Repair bodywork to sell or not?

meg00

I am putting my car up for sale privately, and would expect it to sell at around £5k.

I have had an estimate of £660 to repair the bodywork after a lorry scratched the side of it and drove off.

Would it be better to sell as is (and drop the price accordingly) or have the work done and hold out for the higher price?.

Vehicle is in good condition otherwise, low mileage, serviced twice a year, full set of winter tyres etc.

Thanks,

Meg.

AdrianC

Depends on if the difference in sale price would be £660+...

Let's see a pic of how bad.

meg00

Prett

meg00

Pretty bad.

I have been out this morning and got a few more quotes ranging from £50 to "clean it up", to £1500 for an insurance claim.

I don't want to claim on my insurance.

Meg.

AdrianC

I'd give that a good wash and polish first, and see how bad it looks. I reckon you could make that fairly minor, easily. Definitely not worth putting 12% of the car's value into it...

ratrace

i had similar damged to my car both doors damaged, i just bought 2 used doors in the same colours and bolted them on cost £200, 100 for each side

MinuteNoodles

Yeah as a buyer if there's two of those cars for sale unless that one had a particularly outstandingly good service history and mileage compared to the other it would be the other that got my money.

Buyers tend to not want to have to faff around dealing with fixing things as soon as they've bought a car when they're buying £5k cars because if they were happy to deal with fixing things on a car they'd just bought they'd buy £1k-£2k cars instead.

meg00

Thanks for the advice all.

I will have a go at trying to tidy it up myself, then put it on the market.

Meg.

Grumpy_chap

A £5k car, but what car, age and mileage?

The_Rainmaker

I'd be expecting over £1k off for that.  £500 just for the hassle factor.

MinuteNoodles

meg00 said:

Thanks for the advice all.

I will have a go at trying to tidy it up myself, then put it on the market.

Meg.

Please don't, you'll likely make it even worse. If you try to do it with a can of spray painf bought from the local motor shop or Halfords it'll stick out like a sore thumb and look like a dogs dinner, probably being worse than not doing anything. Find a bodyshop who will do a quick wag over job for a few hundred quid.