Selling my car. No patience

[dirtychinchilla]

I put my AutoTrader ad up yesteday. No calls either day thus far. I am so impatient.

I (and ChatGPT) wrote what I thought was a really good ad. Any feedback?

I am selling my 2019 Audi Q2 that I purchased directly from the Audi dealership with only 2,900 miles in December 2018. This car served as the test drive vehicle at Audi, and I have personally accumulated the remaining mileage. Throughout my ownership, the car has undergone all required Audi servicing, with the majority of maintenance conducted at the authorised Audi service centre in Guildford. I paid for the Audi Service plan for the first three years. Service History: 16/9/21 - Audi oil and inspection service, including pollen filter replacement. 1/2/23 - Front tyres were changed (Pirelli). 16/6/23 - Oil and filter change. 25/6/22 - Audi MOT and vehicle health check. 5/4/23 - Rear tyres were replaced. 23/6/23 - Audi MOT. 15/11/23 - Rear brake pads changed and brake fluid replaced in line with Audi service requirements. Mechanical Condition: All servicing carried out in line with Audi requirements. The car was recently inspected by a certified mechanic during the brake pad replacement, and no mechanical issues were found. It has been well-maintained, with regular servicing being the only requirement for maintenance. All MOTs completely clean with no advisories. Tyres: All four tyres have been replaced within the past year and are in excellent condition. Bodywork: The overall bodywork is in good condition, with minor wear and tear consistent with normal use. Reason for Selling: I am selling this car as I require a larger vehicle to better suit my current needs. The car is ULEZ compliant. If you are interested or have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Serious inquiries only, and test drives are welcome. Reasonable offers considered.

I've priced it at £21.5k in the knowledge that it probably needs new rear discs and that there is some very minor cosmetic damage (tiny scratches) that someone might want to repair. All in all, allowing the price to drop to about £20k. At £21.5k it's maybe a little more expensive than it should be, but it's hard to express that £20k is my bottom line.

(edit: just had a look and it was probably £1k too expensive, so I put it to £20.5k. Leaves me no wiggle room though)

Any tips?

PS. Impatient because I've lined up a lovely 320i Touring!

 

[dirtychinchilla]

If you are really impatient you'd have better luck with the likes of We Buy Any Car or rather one of the [better] alternatives - IIRC Carwow will automatically send it out to get bids from various companies who buy cars like that.

That’s true but they pay about 30% under market value

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Carwow was marginally less depressing

 

[dirtychinchilla]

How near to pricing it were you to what a dealers would be selling the same car for on Auto Trader? If you were close to dealers Auto Trader prices for a comparable vehicle I do not think it will sell.
It is natural for potential buyers to want to see it at below dealers Auto Trader prices before expressing interest

The "lumpy" cars (£15K to £25K) seem to be more hit by recent monthly price drops than the cheapies, some were not even realising CAP bottom book at one of the Aston Barclay auctions in December.

Best of luck with your sale, I hope you get a few nibbles soon.

Thank you for the advice. I'll have to have a think.

Just found your advert - it seems way to expensive. You've got dealer cars with less mileage and the same engine and trim at the same price. Most people who are looking at 20K+ cars want the security of buying at a dealer.
If I search for 2019 Audi Q2's, out of 276 cars you're on the first page of the most expensive. If I was paying that, I'd want it to be absolutely, 100% spotless with not a mark on it or any advisories for future work (like rear discs!)

Private cars similar to yours are listed at around 17k.

As I say, I might be missing something regarding options, but this is a cursory glance, this is how it appears to me.

Fair enough. Thanks very much for the feedback. In the back of my mind is that this car has been treated perfectly. Aside from this potential disc replacement, which is maybe £250, it has had everything done needed when needed, nothing has ever gone wrong with it, it has never remotely let me down etc. so whoever might buy it would be getting something absolutely solid, which is invaluable. It's not 100% perfect cosmetically, but it's not far off. I'd rather buy something reliable than beautiful. But maybe I do need to consider a different price. I also find dealers inflexible with pricing, though maybe that's just me.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

None of that has any real value if I'm honest and doesn't beat a dealer warranty.

Fair comment. It all comes down to whether I can sell it for a price that means I can afford the new car!

 

[dirtychinchilla]

The problem with the £250 disc replacement is that not only will someone have to fork that out but also they will be without the car for a day so in my eyes I would be looking at ones that don’t need something doing in the near future

I'm weighing up whether to just get it done this week. Probably will have to do it tbh

 

[dirtychinchilla]

As I said if you can it would be better to advertise it with “nothing needed”

I was hoping to see a garage today that could do it in all honesty. I need to work out where to price it and what I need for the other car

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Yeah, get the brakes done.. it's a huge selling point IMO, people will be mindful of what may be coming up service wise..

Also mention that a new owner can take out an Audi Extended Warranty from £340 for 12 months. (Sadly Audi don't allow you to transfer it).. people want peace of mind, and knowing that is useful (assuming you have full main dealer service history of course).

Thank you. Really appreciate that bit of knowledge

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Advert is unnecessarily wordy. You're also missing a lot of information, especially around spec. It also contains a lot of information that is completely irrelevant.

"2019 Audi Q2 (Engine size/Fuel type/Gearbox/Colour). (Insert mileage here). Well looked after with FSH. 4 Pirelli tyres which are less than 12 months old. Clean MOT with 10 months remaining. Car is in excellent condition with minimal wear and tear. Comes with (Insert some optional extras here). ULEZ compliant. Selling due to needing a bigger car. £20k ONVO. (Add rough location)."

Also, get the brakes done. You'll just get knocked down on price for it anyway.

Thanks very much

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I think your biggest issue will be cars like this:

Auto Trader UK - New and Used Cars For Sale

Find your next car with Auto Trader UK, the official #1 site to buy and sell new and used cars. Over 400,000 cars online. Simple, easy, quick!

www.autotrader.co.uk

Audi Used Approved, £18,667 and that appears to come with 2 years warranty/servicing and roadside assistance..

I think you are going to be down in the £17-£17.5k bracket

That's fair enough. I'll leave it where it is for a couple of days and then drop the price under £20k.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

I've taken everyone's advice to a greater or lesser extent - dropped the car under £20k, getting the pads done ASAP, revised the description. Hope it's all enough

 

[dirtychinchilla]

This is the problem IMO. I'm assuming it's this one? https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202401245855748
There's a whole bunch of the same model year and mileage for sale at dealers for around £18.5k. That's not to say they will be as good as the OPs, maybe they are in worse condition, maybe they have worse options etc but when people are searching they will be looking at these other ones first.

I'd also consider removing the bit about it being a test drive vehicle, rightly or wrongly some people have an issue with ex-demo cars feeling that they will have been 'ragged'. Quite why someone would be ragging a crossover with under 150bhp I'm not sure but there you go.

That's the one I took that stuff out of the description as per Skilid's suggestions.

To be fair, you can rag this car hard if you want to. It's surprisingly fast.

Hopefully I at least get bites at this price.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

availibility of an Audi warranty does sound a good thing to push ... that way person negotiates £340 off, and deal is done.
I'd perhaps provide picture showing exact tyres fitted, maybe mention if s-tronic is already serviced (after recently being reminded on bm thread how much their box costs)

The s-tronic isn't due a service as far as I'm aware. I'll mention that warranty if anyone does come and look at it though as it sounds invaluable

 

[dirtychinchilla]

It can take weeks or months to sell a car at the price you want privately. Expecting anything after just a day is unreasonable in my view.

I know, I’m just not patient. I’ve got probably 3 weeks to sell it until BMW cancel my reservation.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

How far away from the value you need for the BMW deal are the car buying services?

Hopefully you've not pinned your hopes on a new car purchase that will now be a stretch because you budgeted based on your car being worth a lot more than it maybe is.

I’m financing it as with this car. I want to put down about £5.5k. I have about £1k saved to add. Putting in that will drop my monthly from about £290 right now to £250 with the new car. I didn’t want to put in the £1k but I need to be realistic. I could also choose a slightly cheaper beemer, but I do like this one

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Then don't try and sell it privately - use a car buying service. Some of them are good - I used Motorway to sell mine and got what I felt was a reasonable amount against what I could have got privately had I been happy to wait long enough.

The problem you have is who is your market? It's people with £20,000 in cash who want to buy a 2019 Audi Q2. There cannot be many of these people and the fact there is an Audi Q2 of the same year, mileage and specification at an Audi main dealer for £18,600 means you'd need to be really advertising with a price starting with a £16k to make anyone consider yours over the Audi approved car - before we even consider Audi can offer finance.

Then you'll probably find that price isn't far short of what you can get from some of the better car buying services. This is what I found when I went to sell mine. It's annoying as like yours my car was absolutely perfect condition wise but the reality is the market for people who want to buy cars like this using cash is so small that you're going to be waiting a while.

They can sort their own finance if they want. I take the point on the price but then it’s just not viable to sell it. Why would I sell a £20k for £16k. Utterly pointless. I’ve set my bottom limit anyway and I guess if I can’t get that, I may just keep it.

"2 Pirelli front tyres which are less than 12 months old, rear tyres also less than 12 months old." Does this mean the rears are not Pirellis? That screams to me they're cheapo ones. I assumed from your previous statements that all 4 were Pirellis. If not, I'd say "All tyres less than 12 months old". Having mismatched tyres is not a selling point.

Does it have any rare optional extras? If so, I'd list those in the description. The options list function provided by Autotrader is too long and annoying as it lists things like "body coloured bumpers", "rear seat head restraints" and "interior lighting" - No **** sherlock. I almost never look at it. It also gets things wrong some times. List a couple of key options in the description to make the car sound more enticing.

I’ve changed that on the tyres, thanks. No extras that aren’t in the feature list, no. So many things are standard now anyway.

Yeah to echo Fox, i'm just not sure who you're audience is here, people who want a slightly posh white good 'car' aren't the kind of people to have 20k cash to buy one privately with no comeback.

It's always been a weird place in the market for anything which isn't a specialist/sporty car as most people want a warranty and to buy it on finance.

Not knowing the market but form a quick glance i'd have though you'd need to be looking at around 16k for anyone to realistically buy it? Unfortunately stuff like well cared for by you mean pretty much zero as anyone can write that.

Mmm well I guess we’ll see on that front. Hopefully people see it as slightly more negotiable being from a private seller. Also, my perception is that as I’ve had it from new, I know about literally everything that’s happened to the car (nothing), which you’d never get from a dealer.

 

[dirtychinchilla]

honestly only a mug would buy your car tbh.
the first thing any sane person would do is look at autotrader's own valuation and it's not good looking for your car: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-valuation/result/guid/218100b6-82e2-4bba-89f1-910fb70c10cd
if i were looking for a Q2 it would be a hard pass with the seller asking 25% over valuation. screams to me that the seller would be an ahole and difficult to deal with

Thanks for your input

 

[dirtychinchilla]

How has it got 10 months remaining if the MOT is in June?!

Reading that I'd assume it's been on the market for months already without the description being updated!

Thanks for that, didn’t realise!

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Values the car the same way as a used B550 motherboard, thinks it's worth way more than it actually is.


Used car prices are trending downward, but as others have said try Motorway, Arnold Clark and Carwow then you'll know how much you'd get in the real world idea

Sold if for £130!

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Yep, so you basically had the most luck in the world there since the new cost was £130, you won't get people falling for that when they are spending £20k+. As I said try Mortorway, Arnold Clarke and Carwow.

No, you were just wrong that time. You could be right this time