There are many different ways to determine what your motorcycle, UTV, ATV, Snowmobile, Boat, or RV is worth. Did you know that Value My Trade In has a simple tool that makes estimating your motorcycle value easily? Within 30 seconds you can get an idea of what it is worth to decide if NOW is the time to sell or trade it in or do nothing and keep it.
The majority of all dealers use a book value from J.D. Power to estimate what your motorcycle is worth. If you visit the J.D. Power website directly, you can only see the retail values of these items. The retail value is what it would be worth if it were for sale at a local motorcycle dealership. This value does not give you a realistic idea of what it is worth to you. You would not get retail value if you were to sell it via a private party. And, a dealer would not be willing (in most cases) to pay you retail because they have costs involved to get a vehicle ready to sell. So, what that means is they are willing to pay you a trade-in value for your motorcycle. This is a value range – usually rough to clean – that gives you an idea what a dealer might pay you to buy the vehicle from you.
Some dealers express that the trade values are not always realistic. This could be due to a delay in the pricing being updated vs. what the current market conditions are. Also, values can differ based on geographic areas as well. The book values are given based on an average nationwide. In certain areas, dealers might not be willing to pay those values due to their own market conditions.
As you can see there is a lot that goes into a simple trade-in value. Check out our simple trade-in value calculator to see how much your vehicle is worth today.