Over the years I have found Blue Book value to be basically useless to the consumer looking to sell or trade. The real value is to the dealer selling for Blue Book. This way they have a "guide" to charge you.

When it comes to trading a car in, all the choices are useless as the dealer will only give you wholesale value (or auction value) which is always lower than even the lowest trade-in value on KBB.

That said, it is possible to get a KBB (or better) offer. The two conditions I have seen are (1) the car is in very high demand and the dealer will sell within a week (or less). (2) The car they plan to sell you for your trade-in is either not discounted from MSRP or possibly even marked up. It is easy to give someone an extra grand or two if the other car is also an extra grand or two.