What's The Best Way to Sell a Car - Private / Garage, HEEEEELP

MrsJ2008

Hi,

For a couple of months now i've tried to sell my 04 Mini (36000 miles on clock). I've had 2 private enquiries and nothing else. The price i've advertised it at is £8000 (£1000 less than the book price), i've also stated 'or nearest offer', i've had 2 new tyres on it, just MOT'd it and now put a further 6 months tax on it.

I've got a company car now and paying for the finance on it now is really a drain on me financially (also paying for a wedding).

I've tried selling it on the local roads with for sale signs on it, on Auto Trader and Exchange & Mart all of this and only 2 enquiries! The car is in excellent condition and I'm now looking down the avenue of selling it to a garage/carcraft/on-line car buying type place.

Please can anyone give me some tips or advice or recommend where I can try selling the car.

Many thanks for your help.

cheekyweegit

Local supermarket / newsagents are a must I think as loads of folks look at the ads in there and they are quite often free to put up or a nominal fee in the newsagents (around 50p).

By putting them up there you at least have a local audience and may be luckier. Oh the local post office too might be worth a shot.

Good luck and hopefully it won't be too long before it goes to it's new home.

irrelevant

It depends on the car - cheaper sells easier - We had a nightmare selling a five year old VW Sharan a couple of years ago. Tried the free ads, tried auto trader, tried ebay. Few viewers, no takers. Ended up selling it to a dealer for substantially less than we really wanted. At least it was quick and painless, and almost covered the outstanding finance...

jimmo

I’m absolutely no expert here, but just get the impression you are being over ambitious on the price you are asking and suggest you try to put yourself into the mindset of a potential buyer.
In real terms the 2 most expensive cars I ever bought cost me 6 month’s salary and 3 month’s salary. I bought them from a dealer because I perceived that my investment was better protected than buying privately.
To be frank, as a private buyer, there is no way that I would part with £8,000 for a car with absolutely no guarantees unless I saw it as a fantastic bargain.
When I am looking for a car I use this as a staring point because it’s free.
http://www.vauxhall.co.uk/vx/finance/valueyourcar.do
Whilst we don’t have the precise detail of your mini it suggests that the best you could expect from a trade in is slightly less than £7,000.
But you are not trading in so my guess is that if you look to sell to a trader you will be offered a lot less than that.
I suggest that you take your car now to a couple of traders to see what they are prepared to pay.
Split the difference between your current asking price and the trader’s price and you might have a chance.

barney4444

We've had problems too selling a car. We've spent a lot of money on advertising on AutoTrader, eBay and in the local press. We've only had a couple of viewers and they were really time wasters. It's awful. In the end we sold it to we buy any car.com. The website is easy to use and although we got slightly less than we wanted for it the whole process was simple and straight forward. Hope this is useful! Cheers

standupguy

These cars are very desirable and so it must be the price that is the issue?

Parkers guide states an 04 Mini one with 40k on the clock is worth £6000 tops to sell privately and it looks like the trade price will be circa £5500?

If yours has better spec or a 54 reg then it will be worth a bit more?

Have you a settlement figure from the Finance Company - if you have negative equity there is another option for disposal?

cheekyweegit

barney4444 wrote: »

We've had problems too selling a car. We've spent a lot of money on advertising on AutoTrader, eBay and in the local press. We've only had a couple of viewers and they were really time wasters. It's awful. In the end we sold it to we buy any car.com. The website is easy to use and although we got slightly less than we wanted for it the whole process was simple and straight forward. Hope this is useful! Cheers

Not impressed at all with the price I got from these guys for my car after trying out of sheer curiosity. An R Reg Mondeo, full service history, 75k on the clock and in not bad nick for the year. 6+ months MOT and tax, they offered £260. The tax and contents of the petrol tank is worth at least £150 if not more! Then I could scrap the car for £125 so, I'd make more doing that (which I'm not going to as I love my car).

So be careful and definitely shop around.

nomoneytoday

An R reg Mondeo is never going to fetch big bucks at a dealer i'm afraid. There are too many others competing with it.

I would sell it privately in your shoes for a sensible price, or keep it

MrsJ2008

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I've read through my finance documents and they say I can't sell the car unless I pay the finance off first!

Problem is I need to sell it to get the money to pay it off.... bonkers!

Anyone got any advice on this one for me?

standupguy

The practicalities are that you can sell the car providing you settle the finance out of the sale proceeds.

Andy_Hamilton

Can you not hand the keys back to the finance company. I've heard a lot about people doing it but don't know how.

I have tried selling cars loads of different ways but I found ebay is the best, people are wiling to travel for cars. We went 110miles to pick up my fathers last one.
People only pay what it's worth on auctions though.