The three numbers, and what each one measures
Retail price is what a dealer advertises the car for on their lot. It includes reconditioning, statutory warranty, floor plan interest, marketing and margin. You will never receive this number selling your own car, because you are not providing any of those things.
Private sale price is what another individual will pay you directly. It typically sits below retail because the buyer gets no warranty and no recourse, and above wholesale because there is no business taking a margin.
Wholesale or trade price is what a licensed dealer will pay you today, in cash, taking on all the risk and cost of reselling it. It is the lowest of the three, and it is also the only one that is real right now rather than aspirational.
Why valuation guides disagree with reality
Online guides are built from historical transaction data, often lagging by weeks or months, and they cannot see your specific car. They do not know that your tyres are down to the wear bars, that the service book has a two year gap, or that your model has become hard to source in your state this quarter. They are a starting range, not a price.
Listing sites are even less reliable as a guide, because they show asking prices. The gap between what a private seller asks and what they eventually accept is frequently thousands of dollars, and cars that never sold at all stay visible in the data you are reading.
What actually moves your number
- Service history. The single biggest swing factor on most cars. A complete logbook is evidence the car was looked after and reduces the buyer's risk.
- Kilometres, relative to age. Roughly 15,000 km a year is the Australian benchmark. Well under it helps, well over it costs, but consistency with the history matters more than the raw figure.
- Tyres and brakes. A set of four tyres is a real cost the buyer has to absorb, and it comes straight off the offer.
- Panel and paint. Every panel that needs work is a booking, a loan car and a delay before the vehicle can be sold.
- Colour and specification. White, silver and grey retail fastest. Unusual colours narrow the buyer pool, which shows up in the price.
- Number of keys, and the manual. Small items, real money on modern vehicles.
- Demand in your state. The same four wheel drive is worth more in Darwin than Melbourne, and the same convertible is worth more on the Gold Coast than in Hobart.
How to get a number you can act on
Ask several licensed dealers to price the car in writing on the same day, with the same information. That does three things at once: it gives you a real figure rather than an estimate, it shows you the spread, and it removes the negotiation dynamic where one buyer knows they are the only one bidding.
If the offers cluster tightly, you have found the market. If they are far apart, one buyer has a specific retail channel for your car, and that is the offer worth taking.
What to do with the number once you have it
Even if you are not certain you want to sell, a written offer is useful leverage. Take it into a dealership and the trade-in conversation changes completely, because you can now see exactly what the trade-in figure is worth against a real alternative. It also tells you whether a private sale is worth the weeks of effort, since you now know the floor you are trying to beat.