Trade-ins
A trade-in is appraised and valued on the enquiry, and the net against the new car is worked out rather than recalculated by hand every time somebody asks. It is the one sub-process that deliberately asserts nothing about whether the sale is progressing.
How it works
- 01
Describe their car
Make is the only thing required — everything else can genuinely be unknown when a customer first mentions it. The car is free text on purpose: a competitor's model does not belong in your catalogue.
- 02
Record two values, not one
The estimated value is the desk guess; the offer is what you will actually pay once somebody looked at it. The gap between them is the negotiation, and collapsing them into one number loses it.
- 03
Record outstanding finance
A car with a loan still on it is the ordinary case here, and it changes everything: the settlement comes off the trade-in before any of it reaches the new car.
- 04
Read the net
Offer minus settlement, derived. It is the number the customer actually cares about and the one that is easiest to get wrong on a calculator.
Worth knowing
A trade-in raises no outcome at all. Bringing a car in to be valued is not evidence of a decision — plenty of people are simply finding out what theirs is worth.
It attaches to the enquiry, not to a particular car on the shortlist, because people trade one car against whichever of three they end up choosing.