Bluegrass Lass

Hey NG'ers,

Since there are alot of UK ex-pats in here, I hope some of you may have a suggestion for us. We're having some worries over whether my fiance will be able to sell his car before he leaves the UK. He's had ads on Auto Trader and Car Data for about 3 weeks now, but still no bites. We're getting a bit apprehensive since he doesn't have much time left to sell it.

So, has anyone sold a car on ebay.co.uk before? Would it be worth listing on there? I know sellling cars on ebay.com is pretty popular, but ebay.co.uk hardly has any!

Besides selling it to a dealer/garage, does anyone else have any suggestions for how we can sell this sucker and still get the amount of money we want/need??

Thanks for any advice!!
Jamie

Pulaski

You should be able to get the trade price by taking it down to the nearest car auction site. It may be a bit nerve wracking, waiting for the gavel to fall, but you will sell it.

Bluegrass Lass

Trade price you say? Hmmmm, I suppose that is what a dealership would pay for it, not what we could potentially sell it for via private sale? We know a dealership isn't going to give us what we want/hope for, but trade price sounds even lower than that, right?

veryfunny

I used ebay to sell a lot of my stuff but not my car and my experience with ebay is that things move very very slow and you do get a lot of time wasters. Try using loot, local papers,exchange and mart etc.

I still have yet to sell my car in the UK, I did not take it to an auction I wish I did.

Worse case situation I had to leave it in the UK and let a relative or close friend sell it for me.

Not the best thing but still an option.

NC Penguin

What about advertising in the local papers where your fiance lives?

Maybe your price is too high too and that's putting people off.

Bluegrass Lass

We're a few hundred quid below what it's valued at, and we have dropped the price a few times already. I suggested the local papers to him, but he seemed to think AutoTrader or Car Data was better or somehow quicker. <sigh>

Since it's his name on the car, in order for his folks to sell it, they would need power of attorney, right?

Rumplestiltskin

I sold my Alfa Romeo 155 on ebay.co.uk whilst in the States

I left the key's and log book with a friend at work then handled all correspondence with potential buyers by e-mail and phone.

It took two attempts to sell it... the first time I had a reserve that was too high so the second time I figured I'd just cut my losses and made the starting bid the lowest I was prepared to accept in a worst case scenario with no reserve...

I ended up getting £300 more than my original reserve price

I also stated in my ad that I wouldn't accept bids from people with no bid history unless they contacted me first... the person that ended up buying the car did so with a negative feedback whilst I was asleep overtaking the previous bidder who had great feedback... but the buyer now has some excellent feedback from me because he wired me the money the next day

I then just phoned my friend and told him to hand over the keys and logbook when the buyer turned up

All in all a simple process and it allowed me to control the sale remotely... I recommend it

Taffyles

Don't panic like I did and sell to a dealer- use them as a last resort. I'd had my car advertised in the local paper for a few weeks with not a phone call, with two weeks to go before leaving the country, I panicked and took it to a dealer (only because I had nowhere to store it- I'd rented the house out and the new tenants were moving in the day after we left). Needless to say I got way less than it was worth- and sod's law, that very night I had two phone calls of people wanting to come round straight away to see it I had a few more calls the following week too. After we'd left, one of my friends was 'kind' enough to tell me that she'd seen my car in the dealers window and the price he was selling it for ...some friend LOL.

I'd stick the car in the local paper and wait at least till the final week before running to the nearest car shark.

Pulaski

Trade = trade price = trade in .... the price that a dealer would pay to take your vehicle into stock. It won't be generous, but if you have to sell it what else can you do when you have little time.

When I left the UK I sold my car for only about a third of what "fair value" would be (it was an Alfa 164 3 litre V6, too old for the usual price guides, but in very good shape, and had had an engine and transmission rebuild). I took a philosophical view, and consoled myself with the thought that I had a brand new car on order in the US!

scrubbedexpat099

I had a MG to sell, I advetised in Autotrader, just go for where you would expect to look if you were buying.

Someone on the MG board suggested EBay but I never tried.

Bit lucky, after nothing for a few weeks and nothing sold it the day before I left.

My fall back was to leave it with my Brother, all docs plus a receipt pre signed but with a gap for the price.

I wanted to keep it as long as I could, probably could have got at least another 500 if not more but I did not want to dump the issue on my Brother and it tied things up.

And yes Cars her are 2/3 of the price, but I keep looking at the Harley's...

I had brought both my cycles over on previous visits. Now have a trailer to trundle my Fiancee's Grandchildren around. Nice weather so I am not missing a car but will have to do something.

Just keep on thinking of all the money I am saving by NOT buying.

dunroving

Same experience here. Car was on AutoTrader, etc., etc., not one bite in 4 weeks (I guess there were just too many Vauxhall Astras around). My asking price was very reasonable, but just no takers. "Sold" (almost gave) it to the local dealer for a rock-bottom price 3 days before I left, and he sold it 2 days later for more than a 50% profit. I actually saw the buyers drive it off the lot - I wanted to shout at them, "Don't you read the papers?!"

A few years back I left a car with my brother to sell (I bought it off my cousin second-hand just to drive for an extended summer visit). Within 2 weeks, it had 2 flat tires and a busted window from vandals, and the car took forever to sell (and needed a new battery by the time it sold). I'd be reluctant to leave a car with a friend or relative unless they feel comfortable dealing with any necessary repairs that might crop up - especially if the car you're selling is an older one that could go bad (Sod's Law, as someone else said).

crazi_daizi

I sold my car on ebay before moving here in January. Took lots of photos, and told people they were welcome to test drive it/come and have a look etc. It's quite easy especially if you are familiar with ebay and word your advert well, with what you will and won't accept. Worth the while too as we got rid of an identical car quickly 3 months earlier and got over £500 less from a garage! Car sold first time around with no problems