Buying a second hand car is not just about the purchase price... It’s also about the running costs We are now going to analyse information from the cars data base you were given, to see if we can work out which car(s) represent the best value

Lets start by working out the AVERAGE Used Car price

Use some conditional formatting to highlight expensive/cheap! To find out how to use conditional formatting watch the video at : ict.net/software/excel/excel.htm

Now let’s add a ‘score’ for each car regarding it’s used car price If we RANK the used car costs, lowest to highest, we will give a low ‘score’ to the lowest priced cars and a higher score to the more expensive cars. We will be able to use this ‘score’ later on in our analysis You will need to watch 2 videos about Absolute Cell references and how to use the RANK function in a formula, watch the videos at :

Now lets work out the age of a car in years, rather than expect people to be able to work out age from car registration letters!!

Buying a second hand car is not just about the purchase price... It’s also about the running costs... because diesel/petrol is so expensive, what sort of miles to the gallon will we get from an older car once we have bought it?

First of all, let’s work out the mid-point of a manufacturer’s mpg information Use the MEDIAN function in your formula

Now we need to use the right diesel or petrol price (this price is per litre) We are going to use an IF function which has a strict language structure inside the brackets... each step separated by a comma. =IF(Test to carry out, what to use if true, what to use if false) =IF(Fuel type is “u”, the value contained in cell X4, otherwise “ “) To find out how to use an IF function in a formula watch the video at :

Now we know the miles per gallon value and the correct fuel type value, we can... Firstly – lets get all the same units ie not mix litres and gallons convert the price per litre to price per gallon ie multiply 1 litre by because there are litres to the gallon!! Then Divide the resulting price per gallon by the median MPG we worked out earlier

Lets uses conditional formatting again to show someone else!

Let’s ‘score’ the cost of petrol consumption If we RANK the fuel costs per mile, lowest to highest, we will give a low ‘score’ to the lowest cars regarding fuel consumption and a higher score to the gas guzzling cars. We will be able to use this ‘score’ in the last part of our analysis

So far we have analysed the purchase prices of used cars, and given them a score based on this analysis We have also analysed the petrol consumption, and given each car a score based on this analysis

Let’s work out an overall Best Value score If we multiply the score we gave for purchase price with the score we gave for Fuel consumption we will end up with a Best Value Score Best Value score Rank car costs x Rank fuel cost per mile Column F x Column R

Finally let’s use different conditional formatting to show cars that have a good purchase price and good fuel consumption costs