Petem95

I'm wanting to change my car, but I cant really be bothered with the effort of having to sell it privately and a trade-in limits me to buying from a garage.

I've thought about selling to a main agent (car is a 2002(51) A4). Are the dealers likely to entertain me just ringing up and asking if they'll buy it off me, and is it likely to be for the going trade-price?

I toyed with the idea of trading-in at a main agent a couple of years back, and they said they would buy it for cash for the price offered if I didnt buy from them, and the price was fair IMO.

Anyone done this before?

jjones

wewillbuyyourcar.com - Welcome

34srm

if your car is 2002 a4 wouldnt imagine main dealers are gonna want it its to old, and if you ring around independent dealers there probably gonna offer you less than they would as tradin on another car, best bet is get it in autotrader , in the free papers,try it on there you never no all at the same time if its priced right it will sell never seem to have much trouble selling vw/audis

BOB.T

I've got a 2001 Focus to get shut of, was offered bottom book to trade it in. I thought I could get more so went round a few other dealers, I only found one that was interested and he offered, wait for it!!! Bottom book....the car gets traded in on Monday all being well!

MattN

I've tried this in the past.

First off don't expect a great price, they will only be interested in paying a fair price if it's a their niche i.e taking a 2 seater sports car to a garge that sells mainly family cars isn't going to get a good price.

I found it a nightmare. Most garages were so no commital they didn't even give a price. The best one was a garge said OK, yep it's what we sell (they had a sign out front saying cars wanted for cash). They offered me a good grand less than what it was worth (IMO) and then said it would need to be inspected and any problems they'd take the cost off. Hmm I thought they wouldn't do that if I were buying a car. Anyway they gave it another look and said it needed 2 new tyres (true) and it was wearing SO2's at the time so they looked it up and said yep £240 for the tyres so already the price is coming down, at this point i knew it wasn't going to go well, I said would they really put SO2's on the car as the other one they have has new tyres and they are some some cheap brand, so I walked away before wasting any more time.

So all in all I wouldn't rcommend that route, they know there's either something wrong with the car or you don't want to sell it privately so are happy to pay peanuts as they are doing you the favour.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I just part exed my old Saab, normally I would seel it private but it needs some work, I came clean and got £1300 for it against my new one, havent got the time to mess about with it, I take a day off to fix it and lose wages as I am contracting at the moment, so its cheaper to part ex it, plus I dont want to spend my precious weekend fannying about with car undersides, been there done that, its a luxury to part ex it !

Saying that, have spent the last two weekends decorating !

Diesel

Go ahead if you want to pay top dollar for a car and get kicked in the nuts and called a **** about your trade in... Havent ever done it - well it seems insulting and absurd to lose so much money when you are giving them business.

Alos, as I'm having a go at main stealers , they quoted me £128 for a spare key for the Evo. I got the job done for £3..90 this afternoon - FFS...

D

fast bloke

Don't do it. To give you an example of how it works, I recently decided to change motorhome. Was offered 30k trade in for a 2 yo motorhome(from dealer), was offered 21k for cash sale for same motorhome (from same dealer) and sold it in 5 days privately at a 'knockdown price' of 35k. Dealers will be looking to make 30% across the board. That is 30% they are not giving you.

4X4BOB

You can always haggle on trade in prices . . .

Last September when I traded in a CRV for a brand new Navara the local Nissan dealers were offering £6,000 for the CRV which I thought I could sell for £8,000 privately. I ended up getting £7500 trade in from a different Nissan dealer which I was happy with (plus I got over £2k knocked off the list price of the Nav!).

When you take into consideration the cost of selling privatley (advertising, road tests, time wasters, bouncing cheques etc etc), the time between selling it private and getting your new one when your without a vehicle, is it really worth it?


Bob

Petem95

Thanks for the input guys. I think despite the trade-in getting me a bit less for the car than its worth (£500-700 I reckon), I'm not really too worried as its soon going to need a few things doing and private buyers are much more likely to really scrutinize it, and realise this.

Dealers just look up the book price based on year and mileage and then seem to vary that price based on overall condition.

Changing cars really is too much effort when you dont have another to use in the meantime!!

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

All depends on the price you are offered. Normally you will want to sell privately. Surprisingly the main Vauxhall dealer paid a lot for my mum's old Corsa. They gave us more than we could have sold it for privately. This was a cash deal, not trade in. We were very surprised.

It did take us the whole day though, we must have gone to 10-15 different garages getting prices.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Thats the point, my time at weekends is more valuable to me than an extra few hundred quid on my old car, I managed to buy my new car, part ex the old one in about an hour including travel time, leaving the rest of the weekend free for typing b0llocks on here !

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

aye, all depends what your time is worth to you

For me, it was worth my dad and I spending some time together chuckling to each other as stealer after stealer tried to stitch us up. Made £1.7k more than the first offer

Cheap bastid only bought me small fish and chips on the way home as well

MattN

flip side is of course £15 and 10 minutes for an internet ad. If it's priced well it will sell in no time ideally to the first viewer, gains you another £500, not bad for an hours work.

Matteeboy

A VW dealer gave me the best money on my R32 when I sold it - and I didn't even PX it - he wanted one on the forecourt as they apparently (then - over two years ago) attract loads of attention!

4X4BOB

Or . . . .

1) you get phone calls at ridiculous hours of the day or night
2) you waste hours / days waiting in for people NOT to turn up
3) your car gets stolen or written off on a test drive
4) they haggle over a tiny scratch you cant even see
5) you get ripped off with counterfeit money
6) the bankers draft proves to be stolen
7) you get speeding fines in your name as the new buyer didn't regster it!
8) you fall into the trap of "pay us £150 and we'll sell your car for you"
9) a Nigerian calls and offers you 50 million dollars and his 18yr old virgin daughter for your motor as its "just what my wife is wanting"


For a lot of people, a dealer trade in price is worth A LOT MORE than the paper amount.

And when did selling a car privately ever take an hour to do?

Bob

Scoobychick

iTrader: (1)

It's not all doom and gloom! I put my old car on Autotrader and sold it within 24 hours to the first person to view it for a tad under the asking price (which was just over the Parkers guide price). I took the advert down immediately and didn't receive one cold call

The buyer paid in cash and collected it two days later

Matteeboy

Agreed - I hate selling privately and to many people, the time saved getting rid of it to a dealer is quite valuable plus there's a little bit of piece of mind (unlikely to muck around with payment).
You can get lucky with private sales but it can also be a complete pain in the butt.

MattN

Calm down Bob,


You are allowed to change your mind, there's nothing in the ad that forces you to sell it privately. If you start to get lots of time wasters take it to the garage. All I'm saying is for a small price a little time you COULD get more cash.

My last car sold in an hour, guy called up, looked at it the next day, and 2 days later bought the cash round. total use of my time 1 hour. Granted on other occasions it's been a nightmare.

4X4BOB

I sold my scooby privately . . .

Put an ad on here and the guy came and bought it for cash so I know it can be done.

Bob