Best Place To Sell A Car?

[Hendry]

Since you guys do a lot of buying and selling cars, where's the best place to get one sold?

 

I'm in the process of quitting my job and finding another, currently off sick on SSP so can no longer afford the monthly HP repayments on my modern shit.

 

My dads just bought a new car so I've been handed his old 2009 VW Jetta gratis now that the DPF issues are sorted.

 

My car is as I said on HP, not yet halfway through the 4 year term, so can't just hand it back to finance company, plan is I'm going to temporarily borrow the money to clear the HP off and pay it back with the proceeds of the sale but obviously need the best possible price.

 

It's an "in demand" car I'd say, but getting rubbish prices from all the car buying sites like WBAC. It's a 2015 '15' plate Corsa E (latest model) 1.4 Ecoflex SRi 3 door, in shiny rock metallic (resale grey) owned from new so only 1 owner obviously, 18,000 miles, full Vauxhall service history (2 services, last one done a fortnight ago) original Continental tyres with 5mm front 6mm Rear, alloys are perfect, completely fault free mechanically, £30 a year tax, it's got all the mod cons: DAB radio, USB socket, Bluetooth, colour touch screen, multi function computer with digital speedo etc electric windows and mirrors, 6 airbags, ABS/EBA/EBD/CSC, ESP and traction control, remote locking, sports seats, rain sensor wipers, auto lights, auto dim rear view mirror, ambient interior lights, etc etc and other than 1 slight bit of damage to rear bumper (being quoted £300 from a Vauxhall dealer body shop to fix, so could probably be done by a dealer when going through their sales prep for 1/3 of that) and a cig burn on rear seat it's got no other damage, not even any stone chips or scratches, interior otherwise perfect, regularly detailed, always 2 sets of mats fitted etc. It's like I got it new 18months ago, 2 keys, bookpacks, all warranty invoices, receipts. If a dealer spent £150 on the 2 bits of damage (I would if I could get it fixed as cheaply as they could) it would be ready for the forecourt with nothing needing done to it. Older higher mileage non metallic colour examples are retailing at £8000 but yet I'm getting offered £6000, I realise dealers make a profit and a big one at that but surely not £2K worth?

 

So yeah looking for somewhere that will give me a fair price for it, recommendations?

[sierraman]

Autotrader. I'd look to price it the low side of what you see equivalent cars going for. I'd do this because you aren't offering the (limited) comeback a garage offers.

[Kiltox]

Take that £2000, lose £400 in VAT straight away so that's £1600, take away prep costs, warranty, advertising, time spent dealing with tyre kickers who actually want a brand new car for second hand money, etc etc and it's not the killing it seems unfortunately

 

You might get lucky selling it privately but it's a hard value of car to do so with - a lot of buyers want finance etc

[Mally]

As the others say.

Best you could probably achieve likely around £6500. Not that many with that in their back pocket and prepared to take the risk.

You know its a good motor, but unless they know you........

Bird in the hand and all that.

[djimbob]

Autotrader for less idiots - but still be on your guard!

 

Avoid gumtree and only use classified ad on ebay if you must, or it's a world of timewasters for you

[Tamworthbay]

Two ways to do it:

 

Easy - take to dealer and let them have the hassle, but accept lower money.

Hard - stick on eBay/ gumtree and be prepared for idiots, non payers, swapz fo eggs box bit maybe get more money.

 

There is nothing to stop you trying the hard way first then switching just before you lose the will to live.

[Captain Furious]

How much are the monthly payments? Sounds like you've only got 6 months to go until you're at half way hand it back house

 

Might be cheaper to wait it out than accept a low ball offer 2 grand below its value

[taxi paul]

To be honest I am going to wbac tomorrow with my modern. Can't sell it private , cos no one will part with ten grand and you will honestly pay finance off. Try asking the finance company for a lower settlement figure because of your circumstances. I managed to chip a bit off , not a lot. I cant see my sales appointment being a long one and really don't expect to sell it to them . They have given me a price I can live with. But if they start trying to get it lower and lower I shall just keep it and think of a new cunning plan.

[sporty-shite]

Would any local dealers take it on sale or return? The small place o used to work at did this and could offer better money as they didn't have the initial cost. Worth a loom around, surely?

[stephen01]

​+1 on keeping it for another few months if you can,

[DodgyBastard]

Not here.

[anonymous user]

I hate to say it, but WBAC have been relatively painless when disposing of my modern cars and got me a slightly better deal than trade in price on two of them, I did try selling one privately, priced it cheap (trade in price) and still got messed about, WBAC will do the usual quote one figure and then try to knock you down on the day, some places are worse than others.

 

It was strange to see my 3 year old Panda later advertised with a Ford main dealer for £4,995, I'd stuck 60k miles on it in three years it had only cost me £6k new and I got £2.8k off WBAC for it.  The five year finance deal quoted on it by the dealer would mean that any buyer would end up paying more for it than I had new, by which time it would have been 8 year old.

[wuvvum]

It was strange to see my 3 year old Panda later advertised with a Ford main dealer for £4,995, I'd stuck 60k miles on it in three years it had only cost me £6k new and I got £2.8k off WBAC for it.  The five year finance deal quoted on it by the dealer would mean that any buyer would end up paying more for it than I had new, by which time it would have been 8 year old.

I'll just leave this here...

 

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18019506

[Alexg]

Don't buy the basic package on Autotrader, it'll never be seen.

[Junkman]

Roffle it on Autoshite.

[adw1977]

This may come as a surprise, but I'm going to recommend Gumtree!

On two occasions (one this week) I've listed cars on there and sold them within a few days with little bother and at zero cost.

 

I keep hearing tales of the utter fucktards that reply to Gumtree adverts, but it hasn't happened to me.  

Perhaps because I do very detailed ads - maybe the txtspk fuckwits are put off because they find it too difficult to read, or their attention deficit kicks in before they reach the contact details?

[Brodders]

This may come as a surprise, but I'm going to recommend Gumtree!

On two occasions (one this week) I've listed cars on there and sold them within a few days with little bother and at zero cost.

 

I keep hearing tales of the utter fucktards that reply to Gumtree adverts, but it hasn't happened to me.

Perhaps because I do very detailed ads - maybe the txtspk fuckwits are put off because they find it too difficult to read, or their attention deficit kicks in before they reach the contact details?

I would agree. With the last car sold on there, I got the typical scam email and phone call from some knob who was telling me that I had been involved in a car accident. However, the first genuine person to ask me about the car came out to see it the day after I put the advert up, was very polite, paid a deposit, went home to get the rest of the money and took the car away just over a day after I had put the advert up.

 

Like yourself, I had a rather detailed advert, so maybe it deters people from asking too many stupid questions.

[RoadworkUK]

The offer from the dealership is probably fair. Around this time of year they're likely to have more used stock than they know what to do with. They might be more generous if you were buying something else from them, but I can't imagine them biting your arm off to have another highish-spec Corsa in stock.

 

I'd either wait a few months if you can or take their offer for simplicity's sake.

[rantingYoof]

If car is in good working order with good history and docs then Autotrader is the way to go. I've made a profit* on previous cars I've owned by selling this way; lots of text, lots of shiney photographs, phone numbers protected by Telesafe or something, seems to work well.

 

If selling cheaper car or car with fault then Gumtree or Preloved is the way to go. I had no biters on my 9-3 Aero when it started making nasty flywheel noises and I whacked it up on Autotrader at a heavily reduced price; literally no phone calls in two weeks. I did then decide to whack a year's MOT on it which was a risk, but following this it was listed on Gumtree for a smidgen more than I had it on Autotrader for, I got a phone call within twenty minutes and in three hours it was being driven off and I'd managed to somehow only lose £900 in the space of ten months instead of considerably more by having the car fixed at £expense and then selling it for not much more than that inevitably a few months later when I got bored of it.

 

I only ever PXed one vehicle, which was my 45 diesel, and that was because I showed it to the dealer and in my brutally honest fashion explained that it had a bomb proof engine that was on cambelt roulette and was suffering from every box-ticked Rover build-quality niggles and had no history and several advisories and OMGWHYWOULDYOUWANTTHIS? 

 

Then they offered me £500 for it so I would have been frankly completely bonkers not to attempt arm-removal.