When trading in your old car for a new car you have to squeeze as much money out of the old car as possible so that you can put as little money down as possible on the new car, thus creating smaller monthly payments. There's a lot of work that needs to be done such as washing and reparing the old car, researching for new vehicles and researching what the best price possible is that you can obtain for your old car.

RESEARCH

Before purchasing a new vehicle you must look for the car that is right for you and for your budget. What you can do is look online for for area dealershiops and find out how much they are charging for the vehicle of your dreams. You can also look in your local newspaper at the ads, and compare all the prices of the vehicles you are interested in so that you find the best price possible.

Then you should conduct a search of the vehicle you are trading in to see how much it is worth. You can try www.nada.com, and give them your information, such as your e-mail, the year of your trade in, the manufacturer, if it is a two or four door and how many miles are on it. NADA is also called NADA Guides and the Kelley Blue Book, which has been around for years.

At NADA Guides when traded in an older car, they gave me three quotes: Low retail, clean retail and high retail. Low retail was not what I expected my car would get-it was too low. This would have meant my car was not in good shape like it was rusty, or it needed bodywork, which I knew it didn't. I knew my car was in good shape, because I washed it, and vacuumed it, and got rid of the strange stains the kids made on the back seat, and scrubbed the tires by hand.

Clean retail-(NADA) This means the car is clean, in decent shape, and everything works. This was the price for my car. I knew it was in good shape, and that it was clean, because I washed it and got rid of the drink stains my kids made on the backseat. High retail- (NADA) was a lot more. That's the price I might have gotten if I had put more work into the car. I could have put four new tires on it, which it needed, and gotten it pinstriped, and sprayed the inside with air-freshener, and waxed it. As it was I put a new muffler on it, because the old one was vibrating the car, and the kids were holding their hands over their ears when I drove them to school.

CLEAN AND REPAIR THE TRADE-IN

Besides doing research on a new car and finding out how much you can obtain for your trade-in, you need to repair the vehicle

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