is it me or are second hand dealers cheaper than private sellers these days?

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Sportacus
Sportacus Posts: 237 Forumite
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in Motoring
I'm in the market for an under £1000 car, and surprised to see more adverts from second hand dealers (px-to-clear whatever that means) and lower prices, than what I see from private sellers? Is this normal?
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  • EdGasketTheSecond
    EdGasketTheSecond Posts: 2,558 Forumite
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    The £1000 dealer car may have a lot of covered-up problems that a private one wont have. Check the MoT history on some forecourt cars and you will see from advisories that they are rust buckets with worn components. The dealers know the tricks to hide warning light issues too. Personally I'd rather buy private and judge the seller as well as the car.


    I have noticed a substantial drop in the number of private cars for sale though. I put it down to more red-tape with insurance and tax and potential buyers being less savvy now and hence sticking with dealers.
  • flashg67
    flashg67 Posts: 3,997 Forumite
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    I'd guess a lot of smaller traders make a living from buying up dealer part ex stock, saving the dealers hassle & auction fees. One trader told me his local dealer sold theirs in 'lots' of say 5 cars at a time (no idea if true or not)
    I've had reasonable success buying sub 1k cars. I think I know enough about the obvious things to look for and to check mot history etc, but at that price, it is a lottery from any seller
    Personally, I'm just as dubious about private sellers - there seem to be so many who are actually undeclared traders anyway
  • System
    System Posts: 178,094 Community Admin
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    EdGasketTheSecond wrote: »
    I have noticed a substantial drop in the number of private cars for sale though. I put it down to more red-tape with insurance and tax and potential buyers being less savvy now and hence sticking with dealers.

    I've put it down to it being less hassle for private sellers to get companies like Webuyanycar to take your car off your hands or to put it through auction than deal with some of the muppets who buy cheap cars and want something that is as good as brand new for banger money and will do nothing but continue to phone you and message you on Facebook any time there's an issue.
  • Car_54
    Car_54 Posts: 8,213 Forumite
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    Tarambor wrote: »
    I've put it down to it being less hassle for private sellers to get companies like Webuyanycar to take your car off your hands or to put it through auction than deal with some of the muppets who buy cheap cars and want something that is as good as brand new for banger money and will do nothing but continue to phone you and message you on Facebook any time there's an issue.
    So far as prices go, the dealer wants the car to sell quickly and has the expertise to set a realistic price. The private seller tends to be over-optimistic.
  • forgotmyname
    forgotmyname Posts: 32,552 Forumite
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    Not bought private for many years. Sellers seem to value their car more than the dealers it seems.

    Show a private seller adverts from dealers and offer them less = i will accept the dealer price then. Fine if you offer a full warranty and fix everything that breaks for the next 12 months.
    Censorship Reigns Supreme in Troll City...

  • Robby1988
    Robby1988 Posts: 182 Forumite
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    Tarambor wrote: »
    I've put it down to it being less hassle for private sellers to get companies like Webuyanycar to take your car off your hands or to put it through auction than deal with some of the muppets who buy cheap cars and want something that is as good as brand new for banger money and will do nothing but continue to phone you and message you on Facebook any time there's an issue.

    This. But also there is the fact that so many people seem to have cars on finance these days. You can't really sell a car with outstanding finance (easily), therefore people opt to flog them to We Buy Any Car or a dealer who will sort all of that out. WBAG and dealers pay crap money for the cars so can sell them on cheaper.
  • foxy-stoat
    foxy-stoat Posts: 6,879 Forumite
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    If the dealer has a £1000 price tag on a car its probably worth £500 but they more than likely gave half that for it. It may or may not have problems that will cost you more than the asking price or you may be very lucky.

    Folk may well over value their cars but it could be due to the amount of money they have invested into it in servicing.
  • JollyGreeNGiant
    JollyGreeNGiant Posts: 4 Newbie
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    Recently replaced my car, and in terms of who I'm going to get most when selling my motor I think it looks something like this:

    Private Seller > Dealer > Dealer auction sites like Tootle > WBAC

    When buying my car here's where you get the best value still:

    Auction > Private > Dealer auction sites like Tootle.co.uk > Dealer

    That said, I've not bought anything round the £1,000 mark recently
  • Arklight
    Arklight Posts: 3,171 Forumite
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    I think companies like Webuyanycar have taken a lot of the private sales away. You get less, but most people don't want the hassle or risk of selling their own car from their house. Rare or enthusiast cars will carry on being private sales.

    I think people are more wary about buying privately now also, especially as the law has given the consumer more rights with even cheap dealer purchases. It used to be that buying cheap from a dealer was no safer than buying from a bloke in the pub your mate Dave knows, probably less. But that's not the case now.

    When we were car hunting last year I was told by the other half that I could choose any type of car I wanted. Which meant the sporty Ford Focus I was interested in somehow turned into a search for a sensible Honda CRV she could get shopping and kids in.

    There was a really nice looking Honda CRV that was about £10k in a private ad (our max budget) about £2k - 3k less than the equivalent in dealerships.About what a private discount should be.

    She really wanted us to go and look at it with a serious view to buying. Being a craven coward who hates all form of risk I was already pretty nervy about this. I messaged the seller and I immediately started getting texts back in quite poorly spelled English wanting to know how soon I could come as "really lots peoples want it".

    I was totally spooked and put my foot down so we ended up buying a Suzuki from a dealer. The advert stayed up for quite a long time after and OH muttered that she thought we had "missed out".

    She never really said much about the Suzuki apart from them the other day she commented that the suspension from a passenger point of view is, "Very hard, and not as comfortable as my sister's Juke."

    I tried to explain that that was why it was one of the few SUVs that was even remotely fun to drive, unlike her sister's wallowy odd looking French car, but it fell on stony ground.
  • EdGasketTheSecond
    EdGasketTheSecond Posts: 2,558 Forumite
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    Next time keep the car and change the wife
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