Want to sell a car I've only had for 6 months

petrolhead111

I bought an '09 plate Ford Focus Zetec 1.8TDCI in August 2010 for 12,000 but good as it is I don't love it.

I have it on finance at 7.8% ( I put down a £1000 deposit)

Is it going to cost me loads to sell it to free up the money for something else.

I see signs at 2nd hand dealers saying finance settled, does this mean any finance or does it have to be a long running one?

I'm a car finance virgin I'm afraid and I think maybe I made a mistake. It's the first time I've ever been able to get a good car and a test drive isn't enough to know if you'll love it or not.

Am I stuck with it?

thanks in advance

Tilt

If its on HP then you need the permission from the finance co before you can sell it in any event. Usually they will agree providing you settle within a certain time following the sale. Your first step would be to obtain a settlement figure. Finance co's normally like this to be done by a main dealer although there is nothing stopping you from asking yourself. Maybe the easiest way would be to go back to the dealer you bought it from and choose somthing else as I would guess they arranged the finance for you in the first place. I would be very cautious of dealing with a small independant dealer making these offers as sometimes they can be slow in settling and the outstaning finance remains YOUR responsibility untill it is settled and as such the car remains the property of the finance co.

petrolhead111

I will check with the dealership tommorow, thanks for the advice

forgotmyname

They settle the finance but in your case you may owe more than the car is actually worth. You are
unlikely to free up any money on the actual vehicle. You will freeup the payments though.

Bristol Street Ford have a 59 plate Ford Focus Zetec 1.8TDCI for less than £10,000

motorguy

petrolhead111 wrote: »

I bought an '09 plate Ford Focus Zetec 1.8TDCI in August 2010 for 12,000 but good as it is I don't love it.

I have it on finance at 7.8% ( I put down a £1000 deposit)

Is it going to cost me loads to sell it to free up the money for something else.

I see signs at 2nd hand dealers saying finance settled, does this mean any finance or does it have to be a long running one?

I'm a car finance virgin I'm afraid and I think maybe I made a mistake. It's the first time I've ever been able to get a good car and a test drive isn't enough to know if you'll love it or not.

Am I stuck with it?

thanks in advance

I would say this soon into the agreement, you probably owe about £10,500 or so.

I would also say that on a trade in you're probably going to get offers around £8500, or if a dealer will buy it direct, then maybe £8000.

Therefore you will have to stump of £2000+ to get out of this. So include your £1000 deposit and the payments you've made you're going to be down around £4000 on the experience.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and suspect that you probably bought the Focus as its a decent drive, economical and you wanted something of that size. Have your needs of a car changed in these six months? If not, chances are you're going to end up in some other mid sized eco hatch or similar, very few of which (if any) are actually better than a focus.

motorguy

Rather than sell the car, have you thought of the option of a cheap 'fun' car for occassional / weekend use? You can buy a very usable mx5 these days for £1500. A clio 172 can now be got for the same. Any amount of interesting cars in fact and a lot of which can be insured on a classic policy.

All of which will cost you a lot less than the hit you're going to take to get out of your focus deal.

NeverAgain_2

Whichever way the car is financed, the so-called friction cost of changing it is enormous.

You are losing money in both directions, I don't disagree with an earlier poster's estimate of £4,000.

Do you have that much to throw away?

Your car is regarded as one of the better ones in its class, and undoubtedly the best financial option is to learn to like it, or at least live with it.

How about doing something like upgrading the stereo?

That could cost up to £1,000, but if you like your music, it would make the car much more appealing to you.

motorguy

NeverAgain wrote: »

That could cost up to £1,000, but if you like your music, it would make the car much more appealing to you.

+1

Also, Alloy wheel upgrade, suspension upgrade, remap, etc.

Not necessarily ALL of the above, but sometimes 'tweaking' a car can change your opinion of it.

Flearoy

If yours is the 115 bhp diesel you can get an extra 20bhp and a dollop more torque for £399 from Superchips.

spiro

Flearoy wrote: »

If yours is the 115 bhp diesel you can get an extra 20bhp and a dollop more torque for £399 from Superchips.

And probably a similar cost to cover the increase in insurance premiums.

petrolhead111

that's a big cost for 6 months motoring

If the settlement figure comes back scary then I may have to keep it for a while, they said it would be a day or two to get the figure then we could work it out.

reason to get rid is a lot of the above: -

the car is superb around town, handles great easy to park etc but on a long motorway run (which I do a lot of) it lacks in comfort and is a bit noisy.

nothing wrong with it but as I said, I just don't love it.

i may look into the remap as the turbo is a bit lazy, does anyone know if this will improve the noise side (i.e less revs required to get up to speed)
also what other options are available for comfort - can you get different seats maybe.

If I can resolve these points then I can live with the car and save myself the hit.

but from the look of it there will be a hit anyway maybe I should just take it and not go to a dealership again?

thanks to everyone for their input so far.