How much is the car dealership going to offer you for your vehicle? You can bet that they’ll come in with a low offer, so you should be prepared with plenty of information to allow you to counter that offer.

Consumers have access to a number of services that can allow them to understand the value of their cars, including Kelley Blue Book, NADA Guides, and Edmunds. All of these sources can be used by consumers when they are deciding how to price their vehicle.

However, car dealerships have access to different sources of information that help them to determine how much to offer you for your car. One of these sources is called the Manheim Market Report, otherwise known as MMR. MMR values are designed to allow car dealerships to assess how much should be offered for any potential trade-ins.

Today, we’re going to take a look at MMR values, including what they are, how MMR reaches its prices, and how these values will affect your car buying experience.

What is MMR?

MMR, which is short for the Manheim Market Report, is a specific report that’s available to auto wholesalers. Manheim is a brand of wholesale auction house that has auctions in every state (and most major cities). As such, there are millions of sales transactions being tracked every month through their services.

Manheim put together the MMR to help car buyers and sellers understand how much they should be paying for a vehicle. MMR values are a specialized tool that’s only available to people who buy cars at wholesale prices, which typically means that it’s used by car dealerships.

How Does MMR Reach Its Value?

MMR provides data about the wholesale prices of vehicles for the past 13 months. All of this data is generated by real vehicle sales at the Manheim auction houses found throughout the country.

While their method for gathering data is straightforward, the way that they present it is quite helpful to anyone that is looking to buy or sell a vehicle at a wholesale auction. 

MMR values will show prices in wholesale and retail markets, with three different tiers of prices that are based on the condition of the vehicle. Additionally, the report shows prices going back one year, six months, and two months. Then, predictions are made for how the price will change in one month and one year.

Are MMR Values Accurate?

Since MMR gathers data based on its own sales, it can be considered to be quite accurate. Every sale made at an auction house in the Manheim network is tracked, analyzed, and used when someone generates a report for the same vehicle.

Car dealerships use MMR values in conjunction with other vehicle evaluators to help them determine how much to offer a customer for their trade-in. An MMR readout will give a car dealership a general idea of how much they could sell your trade-in for at an auction, which guides how much they’ll be willing to offer you.  

Something that’s unique to MMR is that the prices are updated and refreshed every night. Since Manheim auctions are operating all the time, this allows Manheim to integrate new sales data into their pricing evaluations regularly. Other similar evaluators will only update data every week or every month.  

When Should I Use MMR Values?

Like a few other auto evaluation services, you won’t be interacting with the MMR directly. However, it will impact the offers that you receive from car dealerships on your trade-in. Dealerships will often use the MMR, Black Book, and vAuto to reach an offer price for your vehicle.

When you trade in your vehicle, your job is to have plenty of data available to counter the car dealership’s offer. Before visiting the target dealership, you should use a CarEdge trade-in valuation provided by Black Book, Kelley Blue Book printout, and perhaps a NADA Guide evaluation. On top of these evaluations, having a real offer from sites like Carvana and Vroom will encourage a dealer to offer more for your trade-in.

Remember to negotiate the price of your trade-in and the price of your new car in two separate negotiations. If you end up negotiating both at the same time, the car salesperson has the opportunity to manipulate the numbers to make it seem like you’re getting a better deal than you are. Start by negotiating the price of the new car, then mention that you have a car that you might trade-in for the right price.

Interested in learning how people come up with car values? You can learn more about other evaluation books here.