Accuracy Takes Time
Since our company’s inception we’ve been researching diminished value evaluation techniques and trying to improve on our methods. We regret that after ten years of research we still have not managed to come up with a way to do appraisals overnight. Our research indicates that the most accurate way to determine diminished value in the local market is to average the assessments of local used car sales managers for the particular make of vehicle. Additionally, the Bureau of Certified Auto Appraisers (BOCAA) guidelines require market quotes from dealers in the local market from multiple dealer locations.
We’ve evaluated every possible alternative. We’ve studied various formulas and although some local sales managers use similar formulas, every dealership has a different way of determining diminished value. We purchased highly recommended software that was supposed to provide accurate numbers, but we found serious errors in the software upon thorough testing.
The majority of individuals that go to sell their vehicle do so with dealerships and the only way to know what is happening in the market is to meet with sales managers as they are the individuals actually purchasing and selling vehicles.
We’ve established a rapport with all local sales managers for each make of vehicle and created an extensive database of which dealers will cooperate and who will not. If you were to try to get several used car manager’s assessments of diminished value then you will find that many refuse to cooperate out of fear of litigation. We have managed to minimize this concern by explaining that we take assessments from multiple dealerships and average the results. We also do not provide the specific name of the individual in our reports, only if subpoenaed.
We had hoped that we could speed up the process by utilizing email, fax and phone; however this has been unsuccessful as many dealers are just too busy to read the messages while some are apprehensive that email records provide easily discoverable evidence.
We will continue attempts to speed up the appraisal process, however at this time it appears that accuracy takes time. Sales managers can be very busy people that are difficult to meet with. By bringing them cookies and learning how to work with their schedules we’ve become pretty good at keeping them happy and getting the necessary results. Regrettably, our process takes patience. We cannot provide a report overnight and depending on the circumstances; it can sometimes take up to two weeks for us to get all of the data necessary to provide a report.
