Cars

You may be able to get $2500-$3000. Personally, no matter how much you try to sell it for, I would run away from this car. The cracked windshield and ABS not working would make wonder what else is wrong. If you want to get top dollar, fix the windshield and ABS.

Coming from a car guy, this will probably come as no surprise but I think you put too much faith into the KBB value.

I’m not sure if you are looking at Private Seller Value, or Trade-in value… I did a KBB check on a 2000 passat gls auto with 108k miles (12k per year is average) and the Retail Value is shows $8100.

So take $8100 – $1500 for repairs brings you to $6600. Now if you have higher mileage then 108k… say you did 15k average per year and your at 135k. – that’s about 27k, deduct another $575 – would put you around $6025

Here’s the problem. KBB.com, Nada.com, Black Book Online.. Dare I say, even myself… we only offer opinions.

And Until KBB, Nada, or Black Book have a “print check” button somewhere on their website that issues you money for your car.. opinions are all they will ever be.

I’m assuming you want the most for your car. (Passats are nice, make sure you have it washed up and detailed.. it should be an easy sell once you get them driving it)

I would recommend two courses of action to maximize your sale price:

Go to and and search for year 2000 passat’s (gls, or glx whatever you have) and look to see what the retail values are.

Get an idea of the average value of the cars, make note of cars with less miles and more equipment that are selling for higher dollar amounts. You might even print some of those out to justify your price to a potential buyer.

Alternatively check all the major valuation websites (kbb, nada, black book) look at retail (ignore the private or trade-in values) Retail is what most people will see when shopping for the car.

People can dispute the prices on KBB/Nada/Black Book all day long, but if your priced competitive with the market (through cars/autotrader) you should do fine.

Just remember to adjust for reconditioning.

Alternatively you could use the highest value off the three websites as your guide when selling and setting your price, and back it up with the market averages you find on cars and autorader.

If your going to put an ad in the paper, online or even hang a sign in it, consider buying a Carfax report on your own car. If the car is clean and clear on the report, that’s a good selling point to build value in your car and help you to ask for more money.

Don’t be afraid to ask for what your car is worth, you can always negotiate once you have someone interested in it.

Hope that helps.