Part exchange questions

sparklyjojo

My Dad is going to be buying a new car soon, and I am going to buy his car off him.

It would make the whole process significantly easier if we could part exchange my car in for the new one he buys.

But there are a few issues:

1) my car is obviously registered to me, not him. Does that matter? Will garages say the part ex car must be registered to the buyer of the new car?

2) there is a problem with the warning lights on my car. They come on randomly as I'm driving along. My garage have confirmed there are no problems with the running of the car (I've been driving around with the lights on for months, car is running perfectly well), it's just a problem with the warning light sensor itself.

3) the driver side window has (just this week) decided to give up the ghost. I know the window has probably just fallen off its rollers, but it would need to go back into the garage for this work to be carried out, as I'm not able to get the casing off the door to access the window.

When asking friends for advice, most of them have said that the garage won't really care what condition the part ex car is in, because they will only scrap it anyway (the car is 16 years old). I'm reluctant to get all these problems fixed, when a) I don't have the money to do so and b) the garage might just scrap it anyway?!

My Dad is likely going to be buying his car from either a Honda or Nissan dealership.

My car is an X reg polo with very low mileage for its age (83,000) and is running well - but has the aforementioned problems, and the outer bodywork is not in good nick.

Really grateful for any advice/opinions on this. Thanks, all.

foxy-stoat

If he is using the scrapage marketing BS then he cannot use your car.

Find out the trade in value of your car - look on webuyanycar for the bottom price - if its around £100 then just scrap it yourself and buy your Dads car.

If you still want to use your car to chop in for his new one, then transfer it into his name - or just give the dealer the Green Slip.

AdrianC

Go back a step. Are you sure PXing your car will actually be worthwhile? The dealer certainly won't want it, and it's just added hassle for them.

Sure, they may offer an inflated figure for it - relative to eBay/scrap/WBAC/local newsagent's window - but if that difference goes straight back on the price he's paying, it's a zero-sum game. Cost to change is the only figure that matters.

Something like a basically healthy but slightly sheddy Polo will probably sell quite well locally - ideal first car for a teenager who doesn't mind getting his hands a bit dirty to save some cash. They do still exist.