Last week, we were looking at the Kelley Blue Book company’s “Quick Price” package for helping dealers and insurers with their auto valuations, and wondering where the help was for the common customer. Drumroll, please: in a May 24 press release, KBB is detailing new tools for individual buyers.
According to Kelley’s people, the new “task based navigation” resources on the site will help car shoppers get more clarity and maneuver their way to reasonable car pricing faster and easier. Company reps are saying that the new KBB site provides more clarity for both new and used purchases.
Long before this renovation of Kelley’s site, car buyers all over the country have relied on Kelley Blue Book values for nearly any auto deal. Whether you’re standing in a driveway or on a dealership lot, most sellers and buyers can agree that whatever’s showing up on Kelley is a fairly accurate value for a vehicle, less any significant damages which can be very hard to accurately assess with an Internet pricing tool. But now, KBB is offering more specialized searches that recognize “goals” for shoppers, instead of just plugging in year, make, model and mileage.
This exciting change can help new car buyers figure out what it will cost them to drive away in the newest auto styles, not just on the day of sale, but over the first five years of ownership. Kelley’s Total Cost of Ownership tools will help assess how each vehicle will incur cost after it’s in the garage. Elements of total cost of ownership include maintenance, taxes, tags and title fees, insurance cost, and much more. These costs can differ quite a bit according to the specific new car purchased, so Kelley’s addition of TCO values makes a whole lot of sense.
In addition, new KBB tools will address “fair price purchases” based on real transaction values. Transaction values are the technical assessments of sale prices that happen at the dealership counter. We’ve reported on them extensively, because they matter, and KBB’s focus on using real data should, indeed, make their final pricing estimates more fair.
Whether you are trying to finance a new car or just agree on an “OBO” price for a pre-owned model, check out what Kelley Blue Book’s web site can provide to help you figure out value quicker and get a better price for your next vehicle purchase.
