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Buying older used cars privately

calorgas

calorgas

Generic middle-aged man
We've been looking for a replacement car for a month or so as we previously had two medium sized hatchbacks but due to me hardly driving we decided to change to one cheap and tiny car for tootling to town and supermarket etc (Pug 107 already bought) and one slightly larger but hopefully still quite economical e.g. small diesel estate (Focus, Golf et al) or mini mpv such as a Ford C Max.

Thing I'm struggling with is actually finding many privately advertised cars at all! Even 10+ year old cars seem to be in the hands of small dealers, and a fair number of these 'dealers' seem to be without any sort of mechanic or garage facilities so it makes we wonder what aftercare or warranty they can realistically offer. Tbh I'd rather cut out that dealer premium, save myself some of cash, find a motor with documented history and buy privately.

I've been looking on ebay, gumtree and autotrader, and nearly all cars listed are at dealers. Doesn't anyone sell privately any more or am I just looking in the wrong places? Or maybe everyone takes their old cars to webuyanycar these days.
 
calorgas said:
Or maybe everyone takes their old cars to webuyanycar these days.
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I don't know for sure, but strongly suspect that is the case. Selling privately can be a big hassle, so it's the quick and easy option.
Have you looked at auctions?
 
robs said:
I don't know for sure, but strongly suspect that is the case. Selling privately can be a big hassle, so it's the quick and easy option.
Have you looked at auctions?
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I haven't looked at auctions yet, I'm not sure I'd be up for that as (afaik) you don't get a chance to really inspect a car before chancing your arm.
 
kensalriser said:
Don’t assume that there’s a premium for buying from a dealer as they typically buy through the trade at low prices. Look at the car first rather than the seller.
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Yeah I'm certainly looking at everything within reasonable distance and I'm not ruling dealers out but some of the prices are a little daft imo. We actually bought the 107 from a dealer at a reasonable price, though then found a couple of niggly issues which I just got my local garage to sort.

kensalriser said:
Look at eBay too, probably more private sellers there than Auto Trader.
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Yep, ebay is one of the places I have looked at the most. Still surprisingly little on there.
 
Yeah, probably. Annoying though and I'm getting impatient, I really just want to buy something so I can stop thinking about 2nd hand cars :D
 
Private sellers of older used cars are getting good prices at the moment, and I suspect that apart from WBAC, local dealers are buying everything they can lay their hands on. A couple of guys at work have bought from local dealers recently, and the sticker price is what they had to pay, no negotiation at all.
 
Pistonheads have private sellers. I flogged one on there last year. Need to be quick though. It sold within 24 hours (to a trader)
 
Tony Lockhart said:
A couple of guys at work have bought from local dealers recently, and the sticker price is what they had to pay, no negotiation at all.
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Which is fine if the car is good. I looked at a 2012 Golf estate the other evening described as being in great condition for the year but turned out it had various dings all round, a bit of the front grill sticking out, and looked like someone had been dragging paving slabs over the rear bumper. I'm not paying £5k for that.
 
robs said:
I don't know for sure, but strongly suspect that is the case. Selling privately can be a big hassle, so it's the quick and easy option.
Have you looked at auctions?
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Exactly this. With used car prices on the up it's a no-brainer to sell to WBAC or similar and have a zero-hassle sale. No-one squirting oil in your coolant reservoir while you're being distracted by an accomplice, no 'wots ur best price bruv' messages, no-one asking questions that you've already carefully answered in the advert, no texts claiming that the xyz has broken, they've had 'their mechanic look at it' and it's going to cost £xxx to fix so they want money from you, no 'it's overpriced, I've seen one for £xk elsewhere' drivel...

I would rather lose £500 on a car than have to deal with the knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing troglodytes that typically come out of the woodwork when you post a car for sale.
 
calorgas said:
Which is fine if the car is good. I looked at a 2012 Golf estate the other evening described as being in great condition for the year but turned out it had various dings all round, a bit of the front grill sticking out, and looked like someone had been dragging paving slabs over the rear bumper. I'm not paying £5k for that.
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Well that’s a different matter entirely. That silliness happens all the time.
 
I thought the original poster was asking for advice about buying? Not Selling.

We buy any old crap offered me £3000 last year. I sold it for £4500 on Pistonheads. The dealer then it sold for £6500. The tyres were 10 years old and it had an intermittent starting problem (BMW recall that caused more problems than it solved) He was happy I was Happy The person that bought it? Well. It was a really nice car apart from the aforementioned.
 
Tony Lockhart said:
Well that’s a different matter entirely. That silliness happens all the time.
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True, and the same with private and trade obvs. It adds to the dilemma about how far to travel to view a car though, as there's nothing so annoying as driving for hours only to discover the thing is a heap, so I've been trying to restrict my browsing to cars within an hours drive away.
 
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