We will value the bike or car you already have, whether or not you buy anything from us.
It takes about twenty minutes and it costs nothing. Bring it in with the book. You get a figure and, more usefully, the reasoning behind the figure in writing.
What we are doing in those twenty minutes is putting a price on condition rather than on age. On a bike: frame and book agreeing, wiring, bearings, chain and sprockets, brakes, forks, tyres and how much salt has eaten the fasteners. On a car we put it on the lift. Then we look at what the same machine in that condition has actually sold for recently, and we tell you which of those sales we are leaning on.
Two honest points about a trade in, since the trade rarely makes them. A part exchange figure and a private sale figure are not the same number and never can be, because when we take your machine we take the risk of it, the cost of putting it right and the months it may sit on the floor. Selling privately will normally get you more, and it will take you six weekends and a stranger on your doorstep. Both are reasonable choices.
The other point is that we would rather give you a lower figure and buy it than a high figure conditional on you buying our most expensive machine. A trade in used as a discount in disguise is how people end up paying more for the vehicle they came in for.
If your machine is worth more than we will pay, we will tell you that too, and where to sell it. That has happened perhaps two hundred times in twelve years and a good share of those people came back to buy from us anyway.