There's been a lot of commentary recently about the sale of a Flathood on eBay at a very high price. It drew a lot of comments from folks about how outlandish the final price was, and this started me thinking about exactly what is the "right" price for a used car. So I'd like to comment on the concept, "Is there a right price for a used car", and welcome some friendly discussion here.

I'd like to start off by quoting Janey -- his last message in a posting, "The Flathood was sold" earlier today. You're exactly right, Janey: "...the value is exactly the price paid for the item bought at that moment...."

I'll, in turn, throw out some statements for your consideration:

A new car has a established value approximating the Manufacturer's list price (derived from focus groups and product planning), give or take a relatively little bit (viz., consumer demand, rebates, seasonal sales) -- this is based on the fact that the car is of absolutely well-defined condition (i.e., "brand-new"), give or take some factory defects.

In contrast, the value of any used car is hard to pin down.

First, it's of undetermined quality -- it has been used, serviced, care for and abused to an unknown extent -- only some it's condition can ever be determined with any degree of confidence when it's being bought, and only time of ownership will reveal a truer picture of its condition.

Some folks rely on Kelly Blue books or other similar sources like it was a bible, the word of god, and won't budge any higher -- they actually feel insulted if you ask more than the book value regardless of it condition. These people don't realize that a "book value" is NOT meant to be treated as if its figures were "written in stone", but really is simply a report on the average price of similar cars sold during some past period (quarter, six months, etc.) -- it is history, not a proclamation that a car should be worth this amount right now, simply because no book can deal with the value of used cars because their condition can be any of infinite points along a continuum of conditions, ranging from awful to pristine. And being merely a historical record, it can't deal with rapid changes -- if gas prices suddenly hit $5, do you think the current Kelly books would accurately reflect the market value of Ford Excursions?

So what we're really left with is the desire of the purchaser and the greed or ego of the seller. Sometimes these never overlap, and sometimes they do and a sale is made.

Bottom line -- a car is worth whatever the seller is willing to accept and the buyer is willing to pay, especially the latter.

You might comment that a buyer paid too much, but what is really being said is that the car wasn't worth that much to you -- you can't really speak for what the buyer wanted. Maybe a certain color, or a certain detail (e.g., sunroof, etc.) made it worth especially more to the buyer than to you.

So there really is no such thing as a determinite value of a used car.

Okay, what do the rest of you think?