Ron Jancewicz Allstate insurance quoted me 17,000 for my car and now changed there amount to 12,000. It is a 2003 BMW 540i six speed with a sport package. Mercervile, New Jersey

I'm going to respond to this and I hope you don't take it in a rude way. A 2003 BMW was probably sold in 2002 making it basically 11 years old. I go several automobile auctions a year and have came across a few 540i's. I keep track of every vehicle that is sold at those auctions I go to so I am aware of how much to pay for those vehicles at other auctions.

I've went through my logs and seen 2 2003 BMW 540i's that sold at auction. I'm not sure about all the options and equipment in both of them but I know they both were pretty well loaded. The 1st was from 2009 and the BMW had 79,458 miles on it.

It sold at auction for $13,189. The second was from 2012 and it had 117,898 miles on it and it sold at auction for $8,789. Now I know both vehicles were sold at wholesale value but even at 12,189 I doubt the vehicle sold for over $16,000 and this was almost 4 years ago. An offer of $17,000 is highly unlikely but if they did offer it I would have accepted.

I looked the vehicle up on the NADA dealers site and Black Book. I use NADA because generally I can sell a vehicle 110% of nada trade in value. If I was to purchased your vehicle at auction, and assuming it is fully loaded with less than 100,000 miles on it then I would give no more than $8500 and hope to sell it for $10,500.