Selling Car (Seat Ibiza SC) - Buying Cheaper Used Car (Lexus IS200)

Blitzwing85

My annual milleage is only 4000-5000 miles these days and so i've decided there is little point in having a new car.

I currently own a 3dr 1.6l Seat Ibiza Sport Coupe (09).
It has 14k miles on and other than a 1/2" dent on the drivers door it's in perfect condition.
Still has 9 months warrenty left, FSH and 2 brand new front tyres fitted 3 months ago.
It has all the extras on like cruise control, a/c etc as was an ex demo model.

To start me off, I received a quote from webuyanycar and it came in at £6100 after their fee's. Not very much, as expected.

I'm going to replace it with a Lexus IS200 (old model). Looking at a lot of used cars, I find this model seems to be the best for the price. Averaging around £2000-£3000 for 60k-100k milleage and 10-12 years old. But as a lot of these were businessmens cars (not salesmen) then they tend to be in really good condition and as they were once luxury cars they have more features than most standard cars even now.


The problem: Buying a car which is at least £3500-£4000 cheaper than what you sell means it's incredibly hard to get a good price on yours.



I guess selling private is the best option?
I really can't be done with the hassle though but I suppose I should be able to price it to sell. I'm more than willing to sacrifice £500 to get it over and done with.
Last time I sold an Astra VXR to Evans Halshaw and bought a New Corsa. VXR cost me £20,000 10 months earlier and I only sold it for £13,500 due to wanting a load of cash my way. Corsa was rubbish so that was sold within 6 months at £4,000 loss anyway...Madness.

Anyone recommend the best sites for cost of selling / exposure etc?
Only sites I really know of are Autotrader and Pistonheads.

Also, anybody here who has owned an IS200 have anything specific to check? The car seems to get overall very high ratings but i'm particualrly bothered about milleage.
I've only ever bought 1 used car (a civic type-r) and it had 80,000 on. I got it up to 90,000 after 18 months and it started having issues - but that had 5 previous young owners and wouldn't have been driven carefully!

Sorry i'm waffling on a bit...I've been looking at this for weeks and I ALWAYS get put off when it comes to buying a used car. I e-mailed a couple of garages selling IS200s with some low offers but got no replies. (not sure if they haggle over e-mail, but i'm usually too busy to phone around).

Basically just interested in having a bit of a discussion and seeing what info I can gather from tohers knowledge/experiences.

Also worth noting I have the cash to buy the car anytime, but would rather not in case it takes a while to sell my car.

Strider590

I always liked the old IS200's, but they've got quite a boyracer following now

Oh btw, Lexus IS apparently is the most vandalised car in the UK and I dare say it'll carry a nice extra insurance premium for it. Plus any IS200 after 2001 is in the highest VED tax bracket based on emissions, currently around £480 a year (iirc).

rodenal

I like the IS200 too, lovely cars though they are very heavy on juice considering there isn't much go on offer - the engine is still nice though and they generally drive well.

Some of your local garages may be interested in buying your car - maybe even Seat would be interested. Can't hurt to call round and check - should be better on offer than webuyanycar etc and quicker than waiting for a private sale.

Blitzwing85

Hi
Thanks for your reply.
Never been any vadalism at all where I live so I don't believe i'd have any issues there...and I guess they are cheap enough to appeal to boyracers these days. Doesn't really bother me as I just want a standard one that's never been modified etc.

I barely drive anymore, so after something cheap but still with some luxuries I won't get on a slightly newer ford or vauxhall etc.

I did look up the tax as I compared an X Reg and a 52 plate both same spec/milleage but the X reg was only £215 tax.
I'm certainly not paying for the newer tax bracket that's for sure.

Petrol wise, i'm not overally fussed due to my very low usage. Plus, I've had cars which stated 22mpg and cars which stated 40mpg and never noticed a difference!! Weird.
My Seat usually sits around about 35-40mpg around the doors yet I used the exact same petrol in the VXR which was a 2.0l turbo. Baffles me.


Insurance will be £400 a year for the IS200 Sport. Currently it's £300 for my Seat.
So including tax, insurance and petrol I could be looking at maybe £500 a year extra to run. Not that bad really.


I'll give Seat a call for an estimate over the phone to get an idea. If I got offered £7k to be honest i'd be content with that.

Blitzwing85

Also, anybody can feel free to recommend models between £2000-£4000 (i'd stretch the extra £1000 for sometihng really nice).

I'm not al lthat up on used cars having always just bought new ones. And i'm also not clued up on 'non sporty cars' having typically gone for the top spec of the models i purchased previously.


I don't actually need the money i'll be getting back, so i'm not desperate and will only go for a good deal. It's purely down to my lack of use, that I might as well get rid of the £170 monthly payment and still have a decent car to run around in. Makes sense.

rodenal

Get yourself an e46 330ci (if it's in budget) - brilliant engine and a really good all round car. If the 330 is out of budget the newer (around 2003/2004) 325ci is also a cracker.

Avoid the 323 / 328 you'd be better of with a mint e36 328i m sport (a real one not something with the skirts etc added) for £2.5-3k

There's plenty about tbh if all you are looking for is something "nice" - you could pick up an e39 535i or maybe 540, again blistering motors. £4k just about gets you an early S3, loads of 156 V6's around for a pittence, mondeo ST's are very good cars too and well in budget.

Other thoughts are the Altezza version of your IS200 (not sure if they're actually in budget, but look them up they come with a beams engine which is a cracker)

slyracoon

You're crazy if your willing to spend £2000 - £4000 on a 10-12 year old car, it'll be in and out of the garage and after a couple more years it will only be scrap value.

Strider590

slyracoon wrote: »

You're crazy if your willing to spend £2000 - £4000 on a 10-12 year old car, it'll be in and out of the garage and after a couple more years it will only be scrap value.

If you search the forums, you'll find a lot more people having problems with brand new cars, than with older cars.

rodenal

slyracoon wrote: »

You're crazy if your willing to spend £2000 - £4000 on a 10-12 year old car, it'll be in and out of the garage and after a couple more years it will only be scrap value.

I can only suggest you look up the price of a 1994 VR6 Corrado, or an E36 M3

Blitzwing85

slyracoon wrote: »

You're crazy if your willing to spend £2000 - £4000 on a 10-12 year old car, it'll be in and out of the garage and after a couple more years it will only be scrap value.

Yes but £2500 for example with only 60k miles on? Might be 10 year old but i'm going for low, motorway milleage car.

I don't mind about the age if the car has only half the milleage typical to it's age.

Blitzwing85

rodenal wrote: »

Get yourself an e46 330ci (if it's in budget) - brilliant engine and a really good all round car. If the 330 is out of budget the newer (around 2003/2004) 325ci is also a cracker.

Avoid the 323 / 328 you'd be better of with a mint e36 328i m sport (a real one not something with the skirts etc added) for £2.5-3k

There's plenty about tbh if all you are looking for is something "nice" - you could pick up an e39 535i or maybe 540, again blistering motors. £4k just about gets you an early S3, loads of 156 V6's around for a pittence, mondeo ST's are very good cars too and well in budget.

Other thoughts are the Altezza version of your IS200 (not sure if they're actually in budget, but look them up they come with a beams engine which is a cracker)

Are they all BMW models? I'm not very clued up on models of most brands. Despite how many cars i've had in such a short time i've not really took much notice of makes and models mostly.

The previous shape Mondeo ST's do look nice for the price like.
I've thought about the Altezza before and prefer it mostly but i'd be sacrificing luxury features for performance, and these days i'm more interested in the features. Not sure about insurance, i'm told imports don't knock it up as much as they used to.

150bhp will do me fine though, i'm quite content now with my pitiful 105bhp which was a hell of a comedown from previous cars...but it does for me.