Trading car in - advice!!

Spikey

Spikey

Spikey

Soldato
Joined
28 Feb 2004
Posts
5,992
Location
North East, UK
Hey folks, hopefully going to ace my interview for a new job next week :p so I'm looking to trade my car in (1998 R Reg Clio 1.2 64k on clock). However I have one slight problem..my current car was "shunted" by an idiotic decorator we had round recently and so far I'm having no joy with my insurance (Churchill are utterly useless!) so the car still has a dent and scratches down where my petrol tank is!

What I want to know is will a dealership still allow me to trade it in with the damage to the panel? other than that the car is working and it doesn't affect the drive of it whatsoever. I don't see the point in paying for the damage myself which will cost me a fortune to repair if a dealership will take it off my hands against another car even at a cut price! It's even had the engine re-built after a belt snapped 6 months ago.

Also can someone recommend me a car for £5000 max? Was thinking of another Clio but can I get better for my money? I'm 23 in March with 2 years NCB. I would prefer to get something a bit quicker than a 1.2 but don't want to pay through the roof for insurance!

Thanks!
 
Loads better cars for £5,000 than a clio. How far will you be commuting (assuming you will be), and what type of driving?

At 23, I was desperate to get out of a tiny little french hatchback and into something considerably better built and of a more "grown up" size.
 
There are loads better cars for a £1000 than a clio, never mind £5000!

What sort of mileage/driving do you do?
 
Thanks guys, I am looking at doing maybe 40 miles a day? maybe more! The dent is quite bad to be fair as it got a bit of a smack. Does anyone know if a garage would be prepared to let me trade it in? It's mainly so I don't get dragged into the hassle of going to a garage and them mobbing me like flies! And I know people on here offer excellent advice! Thanks!
 
You can trade in most things, but you will find that they will take off more than the cost of getting it repaired.

So its best of trying to get it sorted IMO, unless you don't care about getting anything for it.

With regards to what car to get, I'd look for something bigger unless you aversed to doing so. At 23 with 2 years NCB, insuring most reasonably engined medium sized cars should be do-able without that much cost.
 
A friend of mine traded in a car without any doors (he'd sold them prior to breaking it) and subsequently found a garage offering £500 px whatever condition the cars in......
 
The kind of place offering £500 "for any used car as a deposit" is not somewhere worth buying a car from ;)

There is ALWAYS a catch.
 
paradigm said:
The kind of place offering £500 "for any used car as a deposit" is not somewhere worth buying a car from ;)

There is ALWAYS a catch.
Click to expand...

True in 95% of cases, in my friends case though, he was happy to get £500 off the S Reg BMW e36 328i he'd just bought, for the sum of £2995 (£2495 minus allowance) - This was 3 years ago!

He'd already knocked them down from £3495 - He still has the car today - its done a mere 68k miles from new (60k when he bought it) - He has a work van, the BMW is his weekend toy.

Granted, he was probably lucky.
 
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commited said:
Spikey - have you thought of selling privately? This also gives you the advantage of being able to buy privately!
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That is a possibility but I've had a lot of hasssle trying to sell privately. I called my insurance yesturday and they are sending someone to asses the damage on the car which they should have done 3 months ago! If it's deemed a write off I will take the cheque minus my excess and put it down on another car. If the damage is fixable I will see what a garage will offer before it gets fixed as my excess is £500 :(.
 
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