Posts: 73
Location: Indiana | This is how to come up with a value for anything...for trading in a car you own, for selling a boat, for finding insurance values, for selling all your friends stuff while he's on vacation... really, it's just a guide to direct you in a non-emotional way towards number...you gotta factor in some smarts as well.
First, check out how much new TM's cost with similar options. Don't forget to include infinite speed settings, universal sonar, autopilot, etc. Check out ebay and craigslist. (use craigslist helper or something to look at multiple cities). And also factor in the condition yours is in. Are there scratches all over the place? Any pieces of molding broken? Do you have manuals? If the trolly is the only bow mount that has been installed on your boat, then you should have an approximate year...assuming you know what year your boat was made.
So here's how you do it...
Take a new 70lb Motor Guide trolling motor. No universal sonar. 24 volts. They run somewhere around $650 bucks.
Then factor in how much the thing would have depreciated. If typical TM's would last about 10 years, and yours is 5 years old, then you can take off about 50%. Of course you adjust this based on the what condition it is in and what others are selling for. If it's from a guides boat and it's 5 years old, then you might take off 70%. If it was on some old geezer's boat that never left the garage, then maybe take off 30 or 40%. If your overall boat is in 100% perfect shape, then chances are the trolling motor was well treated...take off only 30-40%. If the boat looks like it barely made it back to the dock the last time it went out, then the TM might have been abused...take off 60 or 70%. Low end is gonna be around 30-40% of the beginning value. High end tip top is gonna be 60-70 percent. So for a $650 TM, it could be as low as $195 if it works, but looks like hell. Or it could be as high as $455. That's if the TM is 5 years old and the average life is 10 years...which i don't know, I made up. HA! It's a sliding scale though...if it's 3 years old, it would likely fall in the 50% to 90% range of new cost. If it's 7 years old, it was likely fall in the 10% to 50% range of new cost.
Basically, that's how you can go about figuring out what kind of number you can work with. Now though, you can take the information you used to reach your number and use that to SELL your TM. Example..."it's 3 years old, on a boat that was only used a week a year by an old man, the boat is in perfect perfect condition, the man trolled with his big motor, there's not a scratch on the TM. There are no defects whatsoever. The new ones (same model) sell for such and such an amount. This is almost as good as new. And I have the manuals for it..."
Edited by Halfpint 5/12/2009 3:33 PM
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