Selling my car - help!

BunnieJ

Hi everyone.

After quite a bit of thought, I've decided that it's probably best to give up my car I live in the city centre, walk to work, and the council won't give me a residents parking permit so I have nowhere to park.

I got my car about 4 years ago (red 3 door suzuki alto) when I started to learn to drive. It was my nan's car that she bought new in 2002.

I was thinking the easiest option would be to sell to 'we buy any car' or some such, but I've been told that they're a rip off/con and give you next to nothing for your car. Any one had good/bad experience with them?

I've got no experience of selling and what I would need to do. If anyone could point me in the right direction, it would be much appreciated

Mot & tax are due in late Jan/Feb. The car is in good condition except for a dent in the boot where I backed into a post would it be worth repairing this to get more money for the car?

TIA

jumbojuice

Id use webuyanycar to work out a rough valuation and then pop down to your local dealer - we buyanycar sell your cars on to these guys for more than theyve paid you - so you should be able to get more for it by going direct?

wba31

How much is your car worth to you, as in how much do you want for it?

get a quote off wbac and it it's in line with your valuation then job done.

I sold a car on Autotrader a few years back and had all sorts of attempted scams and tyre kickers and people offering me 60% the value of the car... eventually sold it the day after the 6 week ad came down...

BunnieJ

I would like to sell my car for between £400-£500 as it's in good condition, only had 2 owners and has hardly done any miles for its age.

WBAC quoted about £250 and my insurance company valued it at £450 ( big difference!).

I think I'll get more money if I sell privately (my work had a classifieds website) but as you mentioned, I don't want time wasters/conmen etc.

I also just took out a years AA cover about a month ago, what would happen to that?

force_ten

for a 12 year old car like you describe you are not looking at a great deal money for it in perfect condition

I would say it is not worth spending money repairing the dent as a good quality repair would cost hundreds of pounds and you would not regain that money in increased value

at a rough guess off the top of my head the car you describe would sell for £400-£600 depending on mileage and overall condition, and i would say that if try and sell it into the trade you could half that figure

BunnieJ

So to sell privately (at work/gumtree etc) how would I go about this?

Obviously I'll clean the car inside and out and take lots of photos. What would I need to do paperwork wise? I have no idea about selling a car!

force_ten

BunnieJ wrote: »

So to sell privately (at work/gumtree etc) how would I go about this?

Obviously I'll clean the car inside and out and take lots of photos. What would I need to do paperwork wise? I have no idea about selling a car!

a good clean in and out is a good start, some of the local hand car wash places will do a mini valet in and out for £12.00-£15.00, if i was to clean a car in and out it would take a good couple of hours so getting it done elsewhere could be a cost effective use of time,

adds on the wall at the local supermarket, add on Gumtree, if there is a local facebook selling page in your area then stick an add on there, also ring the local paper and see what it would cost to stick an add in the local paper, if it is then aim for a thursday night or a friday night paper as cars sell better at the weekend

people see the add on thu/fri give you a ring and call around to see it at the weekend

paperwork, you need the MOT certificate and the V5C, the tax is no longer a selling point as of 1st october the new keeper will have to re tax the car and any unused months of your tax will be refunded to you when the DVLA process the change of keeper

if you have service history and bills for work that has been carried out then get them all together and put them in a folder as your service history for the new keeper

in your advert be as positive as you can and use terms like

good condition, two owners from new, MOT untill ????, ?? thousand miles, and at the end of the advert mention the small dent to rear of car

be truthful, but polish the good points in your advert and declare any bad points at the end of the advert, dont tell lies about the condition as it wont do you any favours

and when you sell the car print off two copies of a bill of sale

www.theaa.com/aa-car-buyers-sellers-contract.pdf

somthing like that will be fine, and as you sell the car fill in the V5C with the new keepers details hand the buyer the new keepers section of the V5C and you send the rest off to the DVLA, under no circumstances should you just hand over the full and uncompleted V5C to the new keeper as it is your responsibility to inform the DVLA of change of ownership

https://www.gov.uk/notifying-dvla-if-you-sell-your-vehicle

that is a good start in selling your car

force_ten

also in the advert you need to put full service history with bills/part service history or whatever applies, full or part history at the start of the add no service history at the end of the add with the dent

pick up a copy of a local paper with a classified section and look at other peoples adverts and find one that looks good to you and use a similar format for your advert

BunnieJ

Wow thanks! That's a lot of useful advice I better get started!

force_ten

BunnieJ wrote: »

Wow thanks! That's a lot of useful advice I better get started!

Happy to help, lets hope it helps you move the car on

keep us informed how you get on

JustinR1979

A frugal little cheap car like that should sell easy, don't worry about dents in it