What a Car's Worth

Across 400 used cars, four plain features, brand, age, mileage and engine size, explain 94% of the difference in price. Very little is left to haggling.

Each carries a clear tag. Every year of age takes off about RM2,649; every 10,000 km takes off about RM1,785; a larger engine adds, and an extra previous owner subtracts.

Brand is the biggest single factor: holding age and mileage equal, a premium badge is worth tens of thousands more than a mass-market one.

Put together, the method prices a car within about 9% of what it actually sold for, a couple of thousand ringgit on a typical car, not tens of thousands.

That gives a dealer a fast, defensible valuation for every trade-in and forecourt sticker: anchor to the brand, deduct for age and mileage, and flag any car priced far from its estimate as a bargain to buy or a mistake to fix.