Recently I was looking to buy a used car. I was using the Edmunds website to estimate the true market value of a used car. It has a nice click through interface where it guides you to input make, model, year etc. and will give an estimated value. While the interface is nice, it would be nice to get a broader view across years, models etc. Luckily, Edmunds also has a developer API which is nicely documented. Here I am listing my basic attempts at using the developer API to get some data into R and get exploratory plots of car value by year. For using this API, you need to get a API key (specifically the vehicle API key is used here).

The code used for creating the plots below can be found here.

The plots below show the market value across styles for a given model/make of a car by year. The y axis in these plots is the Edmunds estimated True Market Value for a typically equipped vehicle (not sure how they define it). The bars in the graph span the range of market value.

TMV for Honda Accord

TMV for Toyota Corolla

Edmunds also makes several adjusments for car condition, car mileage and additional car options. The plot below show the TMV adjustment for each option for a 2008 Toyota Corolla (LE 4dr Sedan (1.8L 4cyl 4A)

The plot below shows the adjustment made for car condition for a 2008 Toyota Corolla (LE 4dr Sedan (1.8L 4cyl 4A)

The plot below shows the mileage adjustment again for  a 2008 Toyota Corolla (LE 4dr Sedan (1.8L 4cyl 4A)