledge for the right job makes a difference.

As one of the largest dealerships in Manitoba we definitely have all the tools for this job.

If you like choosing the easy route and give us a call and book a professional trade appraisal. Give us a call or shoot us a quick email or talk to us 24/7 with our live chat.

Still just in the preliminary stages and just looking for ballpark prices? Take advantage of our great 30 Second Trade In Appraisal

This tool costs a small fortune to have access to and it’s just one of the many free services we offer.

Check out our showroom or get a quote on a new or previously loved vehicle!

Leave us a comments if they have any additional trade in value methods we missed!