Is Your Car Appreciating? The Value Signal Answers It
The Value Signal classifies every car DriveIndex tracks as appreciating, stable, approaching the bottom, bottomed or depreciating, from its mileage-normalised verified sales over time. Each call comes with a confidence score that is capped by sample size, so a car with a thin sales history can never get a confident answer.
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Built from 120,000+ verified completed sales across 7,300+ collector and enthusiast cars, from 18 sources. Methodology
The five calls
- Appreciating: sold prices are trending up, by more than about 2% a year
- Stable: prices are holding within about 2% a year either way
- Approaching the bottom: prices are still falling, but more slowly than they were
- Bottomed: prices were falling and have now flattened out
- Depreciating: sold prices are trending down, by more than about 2% a year
Where it comes from
Every call is computed from completed sales of that exact car, never from asking prices. Each sale is normalised to a typical mileage first, so a run of low-mileage cars coming to market does not read as appreciation. Outliers are removed, a bid on a car that did not sell is never counted, and every signal is recomputed twice a day as new results land.
How sure it is
The confidence score is capped by how many sales stand behind the call. A car with too few clean sales is labelled Limited Data and gets no signal at all, rather than an invented one.
What Pro shows with it
- The Value Signal and its confidence score on every car
- A Buy / Hold / Sell call
- 1–5 year projections
- Every sold price behind the call, and where it sold
See the free side on DriveIndex
Frequently asked questions
How do I know if my car is appreciating?
Look up its year, make and model on DriveIndex. The public page shows its value and the 12-month change in its median sale price; the Value Signal, with Pro, classifies the trend itself and says how confident that call is.
How is the Value Signal calculated?
From the car's verified completed sales over time, each normalised to a typical mileage, with outliers and unsold bids removed. It compares the recent trend with the longer one to tell a car that is still falling from one that is slowing or has flattened out.
How often is the Value Signal updated?
Twice a day, as new sale results come in.