We Buy Any Car - Review

wingman

wingman

wingman

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There's a TL;DR version at the bottom.

I understand I am going to be opening a can of worms here but I feel obliged to review my experience of We Buy Any Car that I had today.

The details;

  • Car for sale - RenaultSport Clio 200 (December 2012)
  • Mileage - 8,400
  • Condition - Almost mint, one very minor mark on one alloy (my bad :rolleyes:) and a couple of bonnet scratches (not my bad).
  • Initial internet offer from WBAC - £10,690.00

I've been seriously thinking of selling my car on and off for the last month and it has been added to the 197/200.net forum and advertised in a few other places and only really had a bite or two, no "real" interest so to speak.

This weekend I had a guy contact me with regards to the car and we agreed that I'd accept £10,250 for the vehicle (it was up for £10,700). I did initially want an easy transaction and so I contacted the six nearest Renault garages multiple times. A few weren't interested unless I was part exchanging and the others were offering low amounts, the highest of which was £9,700.00.

I was in VW buying a Polo with my cousin on the weekend and I got talking to the salesman, completely off the record of the reason we were there, with regards to the price I could get for my Clio 200. He punched it into Glass' guide (I think), and he came up with £9,700.00 too. So I lost a bit of faith. Still, not being overly desperate to sell it didn't pose too much of an issue.

Anyway, the prospective buyer over the weekend agreed to come visit me on Sunday to view the car. I advised that I appreciated he was coming from 180 miles away and that since the car is almost mint I would not be coming down on the price and if he wanted it, it would need to be £10,250.00. The buyer cancelled on me on Sunday morning as he had lost his lift, however he would visit on Friday this week.

On the off chance I punched the car into WBAC today and gave an honest representation of the car and got the quote above. I've heard horror stories over the years and, for a laugh, I booked an appointment to see one of their representatives this evening. Dad and I have always spoke about how rubbish the company is but on retrospect we have no hands on experience. At the very least it would be an anecdote for us for future potential users, almost knowing it was going to be a waste of time.

All I can say is that from start to finish (which was circa 20 minutes), it was one of the most simplest, easiest transactions I've ever dealt with. The guy was friendly, overly so in fact. He took an interest in the car and what my future plans were, and then we went out to look at the car. He picked up on the two issues and brought the price to £10,528.00, which then had to have the £74.99 selling fee and £24.95 CHAPS option taken to bring it to £10,428.26.

An even better bonus is that I've just renewed the VED so I've got a £200 refund to look forward to as well.

Anyway, cut a long story short, a very, very easy transaction and a real friendly service.

I know this might be "cool story bro", but I couldn't find too many reviews online that reviewed "newer" cars that were being sold to WBAC. And people seem to real bent out of shape because WBAC took their initial valuation down to £500 from £1,500, despite the fact that a) there's no obligation to sell to WBAC and b) it's probably a rust bucket anyway. And I know I could've gotten more with it privately and no I don't like throwing money away. But an easy transaction and a hassle free experience holds a value, too. This post might help one or two people maybe thinking of selling to WBAC.

TL;DR - used WBAC thinking it was going to be a joke and they'd offer me a tenner, walked out selling my car for almost a grand more than the dealer was offering. Chuffed.
 
panthro said:
That's an informative review; what were the problems that brought the price down?
Click to expand...

Thanks!

There were light scratches on the bonnet and a very small chip on one of the alloys. Both issues I knew of and in the real world and a private sale would amount to nothing.

I dare say, would the car have been a year older and held a chip or two more around the bodywork, I could predict the price could have plummeted. But thanks to the cleanliness of the car throughout, there was very little to negotiate with on their behalf. Even the guy said it's practically mint throughout. So I replied, "yeah I know, so how are you going to bring the price down?". :cool:
 
I've got to also give them a positive review. They were the most hassle free option for disposing of my completely knackered Fiat Seicento (catastrophically failed it's MOT, dents and scratches everywhere) and the whole process was incredibly smooth. The guy doing the paperwork was similarly very friendly.
 
Good informative review there, think it shows that there some scenarios where WBAC can come close to the private sale price. When I was selling my last car (a 15 year old Peugeot 306) WBAC valued the car at £50. Privately I sold it for £500, 1000% more. I guess when the value is that low, it's hardly worth their time dealing with the car, but for more expensive cars it can make more sense.
 
Hmmm this doesn't seem so great. I suspect your expectations were kicked by whatever the VW dealer told you.

This is a 1 year old low mileage Clio 200. They offered you circa trade money for it - to be expected - then knocked you down once you got there based on a few trivialities. You ended up with almost half what they cost to buy 1 year ago?

You don't seem to have made a huge effort to sell it hence the limited interest, owners clubs are a terrible place to sell a car, it needs to be on Autotrader for serious interest.

I suspect had you advertised it in the usual places at a sensible price you'd have quite easily got quite a bit more money.
 
Going from stories online they seem to be ok on price if you're selling a car that's about 2-3 years old, but aren't competitive with anything older. At the end of the day they are a business and not a charity and you're under no obligation to sell it to them, so I can't understand why some people get really hung up on their prices.

Glad you're happy OP.
 
[TW]Fox;25791130 said:
Hmmm this doesn't seem so great. I suspect your expectations were kicked by whatever the VW dealer told you.

it needs to be on Autotrader for serious interest.

I suspect had you advertised it in the usual places at a sensible price you'd have quite easily got quite a bit more money.
Click to expand...

+1 :)

I sold my Golf for 50% more on Autotrader than what WBAC had initially offered...and that was before they saw the car.
 
I got 100% more for my E46 selling privately than the offer on the table at WBAC. I don't discount the value of a private sale.

I paid £13,800 for the Clio 200.
 
I'll save everyone the effort - Autotrader for 2 yr examples here. Options depending, around 12500 for comparable to OPs car. If it was worth it to you then that's what matters. You paid a very good price so at least your cost to switch is very low compared to what it could have been.
 
You will notice most, if not all of those are trade sellers. This one is as close as you can get to the car I sold.

So at £12k on from a dealer forecourt (which 90% of the cars you linked to have been for sale since I started looking two weeks ago, including that one), I'd be looking at sticking mine up for £11k'ish? By the time a few buyers have visited and offering me £10.5k, I'd have ended up causing myself more grief and prolonging the experience, and inevitably taking them up on that offer.

Under the right circumstances I could have got a bit more money (and I stated this in my OP), but remember thanks to selling to WBAC and not privately, I've got another £200.00 from the VED refund as well.

I was half inclined to write the review and not discuss figures or the car in question as I knew this would throw up a debate regarding the money I took versus the money it's worth. However when I was looking around for reviews I found it helpful to have some clear perspective with regards to the details and really just wanted to add some meat to the bones of the thread. I wanted to be transparent with the experience.
 
That seems a pretty decent deal, always interesting to know first hand experience rather than internet hearsay and rumours. Defiantly seems you get a closer price to a private sale from them the newer the car is.

The way we ended up with our Clio 197 is a guy at work wanted rid of it and WBAC offered 4200 on their website and he was happily going to go along with it so i offered him that in cash instead as i knew at the time it was worth 6000 all day long. That was a 6 year old car so seems on the cusp of going from a low but realistic value to comically low value.
 
got 33% more from a private sale than WBAC's offer for my fabia
then paid 20% less on a private purchase compared to the BMW dealer for my current car

there are risks, but if you're patient it can pay off

the elephant in the room is the huge depreciation hit on the nearly-new Clio
 
Nice to hear a first hand review. I've toyed with the idea of using them in the past. A few times they were way off but on a couple of occasions they have been pretty decent, the only thing putting me off visiting them at the time was the horror storys that you hear of them knocking you down loads when you get there.
 
Funnily enough I had no interest when I advertised my Clio 200 back in April 2012. It was 16 months old and had 4k on the clock. In the end I sold it to the local Renaultsport specialists and they gave me £12.5k. Only paid £15.4k for it so I thought that was a decent result. Sounds like a very similar transaction process to yours infact.
 
I think this time of year has always been a tough time to sell cars so im not surprised you didnt sell it. Ive found ebay and autotrader both to be good for selling cars. Even gumtree isnt bad. But im talking about cars upto 8k ish and mercs and toyotas which are generally in more demand than clios.
 
I used them once to sell my old mans car and they gave a fine price.

Easy enough no issues etc and the price was about the same as cars were advertised privately. They are based nearby my office and the guy I dealt with was down the line.

I find they can throw some higher than expected values for some cars. In fact, the car I sold went up in value by £200 in the week it took me to visit.
 
bazaarboy said:
the elephant in the room is the huge depreciation hit on the nearly-new Clio
Click to expand...

A 25% depreciation on a performance RenaultSport Clio over 14 months is not an elephant in the room.

Adam said:
Funnily enough I had no interest when I advertised my Clio 200 back in April 2012. It was 16 months old and had 4k on the clock. In the end I sold it to the local Renaultsport specialists and they gave me £12.5k. Only paid £15.4k for it so I thought that was a decent result. Sounds like a very similar transaction process to yours infact.
Click to expand...

Very similar situation that I found myself in actually.

Why did you end up selling and replacing it with?
 
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