Doing up a used car before trade in / selling

I guess it would depend on the age of the car. I'd replace the light housing either way but if it's an old car I'd guess it would be diminishing returns on tidying up the other bits.

What's it worth? If the dealer is going to hide it round the back as quick as possible before it goes to auction, I'd just make it roadworthy.
<p style="text-align: left;">A higher value car is still going to get a valet and touch up of alloys/parking scuffs by the dealer so I'd just make it look like it's been treated well and deal with any big visual turn offs such as broken lights.</p>

I cleaned my car inside and out at the expense of about two hours. The person that bought it (a dealer buying from me via a Facebook Marketplace ad so he could sell it on) walked right by it (didn't even look at it, never mind test drive it), came into my house, transferred the funds and the other paperwork then drove off.

So in my experience, nah, don't bother.

Selling to a dealer - I'd not bother. It'll be bunged straight to auction unless it's fits with their normal forecourt stock.

I recently traded in our C4 Grand Picasso with a Skoda dealer. He knocked approximately £450 off what he offered unseen due to general bodywork issues.  Car park dents, some scuffed paint etc. I have happy with that and expected it, if I could have sorted myself for cheap I would have done but a chipsaway place would have been similar cost anyway. I had already explained the roof blind didn't work and at £1200 to fix I wasn't going to bother sorting that one out.

The car did get a good clean inside and out to "show I cared about it" which to be honest probably made Tue bodywork issues more noticeable!

Last time I sold a car I washed it a couple of weeks before selling so it could get slightly dirty again,  there is no point highlighting paint blemishes! It was pretty tired anyway and I had declared paint damage on the bonnet, also works well for scuffed wheels where cleaning just highlights blemishes.

Why not sell it privately anyway? Is it really expensive?

Last time I sold a car I washed it a couple of weeks before selling so it could get slightly dirty again

This made me laugh.

Personally, I fixed broken interior bits for a few quid from eBay, when I was selling privately, and also gave it a good clean and polish. I don't know if it made a difference; by that point I was so sick of it I accepted a lowball offer just to get rid of the thing.

Why not sell it privately anyway?

See above - it's a massive ball-ache.

I'm selling my sister in laws 13plate Panda for her. I'm changing the timing belt and full service on it.

Its a decent little car with low tax and running costs - I'd rather it go privately to someone than WBAC/dealer make the money on it.

I’d rather it go privately to someone than WBAC/dealer make the money on it.

But the problem is selling to someone that won't waste your time. Like when I put mine on Marketplace – it was about 5pm on Saturday evening (for sale at £2,000) and I immediately got several offers closer to £1,000 including arsey messages saying 'you'll never get £2,000 for it, I'll give you £1,200'. One said I'd never sell it because of all the failed MOTs (err, that's how it works, a car fails the MOT, its recorded, then it is retested). The dealer I sold it to (via Marketplace - price agreed less than an hour later and collected the following morning) offered £1,800 and I couldn't care if he sold it on and made a few hundred for himself as he saved me so much hassle with the idiot private buyers.

I'm wanting to maximize SIL's money as it's towards her new flat. She's out of the country now anyway so can't sell it to WBAC / Motorpoint etc.

Parts are dead cheap for Pandas and I'm more than happy changing a timing belt and dealing with FB halfwits

Depends on the age and value of the car.

I tend to fix minor things, often pop on a new number plate or hub badges etc. Definitely give a great clean.

I have never fixed scratches or refurbished wheels.

One of the minor things that can make a big difference to how private second-hand buyers value the car is the clear-ness of the headlights. If you've got cloudy headlamps, it can make the car look scruffy and old; if the headlamp glass is bright and clear, it influences buyers to think the car is in good condition. (I can't remember where I read this, but it did make a difference when I sold my old Honda Jazz)

It doesn't take long, a bit of careful masking-off, a pack of wet&dry fine grit paper, and a couple of hours, and I reckon it added at least £200 to the price I got for the car - *however* mine was a private sale through eBay, not to a dealer.

Many car dealers including some of the very large ones use WBAC to underwrite the value of their trade ins.  So, WBAC knock off £100 for every paint defect they find, every scuffed wheel and so on.  They are not interested in how it runs, just how it presents at auction.  Bear that in mind when you take it in.

Wheels are generally the easiest home tart up, some filler and wheel silver paint can make a huge difference to the look of scabby wheels.

I did these in 2010. They’re looking tired now but looked great for a bit.

I’d fix the broken tail light and touch up any minor scratches. Wheel refurb would depend on how bad and cost. I wouldn’t spend lots fixing it. Traded a car in a couple of months ago. Salesman showed me the online valuation site and difference between poor and good condition was £800 on a £23k trade in. Mine had couple of bubbles on painted wheels and a crack in the glass roof but still got top valuation.

Wheels are generally the easiest home tart up

Having seen overspray on tyres so many times I'd disagree. Easy if you can get the tyres off but otherwise it's the same prep nightmare as any other fill and paint job.

I'd clean it and make sure you've got all the service history documented.

For trade in with a dealer you aren't taking huge differences between good and fair (assuming the car is more than 3-4 years old)

I certainly wouldn't spend any time replacing service items unless there's an obvious fault

How much is that panda rusty?

How much is that panda rusty?

Well it's a Fiat...

How much is that panda rusty?

Stealth ad alert!
Its going to be £3k
2013, MOT January
1.2 petrol, £30 'tax'
73k miles
2owners - SIL last 11 years
Will have new Gates/INA timing belt & water pump, aux belt and idler, filters etc.
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I read an article once. They presented a car, the same car each time, in various states of cleanliness to various buyers. Very clean glass gave the biggest improvement in price.

I can't remember if it included polishing the lights, but as Pierre says above, nice clear lights make a car look much better overall, too, IMO.

In fact, I polished up the lights on my daughter's old Corolla a few weeks ago, just because they were annoying me every time I walked past it!

It doesn’t take long, a bit of careful masking-off, a pack of wet&dry fine grit paper, and a couple of hours,

Tell me a bit more about doing lights? My daughter's 57 plate - I was a bit worried they would be an issue at MOT because they were quite cloudy, the advice I was given by an enthusiast at work was to use toothpaste which is a mild abrasive after all. It did well enough because it didn't have any comment at MOT, but still not perfect. Doesn't fine grit W&D scratch the headlights and make them worse, being harder than the plastic covers?

You use progressively finer grades of wet and dry and finish off with T Cut or similar.  Then you need to UV protect it or it'll cloud over again fairly quickly.

The abrasive scouring pads are great for headlights.

You can get kits from Halfords which include lacquer to put over the headlights to try and prevent them going milky again, I'm not convinced it lasts though.

You can buy headlight restore kits from Amazon/eBay etc ~£20

As mentioned above ideally they will need 2k clear coat otherwise they'll dull again

We traded our Fabia last time. It was 'well used' inside after 7 years of dogs and being the skip-vehicle of choice. We gave it a really good clean inside and out, scrubbed all the upholstery, removed most of the ingrained muck on the alloys etc... we knew it needed rear discs and we hadn't told the dealer, so we got a mate to do those mostly because we just wanted to be honest!

Dealer had given us a good no-brainer-to-bother-selling-privately price, and we did expect to get chipped as lots of dents/scratches became apparent when we cleaned it properly.

Not sure they ever looked at it, we gave them the keys and drove off in the new one1

Doesn’t fine grit W&D scratch the headlights and make them worse, being harder than the plastic covers?

The whole point of sandpaper or wet and dry is that it's harder than the thing you're trying to smooth. Otherwise it wouldn't do anything 🙂

I suspect T-Cut would be sufficient, or the dedicated headlight restorer you can buy, but I've not done this job myself.

The Turtle Wax restorer from halfords worked as just well as the more expensive ones. I do have a soft pad for my drill already though, which does make it quicker and easier than rubbing by hand.

I’m selling my sister in laws 13plate Panda for her. I’m changing the timing belt and full service on it.

Some times I do slightly regret my actions!
Taking the aux belt off I spun the pulleys to discover the alternator is seized...getting the bolts out is a lesson in contortion and becoming double jointed when previously I wasn't. One of the bottom bolts is stubborn and needs heat and profanities.
Once its loose the only way to get it out is remove the engine mount, pull the engine forward and jack it up and split the offside strut/hub to drop the driveshaft a bit....
Eventually get it out to discover the casing is split and the alternator effectively scrap....

All this to gain a few hundred quid over WBAC😩

Sell as is. I really look after my motors. Traded in my(few years back now) Volvo v50 which I was offered the max trade in price at the time.

Dealer never even looked at it 🤷‍♂️ Took new car away all good. Few weeks later I got message from dealer saying it was cleanest/nicest example he’d sold for a while 😑

Dealer never even looked at it

This is my experience of bigger dealerships. If they can't retail it then it will get punted out to an indy for then to deal with. The prifev you get will be less than the price they know they can get from their tame indys.

<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;"> I traded a car in 3 weeks ago for £6,300. It's now for sale at an indy for just shy of £10k. Which seems like obscene profiteering to me, but the market is crazy. </span>

I've used Autoglym Paint Restorer on old lights and it did a good job.

For completeness
The Panda mentioned up thread sold for £3200 today. I had it up for £3400, WBAC offered £2400. Timing belt and bits&bobs were £200. So it effectively made ~£600 more.
My time and the parts were a free gift to my sister in law for whom £800 is a big difference so worth doing.

Sold to a mechanic who worked at Fiat! Said there was nothing been sold or traded in (his Panda had been written off)

If trading it on or yo a dealer don't bother.

They either won't look at it or be able to get work done much cheaper than you can

Private make it look it's very best

Private for the most money - just ignore the idiots, price it well Vs the others on auto trader (don't bother with FB) and hold your nerve for the full 2 weeks.

That Panda sold via marketplace, bit of blurb and one photo!