What's the deal score, really?
Every car on AllCars has a number next to it from 0 to 100. Green means "good deal". Red means "have a serious think". Most people glance at it and move on, which is fine. But if you want to know what its actually doing, this page walks you through one real example with screenshots and calls it like it is.
Want the maths-heavy version? See the pricing engine page.
Meet a real car.
This is what one listing looks like inside the AllCars app. Same car you'd see browsing Cyprus listings the normal way, just with the score in the corner. Heres whats going on.
Three colours. One thing each.
Glance at the colour. Move on. If you only ever read the badge and never read the maths, youre still ahead of every other car buyer in Cyprus this week.
Green · 70 to 100
Priced below market for what it is, with enough quality signals to back it up. Worth a closer look. Worth a phone call. Worth driving across the island for.
Amber · 40 to 70
Priced about right. Not a steal, not a rip-off. The market is functioning. Most cars live here, and thats fine. Negotiate if you like the car, dont if you dont.
Red · 0 to 40
Either above market for what it is, or has enough quality warning flags that the score gets pulled down. Worth a second read of the listing. Or a hard pass.
How does it actually know?
Lets walk through that 87 we just saw. Same Audi A4, four steps, no magic, no priesthood. Just looking up similar cars and doing some honest comparing.
It looks for similar cars.
Same model, same era, same engine, same fuel, same gearbox, rougly the same mileage. Out of 11,000+ live listings it finds the 142 cars closest to this Audi A4. They become the peer group.
The closer the match, the more it counts. A 2018 A4 with 80,000 km counts way more than a 2014 A4 with 200,000 km, even though theyre both "Audi A4" on paper. Closeness matters.
It works out the typical price.
Across those 142 peers, the typical asking price comes out to €17,800. The chart on the left shows the spread.
The closest peers (year, mileage, engine match) get the most weight in this calculation. Distant peers contribute a tiny bit. Nobody gets ignored, nobody dominates. Smooth, honest average.
It compares yours.
Asking €18,500. Peer typical €17,800. Difference: €700 above. Doesnt sound like a good deal so far, does it?
But this car has 82,000 km. The peer median has 90,000 km. So this one has 8,000 fewer km than typical, which makes it worth about €1,400 more in this segment. Adjusted, the engine says this car should be priced around €19,200.
Asking €18,500 against an adjusted fair of €19,200 means the ask is €700 under what the car is actually worth. Thats how Value gets a high score.
It checks the listing itself.
Cheap doesnt automatically mean good deal. A car priced way under market with two photos and a one-line description should worry you, not excite you. The Quality side of the score asks "is this car actually what it claims to be?".
This A4 has a long honest description, a dozen sharp photos, mentions full service history, no salvage flags, and the specs match the model precisely. Quality scores 99 out of 100. Pretty much spotless.
What that "fair: €17,400 ? €19,800" actually means.
The single number is nice, but a band is honest. The market isnt one price. Its a range. Heres how to read it.
The lowest the engine has seen this exact car shape sell for recently. Below this, you should ask why. There usually is a reason.
The fat part of the market. Where most equivalent cars actually trade hands. Buying or selling here means nobody walks away feeling robbed.
The top of the range for this car shape. Above this and youre paying premium money. Could be justified (immaculate, low owners) or could be optimism. Look at the listing closely.
Same model, two scores, two stories.
Heres two listings for the same engine, same year, almost the same mileage. One scores 84. The other scores 38. Read both cards and youll see exactly why before you read another word from me.
The point: same model, same year, same engine, same mileage. The only difference between an 84 and a 38 is what the listing tells you about the car. Real photos, real description, no warning flags = high score. Mystery photos, salvage keyword, deafening silence = low score, regardless of how cheap it looks.
"But this is the car I want and it scored 42!"
Cool. The score isnt telling you not to buy it. The score is telling you the asking price isnt great relative to the market. Those are different sentences and they matter.
The car is real. The condition is great. Nothing wrong with the listing. The score is 42 because the seller is asking €7,000 above the top of the recent fair-price band.
"If you pay this, youre paying €7k more than recent comparable sales. Maybe its worth it to you. Maybe its negotiable. Maybe you wait three weeks for one priced fairly."
"Do not buy this car." It cant know what you want. It cant know how badly. It cant know your budget. It can only tell you where the price sits versus the market. The buy decision is still yours.
Side note: rare cars (only 4 peers across the island) get a wider fair-price band, because three peers can lie. The engine knows it doesnt fully know, and shows you that uncertainty honestly instead of pretending its sure.
Stuff people ask.
Should I just buy every green-badge car?
Why is one car green at €15,000 and another red at €12,000?
How often does the score update?
What if the seller updates their description?
Why does my rare car have such a wide fair-price band?
Can I trust the score for high-end / classic cars?
I think the score is wrong on this listing. What do I do?
Is this the same as a "fair price" tool?
Now go score a real car.
Every public Cyprus listing, scored against its real peers, with a fair-price band you can actually trust. Free, forever.