Glass’s, the used car pricing provider, has
said it is “refining and improving” its new car valuation system
G2.

The system, launched in August, replaced
Glass’s Guide, which had provided used car valuation information
for 80 years, and now gives subscribers six new sets of values:

  • One trade value to show the “typically
    observed wholesale price that reflects a steady degradation of a
    car’s condition due to age and mileage,” according to
    the
    Glass’s video guide to G2
  • Two retail prices, the Retail Asking price,
    based on four million observations, and Retail Transacted price,
    the typical dealer’s sale price
  • Three condition values linked to auction
    grades: high, average and low

‘Refining and improving’

Despite finding “initial teething problems”
with the system, Peter Minter, managing director of subprime lender
Moneybarn, was in favour of the change. “From a blank sheet of
paper,” said Minter, “it is probably close to what you would set up
as ideal.”

Dealers appeared unimpressed by the change,
saying the discrepancy between Guide valuation and that used by the
dealer was often hundreds of pounds. Particularly, the trade and
transacting values were too close, resulting in marginal profit
after preparation costs.

Jim Meldrum, regional sales manager at First
Response Finance added dealers felt Glass’s “might lose out to CAP”
and were “considering a switch because of the mis-match with
auction prices.”

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In a press statement, Glass’s said the scale
of the changes and size of its customer base meant the company had
“embarked on an extensive communication process” explaining the
changes and offered “extensive support through various
channels.”

The statement continued: “As with any change,
we were contacted by numerous customers. However, the response has
been generally positive… We will continually be refining and
improving the data quality and outputs from G2.”

Further comment on the changes to Glass’s
Guide will be published in the
September issue of

Motor Finance

magazine
.

richard.brown@vrlfinancialnews.com