Has anyone here bought off eBay recently?

[Uncle Jimmy]

Scoped said auction site with ruthless vigour the other night and it seems a lot of the auctions, certainly for 'classics' are being bid on by traders or associates thereof....At any rate the prices, whilst I could afford some of them are way beyond what I'm willing to pay, at least without being on acid.

[filthyjohn]

Actually I find acid fosters a sense of perspective which prohibits impulsive behaviour via overthinking everything. Meth is what you'd need to pay crazy prices on a whim.

[scaryoldcortina]

You don't even have to go to illegal drugs. Beer is more than enough to cause wallet and driveway carnage via late night viewing of eBay.

[Vince70]

I bought my E36 off eBay lthe other month which is a lovely car with low mileage etc and had a good history etc for the buy it now price..

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=321819074144&globalID=EBAY-GB

The seller was a really decent bloke and was inundated with offers from dealers for the asking price but wanted to sell privately to someone who would look after the car so spoke to and tried his best to make sure the car was going to an enthusiast..

 

But I also see a lot of dealers are actually Buying off autotrader and gumtree or the Friday ad etc and selling the cars on eBay as I just missed out on another nice looking low mileage Bmw compact by 2 minutes which was up at £800 and I saw it a week later for £1500 on eBay.

 

Also my old Audi A3 was also bought by a dealer and ended up on eBay for a few hundred profit and although a good car I wouldn't want to pay what he was asking for it but it seemed to be snapped up very quickly and I guess at the end of the day that's the idea and it was a no hassle quick sale for me and he was a decent bloke and didn't spend hours going over every nut and bolt twice over..

 

I even made a couple of hundred in the time I had the Audi if I don't include about the £500 general running costs for repairs etc so I was more than happy with that sale but I did take a gamble I guess as the car was originally bought off eBay with about a couple of days ticket and had been standing for nearly a year.. so it's still worth looking on eBay for the odd bargain motor..

[garethj]

I think the price for classic cars has shot up over the last 6 months, some stuff that we regard as disgusting old chod has been dragged up with it.  I'm sure that the rise of '70s BL stuff has outperformed the stock market, pension portfolios etc.

 

This post was brought to you by Autoshite Investments Ltd

[spike60]

I've been looking for an old Merc SL, SEC, Porsche 944, BMw 750i etc for some months now and the Ebay auction prices are generally high to what they were about a year or so ago. I personally much prefer to to browse through Ebay over Car and Classic, Gumtree, Autotrader etc, perhaps so do a lot of other folk though I can't comment too much on the other sites about a price rise.

[UltraWomble]

I keep thinking I need to get on the Cla$$ic bandwagon, bt cant really afford anything to be squiireled away, it needs to earn its keep.

 

Been offered a Vespa PK with a 200cc Douglas donkey for £700 so seriously giving that some thought as it can live in the shed and just come out for dry days. I think thats the nearest Im going to get to Cla$$ic ownership.

[jonny69]

I can't see how anything can be considered an investment unless you're in the real cherished classics or thoroughbreds territory. Once you factor in storage (space) and maintenance it just never stacks up. Sure, it looks on the face of it like some of us have had a lucky break and now have valuable cars, but all that means is the price of spares flies up, the risk of the car being stolen massively increases and it stops being as cheap motoring as it used to be.

 

But, back on topic, there are better place to buy classics than eBay. Carandclassic is a good start! It's much more like the classifieds in the back of the mags - you've got fixed prices rather than people trying to outbid each other by 50p.

[Mr A Lawrence]

I sold my old S type jag to a guy through gumtree for £350 last year as it was a bit shit and had quite a few problems that took the nice factor away from owning a jag.

 

Week later it sold on the bay for £650 and now has 12months mot!!

[J-Rod]

Yeah, if I was in the market for a genuine ('genuine') classic ( whatever the hell that really means), I wouldn't start with Ebay. Ebay seems to be very good for looking for cars that you'd like to own for personal reasons and not just because they're classics per sé. 

[Six-cylinder]

I do think the prices/expectations of sellers on eBay have risen dramatically lately. I seem to see less on there that is good value to buy.

 

I have bought 4 out of 11 cars from ebay since Jan 2014, 3 auction 1 classified. The previous three year I bought 24 cars, 13 were from eBay.

 

The last one the Citroen CX, was from a printed ad in The Citroen Club magazine lovely person to buy a car from. I think the club magazines attract the nicer cars or at least more honest ads.

 

But the best place to buy a car is here on this forum!

[garbaldy]

 

But the best place to win a car is here on this forum!

That's what you ment to say.

[cort16]

If you wan't to see deranged classic car pricing go on carandclassic.co.uk

[Six-cylinder]

But the best place to win a car is here on this forum! That's what you ment to say.

Nearly right - The best place to be given a FREE car is on this forum.

[Uncle Jimmy]

Noticed a lot of the bidding on cars was from bidders who had been bidding on many cars of all sorts of types in a short time frame; surely car dealers.

I bought my Ovlov taxed and tested for £1800 in 2010, it was by no means perfect but there was very little rust. I bought a Fiat 124 coupe the following year for £1400 which needed a lot of welding (Suprised not) spent about £1500 on that and did the mechanics myself and it was a solid if scruffy car when finished which seems very cheap now.

Since then I've not bought at auction, using the classifieds and Gumtree instead.

[J-Rod]

This looks like a prime example of a dealer hiding in regular punter's clothing... 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1968-VAUXHALL-VIVA-SL90-BRABHAM/221879239923?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140122125356%26meid%3D4e960d0a088f4ce4afb0d2acf428316a%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D111767202929

 

They're always 'selling on behalf of a friend'. 

[colnerov]

This looks like a prime example of a dealer hiding in regular punter's clothing... 

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1968-VAUXHALL-VIVA-SL90-BRABHAM/221879239923?_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140122125356%26meid%3D4e960d0a088f4ce4afb0d2acf428316a%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D6%26mehot%3Dpp%26sd%3D111767202929

 

They're always 'selling on behalf of a friend'. 

 

 Hi, he's not really hiding, he runs a garage.

 

 A lot of these are doing what a previous vendor hasn't done, fixing faults and putting a years ticket on it. A lot of this may fall off now that the winter is coming.

 

 Colin

[anonymous user]

If you wan't to see deranged classic car pricing go on carandclassic.co.uk

Yes, that's why I advertised my A35 there as well as ebay.

[sierraman]

I sold my old S type jag to a guy through gumtree for £350 last year as it was a bit shit and had quite a few problems that took the nice factor away from owning a jag.

 

Week later it sold on the bay for £650 and now has 12months mot!!

I can think of easier ways of earning £300. He'll have had to pay the seller fees on that plus the cost of scraping it the MOT. In reality it's probably barely paying him the minimum wage when you take it into consideration. On top of all that if the buyer takes up some nonsense claim with eBay about the fag lighter not working he's been had over.

[jonny69]

Nearly right - The best place to be given a FREE car is on this forum.

 

The best* place to be informed that you have to go and collect a car that you won in a competition that you didn't enter because someone thought it would be funny to pay £3 to stick your name against one of the numbers