Cox Automotive’s Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index for August 2026 (published September 8) put the seasonally adjusted index at 208.2—0.9% below July and 0.4% above August 2025. Unadjusted wholesale prices were down 0.5% month over month and up 0.2% year over year. Wholesale days’ supply finished August at 27.
The useful line for a private seller is not the headline index. Cox Automotive chief economist Jeremy Robb said younger age cohorts fell more, while older and more affordable units showed much less depreciation—with both the 9-year-old and 10-year-old cohorts holding six percentage points higher than the long-term average. Auto Remarketing’s September 8 write-up of the same Manheim and Black Book prints repeats that affordable-used demand story and notes Black Book’s Used Vehicle Retention Index at 144.3 in August (1.2% below July, 1.5% below August 2025)—still roughly 30% above 2019 levels per Black Book’s Laura Wehunt.
In other words: a clean older daily driver and a soft late-model pickup are not the same appraisal conversation.
A used-car manager who is long on soft late-model trucks is not looking at the same tape as a desk that needs affordable retail inventory. If you take the first number you hear, you are accepting that store’s mix problem—not a market average for your year, miles, and condition.
PriceForMyTrade helps sellers get competing offers from local dealerships. Competition is handled manually—dealers contact you directly. First responses are often the same day; timing is not guaranteed. Offers are confirmed after a physical appraisal. Dealers can buy outright; you do not have to purchase another vehicle. Submitting a request takes about 30 seconds. That is not an instant valuation, and it is not a promise that an offer arrives in 30 seconds. The service is free to the seller.
Say the age band and condition out loud. Ask whether the desk is comparing you to a tired high-mile unit or to a clean, optioned car in the same model year.
Do not let a soft late-model week talk you out of shopping a cleaner older car—or the reverse. August’s tape moved differently by age cohort.
Prep the appraisal. Service records, two keys, honest photos, and notes on tires and bodywork shrink the gap between a phone quote and a driveway number.
Selling with a loan, trading, or selling outright are different conversations—see /sell-car-with-loan-payoff, /trade-in-vs-selling-outright, and /how-competing-offers-work. East Texas sellers can start on /sell-my-car-east-texas.
Takeaway: August wholesale still paid relatively better for older, more affordable inventory while younger cohorts softened more. Get competing offers so local dealers price your condition—not a blended monthly average.