Where to find private car ads these days

Adam_151

Adam_151

Adam_151

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Looking like my car is not going to be worthwhile to get through the MOT (emmisions, but thats a rant for another day!)

So started looking at cars, but autotrader and even ebay seem to have more dealships than private adverts, even gumtree has high percentage of dealership adverts, so where are people posting private ads these days?

At the end of the market I'm buying at, going though a dealship increases the price quite a lot and I don't think they add anything, pretty sure they are not more honest than jow public, plus they probably have more practice and more reason to legitimatly not know the answer to some questions, legally I think there is some come back if theres a problem, but I don't think in practice you get much unless you are prepared to fight for it, so might as well buy privately and avoid profit margin being added on...... but where are they all?!
 

Ahleckz

Ahleckz

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You can filter by private sales on Autotrader and Gumtree.
However, as used car prices are so high now and with the car buying services advertising so much I suspect most sellers just take it to one of them, therefore starving the private market. If you don’t know, used cars are going for above retail prices, and it’s even brining up the bottom of the market.

Facebook market place may be worth a shout. Or check out the obituaries in your local newspaper and do a deal at the funeral?
 

lordrobs

lordrobs

lordrobs

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Yeah the private used market has mainly gone to the likes of Facebook Marketplace unfortunately.

Well... I say unfortunately. Selling my wife's Punto on there was a damn site better experience than when I sold my 306 on AutoTrader back in the day. Didn't cost me £25 either :p

As a buyer it is pretty easy to filter out the genuine sellers from the dross as the latter won't even bother to fill in the description or take decent photos. Ours was a genuine sale (only selling as my Wife was gifted a car from her mother) so I went to the effort of a dozen decent photos and a full description of the good and bad points. Look out for adverts like that (they will be in the minority unfortunately) and there are some good cars on there from trustworthy people.

Failing that you could take a punt and buy from the auctions. Many would be private sellers now offload perfectly good cars through We Buy Any Car which just go back into the BCA merry-go-round.
 

sovietspybob

sovietspybob

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Yeah i think that end of the market is mostly facebook marketplace nowadays for better or worse..

With it being a bit like the wild west you can luck out and get something decent but you'll have to wade through all the knuckle draggers ads to get to them :(

"No log book, 1 months MOT and 2 tyres are bald but does 200miles on £20, takes 2 times to start (sometimes) but always start, call and ask for Bez, SWOPS??!!??!"
 
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Liquid_Entity

Liquid_Entity

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sovietspybob said:
Yeah i think that end of the market is mostly facebook marketplace nowadays for better or worse..

With it being a bit like the wild west you can luck out and get something decent but you'll have to wade through all the knuckle draggers ads to get to them :(

"No log book, 1 months MOT and 2 tyres are bald but does 200miles on £20, takes 2 times to start (sometimes) but always start, call and ask for Bez, SWOPS??!!??!"
Click to expand...
Don't forget "first to see will buy" and "runs like a dream"
 
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