Selling a car privately - MOT, Servicing, Insurance

Fernendo321

One more question it had regular full service 2+ years ago.   Is it worth including these or are they now irrelevant due to how old they are?

Thanks

born_again

Fernendo321 said:

One more question it had regular full service 2+ years ago.   Is it worth including these or are they now irrelevant due to how old they are?

Thanks

Assuming the value @ £1600. Not really. 
I would just MOT & not bother with service. Let buyer do that as you will never recover the cost of a service.

Stateofart

Just MOT it, then flog it.  Your service won't generate more £££ in the sale to cover the cost of it.

Fernendo321

Stateofart said:

Just MOT it, then flog it.  Your service won't generate more £££ in the sale to cover the cost of it.

Thanks to you and all others for the answers.  I will try to do exactly this.

Fernendo321

CliveOfIndia said:

prowla said:

The insurance part isn't relevant to the sale of the car.

It's perhaps relevant insofar as it allows the car to be taxed, and therefore the buyer can test drive it.  It may not make a huge difference I guess, depending on who the potential buyer is, but I personally would never buy a car without a thorough test-drive.

In regards to the test drive I think I have found a possible solution (albeit with some hassle)

If they like the car we can agree a price subject to a successful test drive.  They can tax it there and then and drive it (with their own insurance).  If they don't like the test drive they can cancel the purchase and cancel the tax for a refund.   Yes this method is a bit of hassle but at least it would weed out time wasters.   Might involve some trust regarding the tax refund as that would come to me I guess and I would have to forward it onto them.

What do you think of that proposal is it realistic?   It's the only way I can provide a test drive without wasting money on tax and an insurance policy I don't need.

Otherwise I need to tax it, buy temporary insurance for the test drive then sorn it after and keep repeating this for every test drive.   Doesn't seem practical.

Ectophile

I can see two problems.

1. The tax refund will be short one month, because you only get refunded on whole months.
2. The refund goes to the registered keeper.  That's you, not the potential buyer.

Personally, I think your efforts to skimp on costs will scare off a lot of genuine buyers.  You're most likely to get people who treat it like a barn find: it might be worth paying a small amount to buy it, with the expectation that there will be lots of expensive faults to fix.

I would be wary of any car that hasn't been serviced for 2 years.  That means the first thing I need to do is to take it to a garage and have a major service done.

Fernendo321

Ectophile said:

I can see two problems.

1. The tax refund will be short one month, because you only get refunded on whole months.
2. The refund goes to the registered keeper.  That's you, not the potential buyer.

Personally, I think your efforts to skimp on costs will scare off a lot of genuine buyers.  You're most likely to get people who treat it like a barn find: it might be worth paying a small amount to buy it, with the expectation that there will be lots of expensive faults to fix.

I would be wary of any car that hasn't been serviced for 2 years.  That means the first thing I need to do is to take it to a garage and have a major service done.

Yes exactly the refund would be short a little and goes to me so there are 2 problems.

I'm not trying to skimp on costs as such I'm trying to avoid spending money I won't get back on the sale.  

Maybe a higher value car should be serviced before sale but if it's a low value car is it worth it?

HillStreetBlues

My personal view  (I have only bought low price cars, £1500 is max so far)
I'd rather pay £1600 without  than £1800 with every day of the week, as I have never bothered with a service.
But it would need an MOT  and these days I go though the history of them.
Years ago FSH helped show it hasn't been clocked,  but now the on-line MOT history helps with that, so for me that's also unimportant.

jimjames

Recently needed an MOT on car I was buying, found a no pass no fee place which did it for me and worked out perfectly as a win-win situation. Could be worth checking if one nearby to you.

Bear in mind that the lack of a recent service will be leverage for a buyer to knock down price so if you've already priced it well keep that in your head when negotiating.