Nigel A

I've been trying to sell my MY98 Scooby for a while and have had no response.

It is Reddish Blue, 4 Door, 12k miles, UK car from Bell & Colvill, Oct 98, garaged, one owner (me), 17" Speedlines, SO2s, SS exhaust etc.

I have not had a single call. I'm advertising in Exchange & Mart at £15,250.

What am I doing wrong? Bell & Colvill advised me to ask £16,750 for it.

Has anyone just bought a similar car, and if so for how much?

I would be grateful for any help.

Nigel A

Nigel A

please ignore the winking icon, I meant to press the red-faced pissed-off one!!

Nigel A

scoobysnacks

Seems like a great price to me...
Maybe try Auto Trader (magazine and Internet) for a better respose.
Why are you selling your lovely scoob anyway?

alistair

Market is dead.

I put my 98 STi4, sliver, 26k in Autotrader (Midland & Anglia areas, so also in Top Marques twice and on the web site twice). £16,500 and not even a call !

logiclee

Not a reflection on the Scoob the whole second hand car market has stalled!


Lee

sickboy

Well for a laugh I took my MY99, Sonic Blue, leather, a/c, 11,000 miles etc etc (UK spec Euro) to a dealer.

He offered me £12k. I put it to him that he was taking the pi55 and pointed to a similar car on his lot (no leather or a/c) for £19k!

OK not comparing apples with apples but a tad greedy methinks.

The UK 2nd hand marked has indeed stalled like a FIAt in the rain.

Orville

The values of all used cars have been hit by the issue of cheaper foreign imports and a succession of manufacturers dropping new prices. The Impreza has a widely publisized new model coming out in six months, and over the last 2-3 years has had to deal with increased competition from other manufacturere. With used EVO's, S3's and TT's etc widely available, there has never been so much choice of 4wd Turbo cars.

CAP Trade price guide (a very respected dealer guide) puts a 98 S-reg with 12k miles in Excellent condition at £13,900. An average car is £13,200 and a fair car is £12,350. These are trade prices so you might get £1k more privately but not much more than that.

IMHO, things will only get worse. No matter how ugly the new model is, it will make the current one less desirable. The only Imprezas that will retain high values will be 22B's.

[This message has been edited by Orville (edited 11 October 2000).]

DavidRB

Anyone like to guess the price of a 2.0 litre SRi Vectra, 2 1/2 years old, bought last weekend by a friend of mine with 74K on the clock? As a guide, this car is worth £17K brand new.

Answers please.

logiclee

£4495

sickboy

£3750.

DavidRB

Close, but no banana. He picked it up for the princely sum of .... £2000. Yes, that's <I><B>two thousand pounds!!!</I></B> And the car was in good nick too, obviously a motorway cruiser.

And you guys selling your Imprezas think you've got it bad!!!

bob

Sold my MY98 S reg not long ago to my dealer, wondered why he only gave me £16000 for it. It was sold for £18000 the next day. The market must be flat.

Gary Foster

I bought my car two months ago (ie whilst prices were still fairly high )

Silver MY98 (R) 45K miles (ooh) Air Con, Cruise control and quick shift £16,000. That was from a dealer (so markup was probly 2K for them I guess).

I could have got a decent mileage V reg for that / STI now. Poo.

This car has lost me a lot of money in the past two months and I'm not happy about it.

Gary

logiclee

Gary,

You could have bought a Mondeo ST24 for £21000 new. Motorpoint of Derby are selling x reg 5 week old ST24's for £11700. Weep now!

Lee

mccltd

Hi,
I'm picking up a scooby on friday . May 99 registered with 28k miles on it. Green with Gold 17" and low profiles, short throw gearshift for £17450..

Gary Foster

Logiclee

Yeah you're right, thank God the Mondeo ST24 is a FWD pile of poo (IMHO) so I don't feel that bad

Gary

suba

with the petrol blockage recently, i suppose people are thinking twice before buying a car. i wonder if the small car market is better?

GCollier

Nigel,

Difficulty selling imprezas is not a new thing. I think the bubble started to burst over a year ago. At the time I was selling my 10 month old prstine (and at the time supposedly desirable) 99MY DBM 4-door, and had very little response. I eventually sold it privately for £17.5K which was a £4K loss in 10 months. Even then most subaru dealers just didn't want to know.

By the look of it things have got even worse now, probably because of several factors (the rip-off Britain new car price campaign, euro-imports, new model out very soon, escalating insurance, fuel prices, large numbers of Jap imports to satisfy impreza demand a couple of years ago etc). I may shortly be in the market again, and have been looking at Top Marques and the like. It seems to have pages and pages of second hand scoobys for sale.

You ask what you are doing wrong - well, by the look of it, the price you are asking for your car represents a loss of only 25% in 2 years. I would suggest that this is very unrealistic (Euro imports could be had for around this figure) given the above factors, and that if you want to sell the car quite a large reduction in price would be necessary, unless you are lucky enough to get a bite from some sucker.

Regards,

Gary.

James Neill

iTrader: (1)

I recently sold a 4-door MY98 (Silver) with 45,000 on the clock. I had it in AutoTrader and Top Marques for 3 weeks and not a single call. It was in for £14000.

I eventually sold it by ringing every scooby dealer in my area (about 10). In the end one came over to view it and I got rid of it for £11,000. The guy at the time said it was the last he was buying for a while - there are too many scooby's of the forecourt and no one is buying at all what with the car market in general and the new model out soon.

Good luck - I still miss it mind. I'm now driving an Astra CDX company car

James

Blackscooby

Flippin' 'eck I didn't realise things were that bad. I've been browsing the Autotrader, and as always there are lots of Scooby's for sale. I didn't realise how depressed the second-hand Scooby market really was.

Just puts it in perspective how much my MY94 UK would be worth with 55K on the clock.. I just dread to think. Paid 15K for it in July 96.

Since then I've spent a fortune on the engine and goodness knows what ~ but that money is just lost as I'd never recoup any of the costs.

Hmmmmmmmm

JoeyDeacon

I Was at my local dealer a couple of days ago and they had LOADS of scoobys (They had even moved them to the front of the dealership where they used to keep there Elises). They had a brand new Red Mica one and stil wanted 21K for it. Wonder what they are going to do with their overpriced Imprezas and Elises now that both have a new model out this month???


[This message has been edited by JoeyDeacon (edited 12 October 2000).]

Mungo

JoeyDeacon - I know who you're talking about - they will put up their service prices even more to try and re-coup the loss. Their 2nd-hand motors always look overpriced.

JoeyDeacon

Mungo,

Surely they can't put their service prices up any more, they charge £142.61 for a 7500 mile service already (As I unfortunately found out on Tuesday but that is another story)

Here are some prices of their current stock (and I am certain I saw a lot more cars than this there!)

V 00 Impreza 2.0 Turbo Deep Blue Metallic 6000 miles £24,995.00

W 00Impreza 2.0 Turbo 4dr Red Mica 3000 miles £20,995.00

R 98 Impreza 2.0 Turbo Prodrive Green Metallic 18000 miles £18,995.00

S 98 Imreza 2.0 Turbo 4 Dr.Dark Green Mica 18000 £17,995.00

S 98 Impreza 2.0 Turbo 4 Dr. Red 11000 miles £16,495.00

Here are some prices of their elises. Bear in mind a brand new, new model elise will cost you £22,995!!

P 97 Elise Lotus Racing Green 14500 miles £19,495.00

R 98 Elise New Aluminium Metallic 36000 miles £18,995.00

jbryant

And those prices are exactly why I'm sitting tight for a few months before diving into the Scooby clan. Local dealer has a W reg Turbo with 6,000 miles on the forecourt for £23k! Unbelieveable.
New car cost + cost of aircon + cost of any extras seems to be the going forecourt price. Age, mileage and depreciation only matter when they are buying cars off you.
Someone must be buying them for them to keep this charade going...

Joolz

Brendan Hughes

Had to buy a Scoob within one week as I needed it to drive to college. Was determined to get one with aircon. Got my Terzo, 15k, one year ago for 22.5k pounds.

Now worth ?14-15 grand, according to correspondence on this BBS.

Have also been looking for a house since last August and finally got one this June, once prices had risen by over 20%; about 30k extra.

Me upset?

BJH

Craig H

Think the problem is, most people seem to have thought that Imprezas would always have rock solid residuals. Nothing has now. Elises may be up for nearly new prices 2nd hand - how many are selling. Even Boxsters are cheap (ish)

Put this into perspective.

Friend with 18 month old Cerbera Speed Six - now has the "Red Rose" pack - 18" wheels etc.
Paid over 45k in total. Been offered 21k. Now THAT's depreciation!

Neil Vickers

Combination of factors have hit the prices but the market is generally down.

I've just bought a brand new UK spec MY00 car with metalic and aircon via Europe for 17K and I have some colleagues who have paid as little as 16k.

Same car on the road in the UK is 22-23k. This is bound to hit the second hand market.

JoeyDeacon

Joolz,

You say someone must be buying them but Bell and Colvill had that W reg Red Mica car when I bought mine from them and that was 6 months ago!!

When I test drove mine they had an S reg car with 17K on the clock for £17,995. Now a brand new car is only £20,995 so who the hell is going to buy a two year old car to save £3000 ??

Orville

Dealers do not expect to get the price they stick on the windscreen of used cars. They will no doubt give a good trade in deal, or low finance or accept much less for a cash purchase. They stick a high price on the car to give people the impression of a good deal when they knock thousands off. For a discount on used or new cars, all you have to do is haggle. I have just bought a branf ne Toyota Yaris (for my parents) from a UK dealer, and saved £1,150 (or 15%). This is less than the cost of importing from Europe. The market has never been so good for the buyer. Just wait for the next economic slump a see how prices of performance cars drop then.

Blow Dog

Hi all,
Yeah, the market is real bad at the moment. Buy a copy of Top Marques and the Subaru section is like the BMW section; pages and pages and pages of them, there is such a big choice.

I bought my UK97 car exactly a year ago for £15k, so I put it into Top Marques for £12k. I had total of 4 calls in 1st week, sold to the third guy for £11k.

Tips for those wanting to sell:
1) Dont go for the smalles advert. Pay a few quid more and go for a large one, it stands out and people think it must be a special car.
2) Be realistic with the price. Come up with a figure, take a grand off it, then put it up and put <B>ono</B> next to price.
3) Sell to the first offer, its a buyers market, you got no choice im afraid.

Good Luck

Cem



[This message has been edited by Blow Dog (edited 13 October 2000).]