Selling a car privately, any advice?

FUNKYDADDIO

Hi guys, I'm looking to sell a 6 year old fiesta privately as the dealer I'm getting new car from offered pittance. Anyone any advice from doing this? Want to get a decent price but don't want too many strangers around house, thanks.!

Old_Git

gumtree
pistonhead
autotrader
usedcarsni

pd52

I used AT and found it expensive and didn't get much interest, I then put it on eBay as a classified for £14.99 for 28 days and got more interest and it sold.

DesG

What's a pittance? have you put the details into a webuyanycar type of site to get an approx value?

qwert_yuiop

It's worth thinking of an auction. If the car is fine, you can agree to stand over it - "any test or trial". If it's a real oul nail then "sold as seen". All sorted easily, and you know the cheque's good.

I sold a fairly decent car at wilsons a while back and it did all right. I once passed a hunk of junk on there "as seen" and was surprised how well it did, although the fees took a fair proportion out of it. I saw it parked in the street a couple of weeks later with 40,000 fewer miles on the clock.

ballyblack

don't want too many strangers around house,

That's what private selling is all about. The buyer needs to have confidence in the purchase

Not many buyers will want to meet you in your local Tesco car park?

If you don't want to do this? offer it to your local Independent dealer/trader who deals in the cheaper end of the market(my preferred way) or send it to auction

Most cars sell easily if the owner is realistic on price especially a Ford Fiesta


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irishjohn

If you are buying a new car from a franchise dealer he will not want your 6 year old Fiesta. A quick look at his used car stock is likely to show he will only stock used cars up to three years old. He will pass on your 6 yr old to an independent car dealer who specialises in older models. The sum he offers is likely to be the sum he is likely to get from that dealer who will want to mark it up to re-sell.

If you want to get close to the retail value of your car you will have to place it on one of the sales sites but be willing to accept a bit below that value as people who buy such cars do not intend to pay the same as they would have to pay a dealership who have the car in stock.

Decide whether or not you would valet the car to the same extent as a dealer would to make it look impressive to a buyer, and choose where you want to sell it but accept the fact that you can advertise using a mobile number but you will need to allow anyone interested to come see the car at your hoome.

If anything in this causes you concern, then accept the fact that you will not achieve the sale value you want and pass it on to a dealer either the easiest route in part exchange or the more difficult route by visiting such dealers and asking if they are interested in buying it.

Normskin

I sold mine privately last year and advertised on the usual sites, Gumtree, Autotrader and Used Cars NI. I think Gumtree works quite well for cheaper cars but you do tend to get a lot of people who text you and chance their arm. I found that Autotrader was relatively inexpensive (£10 or £15) and the eventual buyer viewed the car on Autotrader. I think there are less time wasters on there!


Make sure the car is clean and you have all the necessary paperwork like all service records and MOT certificates.


There are various sites where you can input your car details to get an idea of the value to list it at and remember to leave a little wriggle room for haggling!


It is probably a little stressful selling yourself but I ended up with around £1k more than if I had traded in.


Good luck!

shopaholicz

We've recently sold 2 cars, both on the same weekend. We wanted to pool the money for both and buy just one, newer car. We put them on both ebay and autotrader. We didn't have any sensible phone calls from ebay.

The first car we had one call from autorader and it sold for the asking price.

The second car we had one trader from autotrader who said he wanted to put it on his garage and offered half the asking price for cash. We declined. The 2nd call from autotrader came and bought it for £40 less than the asking price.

We placed the ads Friday morning and by Saturday lunch time they'd both sold. Result.

Mistral001

ballyblack wrote: »

That's what private selling is all about. The buyer needs to have confidence in the purchase

Not many buyers will want to meet you in your local Tesco car park?


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Once in London I went to an address to look at a car and found the seller waiting outside the gate, blocking it in fact, with the car parked on the street. I didn't make an offer.