Best way to sell a car these days......

overcooled-xp · 22 Jul 2018 at 17:18

Hello,

I have a Mazda 3 which I need to sell. Any idea's to where the best place to try and sell it online is? It's on Autotrader at the moment. It's been on eBay and facebook, but no takers. I have treid the we buy type websites, but their offering silly money. It's a really clean car, I just need it gone. Any ideas??

paradigm · 22 Jul 2018 at 17:22

No takers on eBay would suggest it’s priced too high. Might as well throw it on Gumtree also.

overcooled-xp · 22 Jul 2018 at 17:27

I have lowered it a lot. It's now on autotrader as one of the cheaper priced ones, so will wait and see. Will try gumtree again with lowered price.

Evo8 · 22 Jul 2018 at 18:18

I sold my MR2 Roadster on PistonHeads, it's pretty cheap too but maybe not the place to sell cars that are freely available.

Ant84 · 22 Jul 2018 at 18:19

Seems tough for sellers at the moment. I've got a 2012 TTS in great condition, high spec, low mileage that I can't seem to shift despite it being the lowest price in the country by an absolute mile.

muon · 22 Jul 2018 at 18:51

How new is it?

Good luck selling 3 year old, £10k+ cars privately.

I had to sell a 3 1/2 year old car recently. Sold it for £10200 to WBAC after having no biters from £11000 all the way down to £10500.

The supermarket style company that bought it at auction still hasn't sold the car nearly 3 months later (they are down to £12000 now, which is about what the standard valuation providers say it is worth).

They are morons really, it really should have gone onto dealer under an approved used scheme. Can't see them shifting it with a 90 day warranty and next service fast approaching.

chrismscotland · 22 Jul 2018 at 20:14

I had the same problem, mint E-Class AMG which was priced very keenly on AutoTrader, Gumtree and EBay - ended up selling it to Arnold Clark for about £300 less than I was asking elsewhere.

Dav4 · 22 Jul 2018 at 21:43

How old is the car op and what is it worth? Most cars over 5k people want on finance so unless it’s a performance car or something quite rare that’s going to attract enthusiasts looking for that specific model then you have got your work cut out selling private. Stick with it though I’ve sold all my cars privately sometimes you just have to wait.
I would say July and August are the worst months to sell a car especially a normal family hatch most people are too busy enjoying summer with kids off school and expensive holidays to pay for.
If it’s priced well and has 12 months Mot then wait a few months and re list in September

DarrenM343 · 30 Sep 2018 at 19:21

Back to the question as put by OP, I have a late 2011 BMW X1, just over 50K miles on it, owned by me since 2500 miles (Aug 2012) and am the second owner. It's been great, no problems other than a knackered battery. Probably worth £7500-8k now. Any thoughts on the places to try selling on first? I live in the South West btw so not an area that many will get to easily. Pistonheads I know from the past is good but for more specialised vehicles, not things like a 4WD 2.0 Diesel X1.
I've traded most cars in over the past (hassle free) but as I have a second runabout now I wouldn't mind trying to sell this one privately.

I can't believe most people finance cars over £5k - don't people save to buy anything these days?

MissChief · 30 Sep 2018 at 19:54

DarrenM343 said:
Back to the question as put by OP, I have a late 2011 BMW X1, just over 50K miles on it, owned by me since 2500 miles (Aug 2012) and am the second owner. It's been great, no problems other than a knackered battery. Probably worth £7500-8k now. Any thoughts on the places to try selling on first? I live in the South West btw so not an area that many will get to easily. Pistonheads I know from the past is good but for more specialised vehicles, not things like a 4WD 2.0 Diesel X1.
I've traded most cars in over the past (hassle free) but as I have a second runabout now I wouldn't mind trying to sell this one privately.

I can't believe most people finance cars over £5k - don't people save to buy anything these days?

Usual places like Gumtree, local Facebook selling groups, Piston heads and eBay classified. Or if you're brave ebay and no reserve.

Cristian · 1 Oct 2018 at 00:17

muon said:
How new is it?

Good luck selling 3 year old, £10k+ cars privately.

I had to sell a 3 1/2 year old car recently. Sold it for £10200 to WBAC after having no biters from £11000 all the way down to £10500.

The supermarket style company that bought it at auction still hasn't sold the car nearly 3 months later (they are down to £12000 now, which is about what the standard valuation providers say it is worth).

They are morons really, it really should have gone onto dealer under an approved used scheme. Can't see them shifting it with a 90 day warranty and next service fast approaching.

I think it depends on the car. I sold my F30 330D privately last year in about a week and a half, guy flew from Ireland to pick it up. Decent spec and clean, but also 130k+ miles which scared the average buyer off. Some cars are more desirable than others, valuation sites can be incredibly hit and miss. A classic example used to be LCI e90 335D's - they sold for 15k+ for ages privately despite most valuation sites putting them between 10-12k. Even now unmolested examples are very desirable and worth 10k+ which is quite a lot for 10 year old 3 series.

I found that Autotrader & eBay give by far the best exposure, the rest of the sites are just noise imho.