Best place to sell a car?

Robisere

MumofCR wrote: »

Well I ended up selling it to a garage for £4800 in the end. They now have it up for £6000 on the forecourt. Sods law I've had 6 phonecalls since all interested in the car.

Thanks for the advice.

Everyone always thinks that they are being ripped of by a garage that buys your motor and then resells it for more money. Not True!

If you sell it privately, the buyer has vanishingly small protection.
If the garage resells it, he has to immediately put it through a MOT test, to find out what he has to spend on the car he is selling to the public. Then he is required to carry out a service, for the same reasons. Any comebacks from a buyer have to be allowed for. We all hear of the cowboys in the trade, but the truth is that they are a very small minority. Most garages are honest, they know that cars depreciate in value and in condtion over the life of ownership. Therefore they want you to buy from them again, so they want to treat you right. Anything else is self-defeating.

Having said that, there are still the cowboys, but they don't last long. Listen to the "Pub Stories" - that is where they come unstuck.

glowplug

This thread is really high up in Google search results for "best place to sell a car" which is why its attracting lots of first time "helpful" posters lol.

I have used several places with varying success.

ebay : Ok, but you do tend to get people looking to pay less than anywhere else and people wanting to swap their car for yours

pistonheads : This site is ok, but its mainly prestige and performance vehicles and normal run of the mill cheap cars like corsas and fiestas tend to be modified and thrashed!

gumtree : From free...and even paid for ads are cheap.. varying results but have sold a few cars through them.

autotrader : rediculously expensive without the results to match. this is more successful for traders who have a monthly fixed fee for x number of vehicles. private sellers would be better off selling on ebay or gumtree imo

There thats my post...ooh look not a single url or excessive use of keywords

emuzeg

Robisere wrote: »

Everyone always thinks that they are being ripped of by a garage that buys your motor and then resells it for more money. Not True!

If you sell it privately, the buyer has vanishingly small protection.
If the garage resells it, he has to immediately put it through a MOT test, to find out what he has to spend on the car he is selling to the public. Then he is required to carry out a service, for the same reasons. Any comebacks from a buyer have to be allowed for. We all hear of the cowboys in the trade, but the truth is that they are a very small minority. Most garages are honest, they know that cars depreciate in value and in condtion over the life of ownership. Therefore they want you to buy from them again, so they want to treat you right. Anything else is self-defeating.

Having said that, there are still the cowboys, but they don't last long. Listen to the "Pub Stories" - that is where they come unstuck.

Definately. We got our micra from Paul Sharp, https://www.sharpys.co.uk, and turns out he is a con artist. Got the MOT he showed us done and passed too easily with a garage he knows as now our MOT has come up it failed terribly with corrosion and other issues that could not have surfaced only in 12 months. Fixing it was almost the value of the car. In the last year i have learned a lot and had to fix a lot myself too. He avoided many questions about the car when we bought it and in hindsight i kick myself for being so stupid. Even had the cheek to say 'i meant 1350 but said 1250 by mistake'. AVOID PAUL SHARP IN CASTLEFORD!

joegottheflow

I have been trying to selling my bmw recently, i went down the private line first. Had it on gumtree (a lot of messers and stupid offers) then autotrader (didnt get a call) i think were the car is worth over 5000 people want warrenties and finance. I really wanted a new car so i got some quotes from the cash for cars type business's, some of which were rude and treated me like an idiot. I got a quote from wbac.com which wasnt to bad but then i read all the bad reviews about them!??!!
I ended up selling to National Car Buyer, they stuck to there price and come and collected it from my house and did an instant transfer and were pleasent to deal with.

username

Peter_Hargreaves wrote: »

I found the same, only one call from Autotrader using their Telesafe service. The call forwarding fails after only one or two calls. You think people are ignoring your ad because you have the price wrong - but they simply can't get through! Oh dear, you'll have to run the ad again! Don't use Telesafe its always the same.

Don't use Telesafe. As a buyer, I'm not prepared to pay upto £1 per minute to call 070 numbers or 40p per minute for 0871 numbers to call a seller.

If you don't want to give your real mobile number to a seller, grab a free PAYG sim from one of the big networks and stick it in your spare phone. No cost to the buyer and also you can simply stop using the SIM once your car is sold.

jake19831

It's ridiculous how many there are that are variations on webuyanycar now, I dunno if I trust them.

CarBees seems pretty trustworthy (may have heard of it) and The Car Buying Service (may not have heard of it). I'm in the middle of buying a new Focus ST and will need to sell my car soon so if anyone has any experience of them then let me know.

OddballJamie

Smells like spam to me.

WTFH

Any chance a mod could tidy up this thread and remove every post which is talking about some website or other and is the first/sole post of a newbie?

Daved771

Try to search "sell car online UK" or if in america US on Google , you get many options , however I have sold many cars on Ebay, AutoRepublic , AutoTrader , try them out, if AutoTrader is pricey then try Ebay or AutoRepublic. you will sell it fast , but you need to add good images and useful details , buyers ignore ads without details. Good Luck

Tancred

MumofCR wrote: »

I'm trying to sell my 56 Reg Ford Fiesta as we no longer need a second car. I've had it advertised in Autotrader for the last 3 weeks and have only had one phonecall which was a scam. I've also got a For Sale sign in the window of the car but had no interest at all. What am I doing wrong? Is there somewhere else that I could try selling it as well?

I've got it up for £4995 and the book price according to Glass guide is £5500 so I thought that someone would snap it up. I really need to sell. Help!

Understand this: cars are not easy to sell - they are expensive items and many people won't even consider buying one unless from a dealer. Buying from a private seller entails more risk and many people are very risk averse, even when offered a very good deal.

My advice is to advertise on Auto Trader and also on eBay. Don't expect a quick sale though - I have sold two cars this way and it took 4-5 weeks each time round. Don't panic, be patient and it will sell.