Anyone dealt with online car buyers for cheap 2nd hand car?

SomeRandomGuy

Most of the time WBAC and similar companies will basically offer you slightly less than what the car will sell for at auction. This is because they auction off most of the undesirable stuff they get in. So clearly you can usually get more money by selling privately (ebay, gumtree and local facebook groups are a good place to start), but you do have the hassle of dealing with morons.

I sold a 3 year old car to WBAC a few years ago and it was a painless experience, fair offer, fair price paid, quick payment. More recently I tried to sell an older 4x4 to Trusted Car Buyer and the guy they directed me too was a total shark, offering pretty much half the trade value. I eventually sold to We Want Any Car - Their initial quote was just about acceptable but despite the car being exceptionally clean for the year they knocked it down a further 10% on inspection for some imaginary paint defect they could only find with a paint thickness meter. After trying to sell privately and dealing with two total idiots I just wanted to be rid of the car. With benefit of hindsight I should have stuck it out and sold privately for more money.

A 2001 Polo is a cheap car that is cheap to run. There is always a market for this kind of car IMO. Just stick it on gumtree and find a local Facebook car selling group to put it on as well. Assuming the car starts and drives OK and has some MOT someone will snap it up for £500. Even a 99p ebay no reserve auction would be a reasonable gamble. Just weed out 0 rated bidders and make the auction description and terms very clear and only take cash, not paypal.

You will be lucky to come away with £150 going to a car buying company.

Herzlos

walwyn1978 wrote: »

We Buy Any Car offer more for stuff they can sell on quickly and easily. They'll offer buttons for a 2001 Polo because there's not much market for it due to age (as opposed to say a four year old popular car like a Focus or whatever).

Not quite. If it's under 6 years old, it'll probably go to the stores (car giant?) but if it's older than that it's straight to auction (because they don't want cars to be more than 10 years old when the finance runs out). A 2001 Polo will go for sod all at an auction, because the dealers will need to make a profit on a £900 sale.

At that end of the market, cosmetic damage makes no real difference to the value (people are just concerned about whether or not it runs), so the reductions for damage are just trying to squeak out some profit - they put the car into auction as is. Obviously, on a nearly new car, paint damage needs to be fixed before it goes on sale, but for auction bangers?

Do they still charge a buying fee or a fast payment fee?

Other than the feeling of being scammed, the process was pretty painless when we did it.

bigjl

Lulu58 wrote: »

I can understand that they are a business and want to make a profit, but suely there are degress. It would make me cross if someone was to try and knock the price down to silly money on the basis of things like stone chips on a 15 year old car - as I said earlier, it's a nice, clean, tidy car and I've been completely honest about scuffs, scrapes etc,

I tried to convince my husband to put it on Gumtree, ebay etc but he just can't face it. I don't think £500-£600 is unreasonable, but I doubt I'll come away with that.

£5/600 for a 2001 Polo?

You need to quantify why you think that is the value?

Full service history, bodywork in good condition with the odd minor defect but not rust or anything needing bodywork, decent tyres, long MOT with no advisories with a clean and tidy interior, with no mechanical defects?

Yes you may well get that in a private sale.

If the car is about to become a liability, scruffy interior, four nearly worn out tyres, one window broken, lots of dents and rusty rear wheel arches?

Unlikely.

As I have said before the reason people moan about WBAC valuations or trade in valuations is simply unrealistic expectations.

People want to get 10/15% off the car they buy from a trader, they also often want retail money for their trade in, which often has expensive problems on the horizon.

Lulu58

WBAC T&C's suggest a transaction fee 'may' be applied, Herzlos. There's a statement giving a sliding scale of fees - no fee for cars below £99.99 subject to min valuation of £50; fee of £49.99 for vehicles valued at £100- £4,999.99; £5k or more is £74.99.

A fee of £49.99 on a car valued at £100, and probably up to around £500 seems very steep to me.

Lulu58

Hi bigjl, i've done some research online and the £500/£600 is an average of the various valuations I've received. It also seems reasonable when I've looked at prices online. Other than a couple of scuffs on the bumpers, the car interior/exterior is immaculate - one owner, fsh, very low mileage. I'm tempted to keep it, but I'd be swapping like for like almost.