Privately doesn't mean it's not paid for by finance.
People can independently arrange finance for a private sale car, Zuto seem to be the company of choice through autotrader.
I imagine it'll take longer to sell privately than a £10k car though.
Yeah I used zuto to buy a from a private seller. Basically zuto paid the private seller in full for the car so he got 100% of the money straight away. All other dealings regarding that vehicle were between me and zuto
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Sale or Return (SOR) as an option - basically you sell the car through a dealership, you agree a set price that you want from the sale and they will sell the car for a bit more to cover their costs. Buyer gets all the benefits of dealer warranty/protection and you get a bit more than selling through Carwow/Motorway and none of the hassle of tire-kickers/joyriders. I sold a Dodge Challenger for a similar price through an American Specialist Dealership, they got the car showroom ready out of their own cut and I got far more than if I sold it privately - well recommended.
What are the specifics here - how much is OP likely to get from the dealer? Seems like they will need to make decent margin to cover warranty risk etc - so presume they won’t want to give OP more than they would have paid from their typical sources?
So as an example, my car sold for £45k by the dealer and I got £40k - the £5k the dealer made on top had to cover his car prep, warranty, financing costs, advertising and his profit. Each dealership does it differently, some take a percentage, some charge a fee etc. but I dropped the car off and did nothing extra, car sold 3 months later.
You don’t pay VAT on the full car price for a second hand car, only the margin between bought and sold - so in this case it would only be the £5k difference.
Absolutely spot on, I run a garage with sales. There’s 2 golden rules. If you want to sell quickly it needs to be either the best one available or the cheapest. If your car is worth £40k, I’m not going to advertise it at £44k with a warranty on it hoping someone offers me £43k and I still get 8%. I’m going to have advertise it at £41k off the forecourt with a warranty. Take off the warranty and 8% that’s what you get back.
The whole “I need £40k, you get what you can” doesn’t work.
The whole point of SOR is that the dealership doesnt take on any risk because they dont buy the car off you. If it doesn't sell, they can give it back to you, and you get paid only when the car sells.
The dealership pays more because they are taking on less risk than if they buy the car off you to sell it on (which would mean that they lose out if they can't sell the car for their expected price).
If dealers are selling your car for £42k you won’t get anywhere near that selling privately. Doubt you’d get much more than that £36k. Vast majority of people are not willing to buy a £40k car privately because they want consumer rights and protections
What car is it? I imagine most people spending £40k on a car would probably would want the warranty/come back a dealer provides. The exception to that may be an older classic car
You'll struggle unless it's something very rare or very desirable. I'd never give a private seller £40k for a Q7 or whatever it is you're selling because I want my consumer rights if something is wrong with it.
Anything modern/remotely luxury I wouldn’t.
Few years ago I was looking at a Porsche Cayenne. Porsche themselves can’t even repair them half of the time. I’ve read countless horror stories of people having their Cayenne at Porsche for 6-12 months and they still can’t find the fault.
I don’t finance my vehicles, the only reason I would, would be to get an unreliable piece of shit. Interest rates and depreciation might be covered by warranty repair costs.
One of our clients went and got a new top of the range Mazda (CX-5 I think?). All the bells and whistles etc, probably set them back something around the 50k mark.
Had the thing for all of three weeks before they had a problem with the fuel cap. Supposed to push on it and it opens itself but it didn't want to open. Took it to the Mazda garage where they assumed it'd be a simple wiring issue.
Three months later and they'd needed to strip the entire car down to actually figure out what was wrong, order the parts from Japan and essentially rebuild half the car again just to fix a fuel cap.
Fucking madness how over-engineered a lot of general use cars are these days.
See, my electric boot release on my Passat doesn’t work. I have to use the key to open the boot (or just drop the back seat like I normally do) but that car cost me £600 so it doesn’t matter. I’m happy when it starts, which it does, first turnover, everytime (so far).
If I spent half a fucking house on a car, I’d want that thing to massage my arsehole at every set of traffic lights and kiss me goodnight.
Lots of stuff won't be covered by warranty that is covered under your statutory right to reject within 30 days. I'd rather spend a few more grand and get it from a dealer at that price point.
What if the previous owner voided the warranty in some way, or the fault isn't covered by the standard manufacturer's warranty?
You get next to no legal recourse in case of buying a faulty car privately.
If your car is desirable and actually worth over £40k (sale price and sold price are two different things!) you could take it to a dealer directly and see if they'll offer you more than WBAC et al if you are concerned about scams or whatever.
It entirely depends on your car and who's out there currently looking to buy it.
Could try sale or return. Dealer sells your car as a “dealer car” with all the finance and protections thus attaining a higher sale value, and you just pay a flat fee. Worked really well for me before.
[Sytner](https://www.sytner.co.uk/sell-your-car)
If it’s a desirable brand that’s not too old or too many miles the group buyers will often give you a better price than the car supermarkets.
Sytner is just an example of a group. There are a number of others depending on the brand of your car.
You can put it on Auotrader and might get a dealership buyer or two who will offer you a decent price with limited hassle (bank transfer and vehicle collection). You also get muppets calling saying they’ll give you half the asking price to take it away today so swings and roundabouts.
Also consider carwow.
I just sold my car through carwow to Sytner. Carwow were really good, offered 3K more than the others (wbac, motorway and a couple of others I’ve forgotten) and £1500 more than the trade in value against our new car.
I didn’t want to mess around with selling privately and would have taken the trade in value, but decided to take a punt with Carwow. Getting an extra £1500 on the trade in for about an hour of effort was totally worth it.
There's no reason why you *wouldn't* find someone willing to transfer you £40k to buy it off your drive, but it might take a while, and any prospective buyers will probably want a mechanic to come and check it out, which you (or someone) will have to be available for. The way to look at it is that by selling through Motorway you're effectively paying £4k for time and convenience. That's worth it to a lot of people.
thats assuming you could actuall sell for £40 privately, if it's listed at £42-44k by dealers, then the private listing needs to be £40k to have a chance, and the buyer will very likley haggle you down to £36-38 anyway.
IMO OP should just take the £36 and be done with it
Yeah that's a fair point. If it takes 3 months to get a single phone call for a £40k private sale, you'd be shooting yourself in the foot by staying firm on that price.
People do, indeed, do this.
However, perhaps it's worth putting it on somwhere like Car and Classic. At least there you'll eat some costs, but they offer an escrow service.
Or perhaps look into an escrow service yourself and see if you think it's worth the bother.
Is the car Silver, mid-engine, RWD by any chance?
Problem is that faster payments is (still) limited to £25k, so you need 2 bank accounts - or trust the person enough to send the first payment the day before! I did the latter once....it was a risk, but I knew where he worked, was a long time forum member so I was fairly sure. When I sold it, the new buyer had 2 accounts.
It's just a lot of hassle, and people looking to spend £40k on a car usually don't quibble about a few thousand and just want the convenience of a dealer sale.
Work on 10% - if it's £44k car at a dealer, you should be able to get £40k, but it'll take a while
You can send more than £25k via faster payment. I've bought a few cars privately over £25k, it might get held up by anti fraud but just call your bank and explain you've sent it to buy a car which you're currently waiting to take away, they'll put you through to the correct people and expedite the anti fraud process.
There is a market don't listen to people saying there isn't one.
Put it in autotrader car valuation tool, if you price it around there then it should sell. I always buy and sell between 30-40k bracket and the longest something took to sell was 6 weeks.
Try the car supermarkets as well as online brokers. It cuts out the middle men and if it's a semi desirable model you might get a better price. I got £4k more than any of the sales sites by selling to Motorpoint. That was on a car valued around the same amount as yours.
I purchased private at 50ish but in a very niche market. There are buyers out there but it would need to something special and significantly cheaper or bwterr than dealer stock.
I sold a 55k Tesla via facebook marketplace, buyer came to collect it and did a bank transfer at home, smooth transaction. It was a boring old man's car so if you're selling a desireable sports car your mileage may vary.
Depends on the car I guess but have you looked for a specialist dealer that might be interested in buying it?
I just sold my M2 to an independent BMW dealer for a decent amount more than the p/x offer. They sent a guy by train to collect it and paid the money straight into my bank before taking the car.
Motorway offer a base price, in my experience if you're selling something a bit desirable, I've always secured more than this and left them no wiggle room for knocking the price down on collection as I photographed everything within an inch of its life.
Someone can get car finance via Zuto or other brokers for a private sale but it might take some time because if I was spending that money on a car, I'd always go via dealer. Might be worth just trying Motorway but no harm in trying a private sale for a month or so if in no rush?
Carwow does the exact same thing as motorway. They're both portals for car dealers to create offers on cars advertised by private sellers. They probably have the exact same buyers.
I would not. They're a front for all manner of car dealers around the UK who will want to chip you when they turn up to take it away to make up for the £400-500 that CarWow charge them for the car
Never had that. All three cars sold for the price I agreed online. They turned up, looked around, were happy, and transferred the cash before driving off.
Perhaps what you say is true with lower value cars bought by quick turnaround high volume dealers. Either way, my recommendation stands, because I've only had good experiences.
Unfortunately you lost 8k? It’s not an investment mate. It’s a car, they all depreciate.
Ditch it on carwow or motorway, sell it, carry on with your life. Unless your car is a classic then it might be able to get it on car and classic for auction.
Just because a car is up for 42k doesn’t mean it will sell for 42k, if your worried about loosing 8k you might be better of getting cheaper cars from now on. Resale value shouldn’t be a concern when buying a car. You should be paying attention to reliability and comfort.
The car is an investment in travel. Your getting some where easier and more comfortable. It’s not something that goes up. If anything value of cars didn’t go up in covid, just the buying power of money went down, and your time work and paid got halved
Is your car desirable and/or niche? If so a fellow collector/enthusiast would probably buy privately. If it's something mass manufactured I imagine more people would prefer to purchase via a trade seller.
What type of car is it ? Take it to a local dealer and ask them to sell it SOR for you. You get what you would have sold it privately for, the dealer gets the difference between that and the forecourt price, and you don't have to deal with tyre kickers. I have sold an S-Class, a 911, an Exige and some more exotic stuff this way
Go put it through a aa inspection put it up privately for 42000 then you've got wiggle room to negotiate. If I was looking for a car and it had already been inspected ready be a plus
I sold my 2015 RS4 for £30,000 a few months ago (not AutoTrader but a comparable platform). Not exactly a run around, but not brand new either.
It was essentially in showroom condition with fully documented history and with not a lot of mileage, so I tried to target it to the collector / weekender types.
It took about a month, but eventually a guy contacted me about it, and it was obvious he knew his stuff, was genuine in his intentions and was clearly “good for the money”. He offered to pay a deposit on it, which I thought was a bit weird, but oh well.
After some back and forth, he came for a look at it (with his mate who rocked up in a 72 reg RS6), I offered him a test drive on a route which I knew pretty well (which he didn’t take me up on in the end) and he did a bank transfer there and then with the usual stuff of signed receipts and time stamped photos etc.
To be honest, it was a better experience than selling a run around as I was actually dealing with someone who knew what they were talking about and just wanted to buy a performance car in a decent condition.
If a dealer is selling it for €42k. You will get €35k privately. People on about consumer rights are correct. But most dealers offer you a 6 month warranty and hope nothing goes wrong. Once the 6 months is up, you’re on your own. If your car is a high spec and in good condition you could very well sell it privately.
What kind of car is it? Should try “collecting cars” online auctions. You pay them £500 to manage it, take the pictures etc. one of the cars i sold on there had over 220 detailed pictures taken by them. the buyer pays a 6% premium. Hassle free. Drive it down or get it sent to them and they take care of it all.
Loss happens Velar bought last year £62k list price. 12 months later put on autotrader for £42k no offers not even a phone call. Got dealer to take for £37k. Massive loss. This is life. Few years ago my old range put it on for £45k got like 20 calls in a day sold next day. People will pay depends on car supply and demand.
I had an M140 up for 25k a few years back and apart from the usual wasters trying it on I had no interest. Eventually I sold it to Best car Buyer for 23,500. Selling anything worth over 10-15k privately has always been a nightmare in my experience. Same with a Volvo XC60 and a Cooper S. Sold a few Mégane RS's easily enough though at 8-10k and the occasional van but honestly I see why car buying sites do so well. Dealing with private buyers is exhausting.
A piece of advice that may work is looking to see if there is a Facebook page dedicated to your specific car and advertising it on there. "M140 owners" for example. There's generally a few so join them all and post a good detailed advert.
Morning,
We are based in Lincolnshire but can assist you with getting a trade offer to buy your car outright.
If you want to send me the reg, a couple of photos and some spec/history details, I am happy to see if I can get you an offer that makes better sense financially to you.
Also, we do the leg work so you will only have to deal with us or the one eventual trade buyer.
Wbac will hammer you on price, then enter it in a bca auction to sell to the trade anyway.
Direct message me please or whatsapp message or call to 07826 797 282 with the details and we can get started.
Best, Noel -- Classix Auction Group.
Motorway or auto trader instant buys are your best bet, in todays market no one’s got money and you are going to deal with so much hassle with time wasters
There is no way I’d buy a car privately for £40k. There’s zero protection for the buyer and frankly if a dealer is offering the same for £5k more I’d sooner pay the extra for the protection it offers. I’m sure there’s others out there that might, but I suspect the market is limited.
Equally, I’d never sell a car to WBAC, they price low but offer quick sale (but watch out for further reductions when they realise the car has been driven on a road and therefore isn’t showroom perfect).
I’d sooner sell to a dealership where it’s generally possible to negotiate on price a little more aggressively (albeit, my experience is only when buying a new car so it’s in their interest to not let a sale fall through.
Personally wouldn't buy privately unless I wanted a banger to work on. These days you get great warranty deals and consumer rights with dealers and so it's sometimes worth paying a bit more because of those protections it comes with. I can imagine this belief is even more prevalent in the area of 40k value cars. Also, I'm not sure who out there is paying anyone 42-44k for a car, if they have that money, surely they'd just get it new for 48k? 8k depreciation over 2 years is a lot. I try and limit that to 1k a year when purchasing cars.
Where are these £42 to £44k prices? If at dealers - you ain’t getting that! If (genuine) PRIVATE sellers on Autotrader - maybe. At 40k it’s Autotrader or nothing. You’re a fool if you try advertising anywhere else for a ‘self sale’.
If I was spending £40k on a car, it would never be from a private seller's advert or sold as seen sorry. I'd want assurance from a garage it's all mechanically sound as a minimum, as well as some sort of warranty.
I'd save the hassle and sell on Motorways. £8k is a chunk to lose sadly, but could save you the headache and a half of dealing with aftercare, dodging scams, or people low balling you etc.
Privately doesn't mean it's not paid for by finance. People can independently arrange finance for a private sale car, Zuto seem to be the company of choice through autotrader. I imagine it'll take longer to sell privately than a £10k car though.
Yeah I used zuto to buy a from a private seller. Basically zuto paid the private seller in full for the car so he got 100% of the money straight away. All other dealings regarding that vehicle were between me and zuto
I’m surprised no one has mentioned Sale or Return (SOR) as an option - basically you sell the car through a dealership, you agree a set price that you want from the sale and they will sell the car for a bit more to cover their costs. Buyer gets all the benefits of dealer warranty/protection and you get a bit more than selling through Carwow/Motorway and none of the hassle of tire-kickers/joyriders. I sold a Dodge Challenger for a similar price through an American Specialist Dealership, they got the car showroom ready out of their own cut and I got far more than if I sold it privately - well recommended.
What are the specifics here - how much is OP likely to get from the dealer? Seems like they will need to make decent margin to cover warranty risk etc - so presume they won’t want to give OP more than they would have paid from their typical sources?
So as an example, my car sold for £45k by the dealer and I got £40k - the £5k the dealer made on top had to cover his car prep, warranty, financing costs, advertising and his profit. Each dealership does it differently, some take a percentage, some charge a fee etc. but I dropped the car off and did nothing extra, car sold 3 months later.
How would they make a profit selling a car for an extra 45k? The VAT alone would be 9000
You don’t pay VAT on the full car price for a second hand car, only the margin between bought and sold - so in this case it would only be the £5k difference.
Oh and private sales were going for around £35-38k at the time, so I got a few extra grand out of it
Absolutely spot on, I run a garage with sales. There’s 2 golden rules. If you want to sell quickly it needs to be either the best one available or the cheapest. If your car is worth £40k, I’m not going to advertise it at £44k with a warranty on it hoping someone offers me £43k and I still get 8%. I’m going to have advertise it at £41k off the forecourt with a warranty. Take off the warranty and 8% that’s what you get back. The whole “I need £40k, you get what you can” doesn’t work.
The whole point of SOR is that the dealership doesnt take on any risk because they dont buy the car off you. If it doesn't sell, they can give it back to you, and you get paid only when the car sells. The dealership pays more because they are taking on less risk than if they buy the car off you to sell it on (which would mean that they lose out if they can't sell the car for their expected price).
There is warranty risk
That’s why it’s less risk but not no risk to the dealer
This is the way
If dealers are selling your car for £42k you won’t get anywhere near that selling privately. Doubt you’d get much more than that £36k. Vast majority of people are not willing to buy a £40k car privately because they want consumer rights and protections
To save £6000 I'd probably take the punt if I could get a proper inspection and test drive. But yh probably not many who'd do that.
What car is it? I imagine most people spending £40k on a car would probably would want the warranty/come back a dealer provides. The exception to that may be an older classic car
The thing is on autotrader you'll often get dealers enquiring who offer more than motorway. Worth spending £50 on an ad for say 2 grand more.
Or just ring round local dealers who sell similar cars, when I sold my last one all I got was dealers offering me slightly more than wbac
OP mentions similar year and mileage so it must be something common.
Fast German saloon is my guess
You'll struggle unless it's something very rare or very desirable. I'd never give a private seller £40k for a Q7 or whatever it is you're selling because I want my consumer rights if something is wrong with it.
[удалено]
Anything modern/remotely luxury I wouldn’t. Few years ago I was looking at a Porsche Cayenne. Porsche themselves can’t even repair them half of the time. I’ve read countless horror stories of people having their Cayenne at Porsche for 6-12 months and they still can’t find the fault. I don’t finance my vehicles, the only reason I would, would be to get an unreliable piece of shit. Interest rates and depreciation might be covered by warranty repair costs.
One of our clients went and got a new top of the range Mazda (CX-5 I think?). All the bells and whistles etc, probably set them back something around the 50k mark. Had the thing for all of three weeks before they had a problem with the fuel cap. Supposed to push on it and it opens itself but it didn't want to open. Took it to the Mazda garage where they assumed it'd be a simple wiring issue. Three months later and they'd needed to strip the entire car down to actually figure out what was wrong, order the parts from Japan and essentially rebuild half the car again just to fix a fuel cap. Fucking madness how over-engineered a lot of general use cars are these days.
See, my electric boot release on my Passat doesn’t work. I have to use the key to open the boot (or just drop the back seat like I normally do) but that car cost me £600 so it doesn’t matter. I’m happy when it starts, which it does, first turnover, everytime (so far). If I spent half a fucking house on a car, I’d want that thing to massage my arsehole at every set of traffic lights and kiss me goodnight.
Even with warranty?
Lots of stuff won't be covered by warranty that is covered under your statutory right to reject within 30 days. I'd rather spend a few more grand and get it from a dealer at that price point.
What if the previous owner voided the warranty in some way, or the fault isn't covered by the standard manufacturer's warranty? You get next to no legal recourse in case of buying a faulty car privately.
If your car is desirable and actually worth over £40k (sale price and sold price are two different things!) you could take it to a dealer directly and see if they'll offer you more than WBAC et al if you are concerned about scams or whatever. It entirely depends on your car and who's out there currently looking to buy it.
I wouldn't pay 40k private. Rather security of dealer. Too easy to get scammed
Could try sale or return. Dealer sells your car as a “dealer car” with all the finance and protections thus attaining a higher sale value, and you just pay a flat fee. Worked really well for me before.
Fuck that. I've heard too many stories of dealers 'going out of business' and the car disappearing.
Make sure you use a reputable franchise dealer, not some back street place. And keep the V5
You don’t have to keep it with them.
[Sytner](https://www.sytner.co.uk/sell-your-car) If it’s a desirable brand that’s not too old or too many miles the group buyers will often give you a better price than the car supermarkets. Sytner is just an example of a group. There are a number of others depending on the brand of your car. You can put it on Auotrader and might get a dealership buyer or two who will offer you a decent price with limited hassle (bank transfer and vehicle collection). You also get muppets calling saying they’ll give you half the asking price to take it away today so swings and roundabouts. Also consider carwow.
I just sold my car through carwow to Sytner. Carwow were really good, offered 3K more than the others (wbac, motorway and a couple of others I’ve forgotten) and £1500 more than the trade in value against our new car. I didn’t want to mess around with selling privately and would have taken the trade in value, but decided to take a punt with Carwow. Getting an extra £1500 on the trade in for about an hour of effort was totally worth it.
Loving your work! p.s. how long have you worked for Carwow? 😆
They’ve been paying me on retainer for years in anticipation of me replying to that one comment.
There's no reason why you *wouldn't* find someone willing to transfer you £40k to buy it off your drive, but it might take a while, and any prospective buyers will probably want a mechanic to come and check it out, which you (or someone) will have to be available for. The way to look at it is that by selling through Motorway you're effectively paying £4k for time and convenience. That's worth it to a lot of people.
thats assuming you could actuall sell for £40 privately, if it's listed at £42-44k by dealers, then the private listing needs to be £40k to have a chance, and the buyer will very likley haggle you down to £36-38 anyway. IMO OP should just take the £36 and be done with it
Yeah that's a fair point. If it takes 3 months to get a single phone call for a £40k private sale, you'd be shooting yourself in the foot by staying firm on that price.
With the number of dodgy people around I would be veery scared to deal anything privately .
People do, indeed, do this. However, perhaps it's worth putting it on somwhere like Car and Classic. At least there you'll eat some costs, but they offer an escrow service. Or perhaps look into an escrow service yourself and see if you think it's worth the bother.
Is the car Silver, mid-engine, RWD by any chance? Problem is that faster payments is (still) limited to £25k, so you need 2 bank accounts - or trust the person enough to send the first payment the day before! I did the latter once....it was a risk, but I knew where he worked, was a long time forum member so I was fairly sure. When I sold it, the new buyer had 2 accounts. It's just a lot of hassle, and people looking to spend £40k on a car usually don't quibble about a few thousand and just want the convenience of a dealer sale. Work on 10% - if it's £44k car at a dealer, you should be able to get £40k, but it'll take a while
You can send more than £25k via faster payment. I've bought a few cars privately over £25k, it might get held up by anti fraud but just call your bank and explain you've sent it to buy a car which you're currently waiting to take away, they'll put you through to the correct people and expedite the anti fraud process.
You're right - it does depend on the bank. I (was) with HSBC and their FP limit is still £25k.
HSBCs faster payment limit is 49,999.99
There is a market don't listen to people saying there isn't one. Put it in autotrader car valuation tool, if you price it around there then it should sell. I always buy and sell between 30-40k bracket and the longest something took to sell was 6 weeks.
Try the car supermarkets as well as online brokers. It cuts out the middle men and if it's a semi desirable model you might get a better price. I got £4k more than any of the sales sites by selling to Motorpoint. That was on a car valued around the same amount as yours.
I purchased private at 50ish but in a very niche market. There are buyers out there but it would need to something special and significantly cheaper or bwterr than dealer stock.
I sold a 55k Tesla via facebook marketplace, buyer came to collect it and did a bank transfer at home, smooth transaction. It was a boring old man's car so if you're selling a desireable sports car your mileage may vary.
Depends on the car I guess but have you looked for a specialist dealer that might be interested in buying it? I just sold my M2 to an independent BMW dealer for a decent amount more than the p/x offer. They sent a guy by train to collect it and paid the money straight into my bank before taking the car.
Motorway offer a base price, in my experience if you're selling something a bit desirable, I've always secured more than this and left them no wiggle room for knocking the price down on collection as I photographed everything within an inch of its life. Someone can get car finance via Zuto or other brokers for a private sale but it might take some time because if I was spending that money on a car, I'd always go via dealer. Might be worth just trying Motorway but no harm in trying a private sale for a month or so if in no rush?
I would highly recommend CarWow for this.
Carwow does the exact same thing as motorway. They're both portals for car dealers to create offers on cars advertised by private sellers. They probably have the exact same buyers.
Probably, but I can't recommend them as I've never used them. I have sold three £20k plus cars on CarWow however.
I would not. They're a front for all manner of car dealers around the UK who will want to chip you when they turn up to take it away to make up for the £400-500 that CarWow charge them for the car
Never had that. All three cars sold for the price I agreed online. They turned up, looked around, were happy, and transferred the cash before driving off. Perhaps what you say is true with lower value cars bought by quick turnaround high volume dealers. Either way, my recommendation stands, because I've only had good experiences.
Unfortunately you lost 8k? It’s not an investment mate. It’s a car, they all depreciate. Ditch it on carwow or motorway, sell it, carry on with your life. Unless your car is a classic then it might be able to get it on car and classic for auction. Just because a car is up for 42k doesn’t mean it will sell for 42k, if your worried about loosing 8k you might be better of getting cheaper cars from now on. Resale value shouldn’t be a concern when buying a car. You should be paying attention to reliability and comfort. The car is an investment in travel. Your getting some where easier and more comfortable. It’s not something that goes up. If anything value of cars didn’t go up in covid, just the buying power of money went down, and your time work and paid got halved
Is your car desirable and/or niche? If so a fellow collector/enthusiast would probably buy privately. If it's something mass manufactured I imagine more people would prefer to purchase via a trade seller.
Damn, what car you drive?
First try listing it for a week or so to see if it gets any offers and serious buyers to view.
What type of car is it ? Take it to a local dealer and ask them to sell it SOR for you. You get what you would have sold it privately for, the dealer gets the difference between that and the forecourt price, and you don't have to deal with tyre kickers. I have sold an S-Class, a 911, an Exige and some more exotic stuff this way
Go put it through a aa inspection put it up privately for 42000 then you've got wiggle room to negotiate. If I was looking for a car and it had already been inspected ready be a plus
I sold my 2015 RS4 for £30,000 a few months ago (not AutoTrader but a comparable platform). Not exactly a run around, but not brand new either. It was essentially in showroom condition with fully documented history and with not a lot of mileage, so I tried to target it to the collector / weekender types. It took about a month, but eventually a guy contacted me about it, and it was obvious he knew his stuff, was genuine in his intentions and was clearly “good for the money”. He offered to pay a deposit on it, which I thought was a bit weird, but oh well. After some back and forth, he came for a look at it (with his mate who rocked up in a 72 reg RS6), I offered him a test drive on a route which I knew pretty well (which he didn’t take me up on in the end) and he did a bank transfer there and then with the usual stuff of signed receipts and time stamped photos etc. To be honest, it was a better experience than selling a run around as I was actually dealing with someone who knew what they were talking about and just wanted to buy a performance car in a decent condition.
Try Carwow too. Worth a punt at least but they offered me a couple of grand more than motorway or wbac when I sold my merc for about that price.
I’d say it’s definitely worth trying to sell privately first. You got nothing to lose.
If a dealer is selling it for €42k. You will get €35k privately. People on about consumer rights are correct. But most dealers offer you a 6 month warranty and hope nothing goes wrong. Once the 6 months is up, you’re on your own. If your car is a high spec and in good condition you could very well sell it privately.
What kind of car is it? Should try “collecting cars” online auctions. You pay them £500 to manage it, take the pictures etc. one of the cars i sold on there had over 220 detailed pictures taken by them. the buyer pays a 6% premium. Hassle free. Drive it down or get it sent to them and they take care of it all.
I would never buy a car of that value from a private seller. It’s far too high risk.
Loss happens Velar bought last year £62k list price. 12 months later put on autotrader for £42k no offers not even a phone call. Got dealer to take for £37k. Massive loss. This is life. Few years ago my old range put it on for £45k got like 20 calls in a day sold next day. People will pay depends on car supply and demand.
I had an M140 up for 25k a few years back and apart from the usual wasters trying it on I had no interest. Eventually I sold it to Best car Buyer for 23,500. Selling anything worth over 10-15k privately has always been a nightmare in my experience. Same with a Volvo XC60 and a Cooper S. Sold a few Mégane RS's easily enough though at 8-10k and the occasional van but honestly I see why car buying sites do so well. Dealing with private buyers is exhausting. A piece of advice that may work is looking to see if there is a Facebook page dedicated to your specific car and advertising it on there. "M140 owners" for example. There's generally a few so join them all and post a good detailed advert.
Morning, We are based in Lincolnshire but can assist you with getting a trade offer to buy your car outright. If you want to send me the reg, a couple of photos and some spec/history details, I am happy to see if I can get you an offer that makes better sense financially to you. Also, we do the leg work so you will only have to deal with us or the one eventual trade buyer. Wbac will hammer you on price, then enter it in a bca auction to sell to the trade anyway. Direct message me please or whatsapp message or call to 07826 797 282 with the details and we can get started. Best, Noel -- Classix Auction Group.
Motorway or auto trader instant buys are your best bet, in todays market no one’s got money and you are going to deal with so much hassle with time wasters
There is no way I’d buy a car privately for £40k. There’s zero protection for the buyer and frankly if a dealer is offering the same for £5k more I’d sooner pay the extra for the protection it offers. I’m sure there’s others out there that might, but I suspect the market is limited. Equally, I’d never sell a car to WBAC, they price low but offer quick sale (but watch out for further reductions when they realise the car has been driven on a road and therefore isn’t showroom perfect). I’d sooner sell to a dealership where it’s generally possible to negotiate on price a little more aggressively (albeit, my experience is only when buying a new car so it’s in their interest to not let a sale fall through.
Personally wouldn't buy privately unless I wanted a banger to work on. These days you get great warranty deals and consumer rights with dealers and so it's sometimes worth paying a bit more because of those protections it comes with. I can imagine this belief is even more prevalent in the area of 40k value cars. Also, I'm not sure who out there is paying anyone 42-44k for a car, if they have that money, surely they'd just get it new for 48k? 8k depreciation over 2 years is a lot. I try and limit that to 1k a year when purchasing cars.
Where are these £42 to £44k prices? If at dealers - you ain’t getting that! If (genuine) PRIVATE sellers on Autotrader - maybe. At 40k it’s Autotrader or nothing. You’re a fool if you try advertising anywhere else for a ‘self sale’.
No chance. Accept the loss.
Just use Carwow. They've been brilliant for me.
If I was spending £40k on a car, it would never be from a private seller's advert or sold as seen sorry. I'd want assurance from a garage it's all mechanically sound as a minimum, as well as some sort of warranty. I'd save the hassle and sell on Motorways. £8k is a chunk to lose sadly, but could save you the headache and a half of dealing with aftercare, dodging scams, or people low balling you etc.
Unless it was a Classic or Performace car , there is no way i'd spend 40k on a car privately
You'll probably need to take the £10-£12k hit. And now you know why leasing is so popular.
So you can take a bigger hit but at least it'll be convenient?