Car stuff on Ebay

[TW]Fox;26747532 said:
Has anyone else noticed how more and more useless Ebay is becoming for buying car stuff?

It's not a lack of items - far from it. It's that everyone seems to put everything up at the same Buy it Now price as everyone else and then.... none of it sells because it's all so overpriced.

So the buy it now expires. So the seller re-lists. At the same price. So somebody else decides to sell another of the same item. So he lists it at the same price as everyone else. And never sells it.

Occasionally, one sells.....

...then gets relisted next week. At the same price.

So you try and negotiate with somebody. 'Sorry mate, all the others are £X, so its worth £x'.

So the net result is that nobody seems to sell anything because nobody buys it because the prices are all daft. What's going on?

I was trying to use Ebay to value my wheels for example. There have been a few sets and there are usually about 2 or 3 of them up at any one time. Always at the same price. Never selling. Except when they do sell and mysteriously re-appear the week after at the same price. It's impossible to work out what people actually would pay for something because nobody does auctions anymore, just ever-for-sale buy it now.

Rant over :p
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Good rant. Some prices are silly though - I sold a jacket that had £20 clearly on the label in the photo for £60

Most of eBay car stuff is crap though, but I do use it for specific parts eg car brake pads and house DIY stuff. I guess S2000 parts are easier to search for than BMWs with a million different models.
 
i sort by most recently listed and hope to be the first person to spot and buy

get some good badly listed bargains that way. and also a garage full of unfitted parts
 
It just seems to be full of cheap Chinese crap, brand new, buy it now. Decent second hand parts seem hard to come by now.
 
No specialist breakers for BMW?
Surely there are some

When I needed some celica parts about 10 years ago I found a specialist breaker. Had a choice of graded parts (I needed a throttle body for example), all off the shelf. Worked out slightly more than the bay or local breakers but it came with a short guarantee.

Of course that's no good for selling, but for buying (or pricing) I would go that way
 
andi said:
It just seems to be full of cheap Chinese crap, brand new, buy it now. Decent second hand parts seem hard to come by now.
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This too!

Thought I ordered an original Hella foglight for my old Z3 but it was some Chinese rubbish. That, and he sent the RHS instead of LHS, but I said he should make the adverts more clear.

Got full refund incl. postage though so all's well :)
 
[TW]Fox;26747532 said:
nobody does auctions anymore, just ever-for-sale buy it now.
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I guess for many people eBay is just a public sales platform (modern day classifieds) rather than an auction site - they don't want to auction their good, they just want to list it somewhere at £xx and eBay is a suitable place for that due to the high volume of users.

Some items may take a long time to sell but then I guess some sellers aren't looking for a quick sale and would rather hold out in the hope someone eventually stumps up the asking price (as long as the price isn't totally outrageous then eventually a buyer usually comes along).
 
I don't find it too bad for items for my mk1 golf, but some items are really overpriced.. scene tax is just not cool!!

I find the Facebook buying group pages to give better prices
 
[TW]Fox;26747532 said:
Has anyone else noticed how more and more useless Ebay is becoming for buying car stuff?
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Same for motorbike parts as well. Actual auctions for parts are now the exception, it's now effectively an outlet for for poor quality Chinese tat with a sideline in stupendously expensive second hand parts.

I actually enjoy the convenience of buy-it-nows and I'm happy to pay more for it than the typical auction price, but as you have noticed many parts just sit there for weeks/months because the prices are often close to, or in some cases more than, new parts.
 
The thing is, stuff sells on eBay. I've got a load of stuff for my MR2, service parts, aftermarket items, etc which I put up for sale on the owners club. 100's of views and hardly any sales. I priced the items based on my knowledge and what items have SOLD for on eBay. I wonder if people just don't have the cash to spend on such things at the moment?

I see your point though, a lot of the stuff for sale on there is from car breakers/scrap yards.

There is money to be made with it though, and the more DIY mechanics there are, the bigger it will grow. Good used parts are normally a quarter of the price of new parts from the manufactures.
 
All you have to do is keep looking and save searches for buy it now items.

I've been looking at getting a facelift steering wheel for my Saab over the last week or so, and found them from about 50 quid for one that should do the job but looks shabby to some for well over £100, with the matching airbag module for £40+.

Most sellers do sheepily price similar items comparatively, but I managed to pick up a wheel and an airbag module for £27 and £22 respectively. You just have to frequently refresh the listings to pick up a bargain.
 
rjkoneill said:
I love when you search on eBay for dead specific suspension parts and are presented with 6000 crap looking £300 a set wheels that are the totally wrong size for your car but have the name of your car in the title anyway.

I rarely use eBay to buy stuff.
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This.

Good for retailers eBay shops though.
 
Breaking my R32 GTR at the moment and using eBay a lot, it's certainly an eye opener though. To use me as an example, I'm not in a great rush breaking my car and have space for the parts - I've listed most parts either at similar price to traders (bit below) or at similar price to what stuff has sold for. Where I can't find a reference I've taken the price I'm asking for on forums and added 10% to allow for fees.

If it doesn't sell and gets automatically relisted it's fine with me, I'm not in a rush to sell and am cheapest on eBay for whatever that part is so generally happy to wait :) Got a few parts on there at the moment on that basis.
 
mjt said:
This too!

Thought I ordered an original Hella foglight for my old Z3 but it was some Chinese rubbish. That, and he sent the RHS instead of LHS, but I said he should make the adverts more clear.

Got full refund incl. postage though so all's well :)
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I haven't found it hard to find quality parts at all.

There are loads of dedicated BMW breakers who you can really barter with on price. Most send out via next day delivery.

There are very few parts you can't get from a large BMW breaker.
 
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