Why do we try and sell our old cars.

[Toe]

22 hours ago, Vince70 said:

 

 

I bought a nice tidy but very dirty rust free Golf Cabriolet MK3.5 which I still have with low mileage a year and a half back off marketplace as a non runner, which actually ran perfectly fine on the journey home,  once I put a battery on it and I didn’t make an offer and the seller said you can have it for £250 scrap as he wanted it off the driveway that day.

I said why don’t you want more than that and he told me all he had only been offered was £100 off marketplace for it.

So I guess it doesn’t matter how cheap a car is on marketplace someone will still come along and kick you in the balls.

 

 

 

Funnily enough those figures were the same as when  my brother scrapped his '97 Micra, it had no cills in the end as he noticed it was a bit crusty after I put my finger through it, of course it was way too much to have 2 cills welded in so he got another car and was shortly taking it on it's last drive when a couple of days before hand a lad of 20 maybe he said offered him £100 cash to drive it away as he's blown up the engine in his and my brothers car only had around 50000 miles so he was going to swap the engine over, "hmmm" went my brother, "£120" the lad then said, "nah" said my brother, "I'll scrap it", "well", the other guy said, "I don't know scrap prices but I reckon my offer is better...." 2 days later we went to the scrappy and they looked at it and said "£250 be allright?"

Don't know scrap values, my arse, if he said £2-250 he might have sold it but actually it's being on here that I've seen scrap prices aren't bad at the minute so thanks to you all on here that my brother said no 👍

[Rust Collector]

8 minutes ago, straightSix said:

And if you treat it like a game it can be fun trolling people back. If you hold out long enough there are some decent people out there. 

You've reminded me of something important for if you want to wind up the morons:

Don't take the photos outside of your house, take them somewhere that's not easy to identify locally if possible. This has the bonus of the photos looking better, plus if you push the buttons of someone who turns out to be a complete mentalist then it's harder for them to work out where you live so that they can visit to beat you up/burn your house down whilst you sleep.

I use the local park for mine, here's one three I made earlier:

It was definitely worth it for the Subaru, as every traveller in the area sent me low ball offers and then threats when I told them no*.

[Low ontime]

11 minutes ago, Rust Collector said:

You've reminded me of something important for if you want to wind up the morons:

Don't take the photos outside of your house, take them somewhere that's not easy to identify locally if possible. This has the bonus of the photos looking better, plus if you push the buttons of someone who turns out to be a complete mentalist then it's harder for them to work out where you live so that they can visit to beat you up/burn your house down whilst you sleep.

I use the local park for mine, here's one three I made earlier:

It was definitely worth it for the Subaru, as every traveller in the area sent me low ball offers and then threats when I told them no*.

This^^
When I did sell cars i always made sure my home wasn’t in the photo or anything that could trace it back to me purely as a attempt to vet pond life on phone first.

doesn’t always work as some that sound challenged / dippy where perfectly ok as in turn up, view, like it and  buy with cash when there. It was that far back a £100 cheque for a sub £1000 car was enough for me with full name and address to at least hold on for a few days until full payment in cash.

what happened? 
 

im better at buying these days, my kids faces with their cars when I got £100-200 off advertised price (these where £1000 cars) was worth the drive, I like that part of it… find it fun.

[straightSix]

Yep, I usually take the photo's elsewhere. You can also remove location data from photos as well to be extra sure. Same with giving your location when people ask, just give a vague idea and get them to phone you when they're close by

[Low ontime]

13 hours ago, maxxo said:

I got so fed up trying to sell my red C5 with a knackered gearbox I ended up scrapping it

people asking if I’d give money back if it went wrong, asking if it’s alright to drive and asking if it’ll make it 500 or whatever miles home

had one who didn’t show up who seemed actually interested

in the end a local scrap man came when he said he would and gave me what he said he would, all organised over Facebook messenger in a morning

i hate selling cars

And then would have to go out and rescue them in the event it did breakdown…. 

some people really expect the world to stop for them and the moon to land on their stick 

[sierraman]

Try and find a car wash working out of a derelict petrol station, leave the car looking absolutely filthy, if there’s no stains on the seat remember to piss yourself - buyers look for this, seal it in with spilling some really milky coffee everywhere and chuck a series of Monster tins in the footwells. Take the photo at dusk if at all possible and have some of your mates legs in joggers and Nike Airs stood in the background. Blob out the number plate to stop any would be buyers from discovering you’ve tested it this morning and it’s failed on ‘dense Blue smoke’

Don’t waste time with really long descriptive adverts, nobody likes a wordsmith. Switch the predictive text off and use a few choice phrases buyers like such as ‘pulls like a train in 3rd’ or ‘does 80 in 2nd’. If possible reject the conventions of the exchange of money for objects and offer to swap it for something. 

When they offer to come round to view the car insist on communicating solely in the medium of sms, decline all calls. Be as flexible as possible, willingly cancel any meetings you might have for Job Centre sanctions or running baggies about. Then when they arrive look at the floor as a pack of 6 arrive to emulate Ari Vatanen, each one absolutely whoring the life out of it on a test drive that involves each one repeatedly giving it both bollocks flat out starts followed by some really heavy handed erratic ‘tests’ in a car park. Ideally submit to an offer of 30% of the asking price after you nipped in for a piss and when you got back the expansion tank was full of oil. 

[JakeT]

Strangely selling the really cheap stuff I’ve been good with. I sold a BMW 328ci where the subframe mounts had failed, it needed a service, MOT and back tyres. £500 on Facebook marketplace. Chap sent me a non refundable £100 deposit within 15 mins of the ad going live, and collected it and paid the balance a few days later. Other stuff goes up for bidding on eBay with no reserve. I describe how it’s fucked and take pictures. Person bids, comes and pays, and takes it away. I’ve always had positive feedback, and never had the house burnt down thankfully. A chap loved a fiesta I sold him even though it failed an MOT on extensive rot two weeks later. It was £200, though.

 

The worst one I had was selling a BMW 330d. It was a 2004 ‘sport’ model with a manual gearbox, with some choice extras. I bought it as I thought it would be good for my usage. Then realised I hated it, so tried to sell it. So many chancers they wanted a ‘well fast’ car were all over it. All sorts of stupid questions, and nobody could understand that I just didn’t like it. In the month I’d fitted two new thermostats, wiper blades and fixed the non functioning stability control, and added some mats out of a scrapper I’d sent off. A group came to buy it, joy of joys. Fortunately they were decent enough ‘enthusiasts’. That said, it never made it through another MOT…

 

After that I decided I will run what I have until it’s fucked and send it over the bridge.

 

I think someone here said it best. It’s like the old family dog, when it’s getting on a bit. Yes, you could sell it to someone on the local sink estate and it’s not your problem, or do the decent thing and let it die gracefully.

[sierraman]

Sometimes the kindest thing would be to give it one last meal then a neat 9mm behind the ear whilst it isn’t looking. 

[ruffgeezer]

1 hour ago, sierraman said:

Sometimes the kindest thing would be to give it one last meal then a neat 9mm behind the ear whilst it isn’t looking. 

I wouldn't want my last meal spoiling by you trying to introduce your winky to my lughole.

[wesacosa]

I have been thinking of selling my M3 for a little while now but I shudder to think of the type of people I will have trying to rag it, bid me peanuts or beat me up and steal it.   I have only sold one car to someone I didn't know in the last 5 years (a Volvo V40) which to be fair sold to the first person to show interest for full asking price based on my description and photos alone (although I suspect I under priced it a fair bit)

[AnthonyG]

Something like an M3, an older one - a classic auction might be a good call if you can find one that doesn’t take the piss on the sellers premium etc.

Things like Maserati 3200GTs seem to spend most of their life in this century going from one over optimistic trader to another via ACA or Brightwells, occasionally getting snapped up by a lucky* investor only to get moved on quickly again, after £5k worth of remedial work when it refuses to start after 3 months in storage. 

This dance will continue merrily along until it’s noticed it’s actually rather hard to source petrol in 2067 or whenever, then the last one holding the Maser’s keys loses out big time.

[Rocket88]

Not just 3200 either. Mate of mine bough a Bi turbo “ that needed an engine tune” many thousands of pounds later it was fixed by replacing 3 cms of wiring inside the distributor 

[Vince70]

Luckily I kept the little Punto, as coming home from work on Friday I noticed the Mini making a knocking noise which was louder than the normal rattle of squeak that I normally get going over a pothole.

I thought I had been imagining the smell,  for the last month or so, but it looks like the crankshaft pulley has given up the ghost.

Its hardly the end of the world, but I remember last time I changed the strut leg it was a nightmare getting a jack underneath the mini as it sits slightly lower than a standard one.

I’m very lucky as locally to me, we have an R50/R53 specialist called Mini Magic, who really know there stuff and people travel all over the country to use them.

So it’s booked in next week and the Punto was put into daily service today.

My Younger brother and his wife had a baby girl last night,  so I had to pick up my mother and take her to my brothers flat and she knows nothing about cars, apart that a drive a different car each week lol.

She commented that it’s a lot nicer and comfortable than all  my other cars and I’ve got to admit it’s a lovely light car to drive and forget how good little basic cars from the 90s were. 

I’m getting attached to the car now and the Mrs is saying keep it, although one of my brothers has his eyes on it.

 

[Vince70]

On 3/17/2023 at 1:43 PM, Toe said:

Funnily enough those figures were the same as when  my brother scrapped his '97 Micra, it had no cills in the end as he noticed it was a bit crusty after I put my finger through it, of course it was way too much to have 2 cills welded in so he got another car and was shortly taking it on it's last drive when a couple of days before hand a lad of 20 maybe he said offered him £100 cash to drive it away as he's blown up the engine in his and my brothers car only had around 50000 miles so he was going to swap the engine over, "hmmm" went my brother, "£120" the lad then said, "nah" said my brother, "I'll scrap it", "well", the other guy said, "I don't know scrap prices but I reckon my offer is better...." 2 days later we went to the scrappy and they looked at it and said "£250 be allright?"

Don't know scrap values, my arse, if he said £2-250 he might have sold it but actually it's being on here that I've seen scrap prices aren't bad at the minute so thanks to you all on here that my brother said no 👍

We Had to Scrap a Ford Ka the other week because of cill rot on its MOT and knowing what Ford Ka’s are like, we knew deep down a little patch will lead to a new bodyshell.

I picked it up years ago for my Mrs,  as her daughter wanted a nice little car to learn in.

This plucky little silver Ka had put 3 people through their driving tests and has never put a foot wrong and I’ve lost count of the amount of square wheels I’ve changed, due to it driving into things.

We got £285 from the scrap man for it so really it isn’t worth dealing with Facebook for selling cheap cars these days, going on my experience now.

 

 

[Low ontime]

7 hours ago, Vince70 said:

We Had to Scrap a Ford Ka the other week because of cill rot on its MOT and knowing what Ford Ka’s are like, we knew deep down a little patch will lead to a new bodyshell.

I picked it up years ago for my Mrs,  as her daughter wanted a nice little car to learn in.

This plucky little silver Ka had put 3 people through their driving tests and has never put a foot wrong and I’ve lost count of the amount of square wheels I’ve changed, due to it driving into things.

We got £285 from the scrap man for it so really it isn’t worth dealing with Facebook for selling cheap cars these days, going on my experience now.

 

 

Dear little thing,  a fine looking car! 
 

like you said soon turns into a weldathon, it lasted longer than Henry Ford wanted (think Ford only expect 10 years or so) 

A good innings, prob would have had a spotty yoof in trainers worth more than the car turning up wanting to swap broken Xboxes for it with six other hoodies  in tow… 

game set and match! 

 

[Vince70]

14 hours ago, Low ontime said:

Dear little thing,  a fine looking car! 
 

like you said soon turns into a weldathon, it lasted longer than Henry Ford wanted (think Ford only expect 10 years or so) 

A good innings, prob would have had a spotty yoof in trainers worth more than the car turning up wanting to swap broken Xboxes for it with six other hoodies  in tow… 

game set and match! 

 

We still have a very early Ka in reserve which I got for my Girlfriends Son about 3 years ago, as he was learning to drive his Sister’s Ka.

It was on Marketplace as a PX at a local car dealership without an MOT and with  a bad exhaust blow and covered in muck and the guy only wanted £150 scrap for it and I spent a couple of days cleaning it and doing a couple of small jobs, before it went through another ticket.

I didn’t hesitate buying it, as looked rust free and we found out when we got it back  that it had only done 19000 genuine miles.

Its a real museum piece and I should have garaged it, as it’s now used as an everyday car and it’s a shame it’s not getting a good pressure wash or waxoyl as it would in my ownership.