Reply to: Car Selling Question

[gingerjedi]

Thanks for the tips all - will have a look at piston heads and also webuyanycar.com. Never convinced with buying/selling cars on ebay but will have a look more closely.

Is that the same company behind cash for gold? I can't imagine a company set up to make profit out of convenience is going to give a good price.

Even though the Autotrader website is flaky at best the filtering functionality is useful and I still maintain you'll get the biggest audience, £29 is a small price if you avoid having to knock £500-600 off.

[kaiser78]

Thanks for the tips all - will have a look at piston heads and also webuyanycar.com. Never convinced with buying/selling cars on ebay but will have a look more closely.

[Olly]

Oh and the 'trader site is a pain due to all those adverts. It seems to melt most browsers quite quickly. And to think I nearly went for an interview with them.

I used to enjoy browsing bike and autotrader sites but now they're a frikin mess. It's good to know there are still pathetically misguided people out there specifying / developing and testing sites as it pushes the value of the good chaps up / keeps them in jobs.

My father bought a second hand car yesterday.

After Autotrader fecked his computer for the nth time he refused to use it and bought from Piston Heads (where it's free for private individuals to advertise)

It's so amusing watching what was essentially a monopoly alienate their customers

[The_Equalizer]

I've sold several cars, although they were classics, via the 'bay. The key was to put loads of large photos in the listing (by hosting them on my own site and just linking to them via the html in the description). Also put down everything you know about the car's condition is handy sections, like bodywork, engine, trim etc and say you're happy to answer any questions.

All of them sold to outside mainland UK without a single viewing. In fact anyone that did turn up normally turned out to be a time waster.

I'd have a look at other people's listings on the 'bay note what is good and bad and use that as a guide. One last thing is to make sure you construct half decent sentences - something I find a pain.

Oh and the 'trader site is a pain due to all those adverts. It seems to melt most browsers quite quickly. And to think I nearly went for an interview with them.

[gingerjedi]

IMO you're going to get a lot more buyers looking at a site that everyone has heard of.

Filter 'scenic' on the Pistonheads search and it returns 73, do the same on Autotrader and you get 2,960.

[swamp]

Free ads but you're not going to get many prospective Renault Scenic buyers on a site where the tag line is 'Speed Matters'.

Looks okay.

[gingerjedi]

Try PistonHeads.

Free ads but you're not going to get many prospective Renault Scenic buyers on a site where the tag line is 'Speed Matters'.

[swamp]

Try PistonHeads.

[milanbenes]

ginge,

agreed,

AutoTrader's website is a pile of smelly doo dah these days crashes my web browser

Milan.

[gingerjedi]

IME Autotrader is the best bet, I came to the conclusion that paying £29 is well worth it if you want to attract serious buyers. I wasn't entirely comfortable selling a car on eBay.

However you have to be realistic on price, I recently sold a car for £8.5k (book price 7.7k-8.6k depending on where you look) where the dealers were asking £10k. Mine sold on the second day of advertising.

Saying all that their new Bangalore optimised website can be a PITA.

[Moscow Mule]

I've had the one where, waiting at the lights, a girl knocks on the window and asks me to marry them... (and I could tell she really meant it)

Was this before or after the Romanian fish-wife had wiped your windscreen with Fairy liquid?

[threaded]

threaded,

great story

that one takes things to a new dimension

i wonder if those examples would happen to me with the Passat ?

Milan.

My 'normal' cars generally end up getting run for so many years they're rather like 'grandfathers axe' when they eventually go to the scrap dealers.

[milanbenes]

excellent

did she have big jugs ?

Milan.

[threaded]

That happens to me but it's beautiful women begging me to sleep with them.

Honest.

I've had the one where, waiting at the lights, a girl knocks on the window and asks me to marry them... (and I could tell she really meant it)

[Churchill]

That happens to me but it's beautiful women begging me to sleep with them.

Honest.

That happens to Threaded too but they're beautiful wives of diplomats.