[Closed] Selling an old tatty but reliable car - where?

Tax is not transferable. You get the unused whole months back. Ebay is good for selling. Just be honest and it'll go for goid money. Gumtree is good too.

You get the unused whole months back

except if you transfer on the 1st of the month, you don't get that month back and the buyer has to buy that month as well. its a con.

I hate to say it but I got rid of our very old XC90 yesterday - took it to webuyanycrap.
They knocked 10% off the price quoted online as it probably had quite a few more scratches and bumps on it than I'd put in originally.
The test drive was 10 meters forwards and 10 meters back again! Luckily she didn't try the stereo as it died at the weekend and, seeing as it's a fibre optic system that also controls the satnav, phone and reversing sensors, it would be pricey to fix.
All in all I'd say they were pretty fair and paid more than I would have got on eBay.

except if you transfer on the 1st of the month, you don't get that month back and the buyer has to buy that month as well. its a con

The clue is in the 'whole unused months' bit - on the 1st you've started 'using' the month. Why is it a con? With the old system if you bought a car with no tax on the 25th you'd still have to pay for the entire month - better system as I see it.

[quote=sharkbait ]except if you transfer on the 1st of the month, you don't get that month back and the buyer has to buy that month as well. its a con
The clue is in the 'whole unused months' bit - on the 1st you've started 'using' the month. Why is it a con? With the old system if you bought a car with no tax on the 25th you'd still have to pay for the entire month - better system as I see it.

I had a tax disc with 3 months to run on the car. I got back two months worth. The new owner had to buy tax now rather than when the 3 months expired, so somewhere along the line an extra month of tax has been paid for.

Are you really bothered that he had to buy tax?
When you were able to sell a car with tax the person who bought the tax never really got their money back ... £100 worth of tax didn't add £100 to the value of the car so you effectively gave it away. With the system now you DO get [most] of your money back. No tax disks being nicked, cheaper to run and fairer as all cars are sold without tax.

What car is it?

Has anyone used ebay for this

I used ebay to get rid of my old mondeo estate. I put it on auction, can't recall what I started it at, but it costs £10 to list and £20 on completion.
The car was worth about £500, £600 tops, unfortunately I got shafted by some arse, who bid £900 then contacted me and offered £400 and he'd pick it up some time next week. When I replied thanks, but no thanks, he immediately out bid himself with a bogus account. The bidding now at £900+ for what was a £500 car, he'd basically kiboshed my auction, I never heard from his bogus bidder, I only got £20 refunded from ebay.
The happy ending was that, just prior to this, I'd been contacted via ebay by a copper who was interested and he came and bought it after the auction ended for £475.
from that experience, I don't think I'd do an auction again, I'd probably put it up at a fixed price, but still use ebay and/or auto trader.

[quote=B.A.Nana ]
The car was worth about £500, £600 tops, unfortunately I got shafted by some arse, who bid £900 then contacted me and offered £400 and he'd pick it up some time next week. When I replied thanks, but no thanks, he immediately out bid himself with a bogus account. The bidding now at £900+ for what was a £500 car, he'd basically kiboshed my auction, I never heard from his bogus bidder, I only got £20 refunded from ebay.

for it to bid him up to £900 implies someone else was willing to pay £899?

my mate sold an old jetta on ebay for £250ish, was paid within minutes of the end of the auction by paypal, never heard from the buyer again.

@mitsumonkey - I don't want this to become an advert (I guess I could try the classifieds) but it is the last of the old style Renault Meganes 1.4i 16v Expression +. They dumped sun-roof, air-con, electric mirrors, computer, steering wheel controls, 6 cd multi changer, 4 air bags etc on it to make it attractive. I guess I could rip the cd changer out and sell that.
@B.A.Nana - trying to avoid hassle and so a fixed priced or may be a low reserve sounds sensible. Thanks

for it to bid him up to £900 implies someone else was willing to pay £899?

No, he entered a max bid of £900, then when I wouldn't play ball, used a bogus account and bid £910 to outbid himself. He could have just retracted his bid tbh, but chose to do it this way, either out of spite or not knowing he could remove the bid. I suspect it was all done deliberately, why would he enter £900 in the first place for a £500 car other than to effectively end my action. He could have just contacted me and made an offer.

Ebay worked really well for me- just threw on the most detailed, honest ad I could, set a start price that I was happy with, left everyone to it.

We Buy Any Car can be OK maybe but they can be terrible, they offered a rock bottom price for my brother's van then tried to work down from that (the bit I remember was, it'd been rear ended and had a smashed in bumper. He declared the broken bumper, but they then tried to argue it down based on scratches elsewhere on the wrecked bumper that he didn't declare.) So he told them to bugger off and ebayed it for twice as much.

Just be weary about eBay'ing it.

I tried selling my old van a month or so ago and I still have it, thats how successful the auctioning went. I placed the ad for a spares or repair with a totally accurate description, had a flurry of "can i buy it now, out of eBay" type of questions to which I replied no. Started the bid at £50 as I know the van just needs a bit of work on the engine and the bids flew to £285 within a week.. 1st buyer did exactly the same as ^^ he started to ask about a cheaper price out of eBay and PayPal and so I killed that bid, placed "none payer" on his bid via eBay and they let me realist it. 2nd re-listing and the same thing happened, similar questions, same outcome "can I buy it out of eBay for XXX less than I won it for" and again I placed a "none payer" on him too.. and the 3rd listing reached £400 and again ended with a none payer.

I have given up for the time being, I'm storing the van off road in a garage wondering whether to spend £400 on it to get it fixed and use it again, or just sell it..

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is just expect a bit of hassle if you stick it on eBay.

I used Gumtree to sell my high mileage Megane, as it's free it may be worth a shot. Mine was a very pain free transaction, the guy turned up, had a look, haggled a bit and handed me a fistful of used banknotes.

I've used ebay successfully for my last few car sales -in each case got way more than I would have on trade in or from webuyanycar... I'd recommend it.

FWIW my tips are:

Honest description and photos of any defects. Also refer to service history if you have it.

Set the starting bid for the lowest you'd reasonably take for it. BIN for the list price (check Parkers / motoring.co.uk or just have a gander at similar models / mileage on autotrader).

Don't put your mobile number on the listing - contact only through ebay. Only give your personal contact details to people you've sussed out as genuine buyers.

Make it clear in your listing that you won't accept offers outside of ebay and that anyone doing so is wasting their time - you'll still get the odd message with silly offers but just ignore them.

Say you want deposit on completion of sale, balance cash / draft on collection.

Anyone messes you about just relist it and don't be shy of reporting anyone who stitches you up to ebay.

I hate to say it but I got rid of our very old XC90 yesterday - took it to webuyanycrap.
...
All in all I'd say they were pretty fair and paid more than I would have got on eBay.

I'd be very surprised if that was the case - how old and how much did you get?

(I got way more than I was expecting on ebay for my very scruffy but decent running 13yo 406 - was brutally honest about it as advised above, but that didn't seem to put people off as much as I expected)

am bo - Member
I had a tax disc with 3 months to run on the car. I got back two months worth. The new owner had to buy tax now rather than when the 3 months expired, so somewhere along the line an extra month of tax has been paid for.

1 day of that month had been used, meaning that month is written off.

Simples.

I hate to say it but I got rid of our very old XC90 yesterday - took it to webuyanycrap.
They knocked 10% off the price quoted online as it probably had quite a few more scratches and bumps on it than I'd put in originally.
The test drive was 10 meters forwards and 10 meters back again! Luckily she didn't try the stereo as it died at the weekend and, seeing as it's a fibre optic system that also controls the satnav, phone and reversing sensors, it would be pricey to fix.
All in all I'd say they were pretty fair and paid more than I would have got on eBay.

I got offered £135 for my golf on webuyanycar. Sold it for £350 on gumtree. I wouldn't recommend it unless it has some huge problem which is about to go bang, or is only worth scrap value.

Gumtree and ebay would be my first choices.

I'd be very surprised if that was the case - how old and how much did you get?

'52 plate (one of the first in the country), 91.5k. Big dent in one wing, 4wd broke years ago, reversing sensors gone, dropped into limp-home mode the other day for no apparent reason, needed a cam belt and various suspension warnings on MOT advisory, also needed new exhaust and the stereo had just died - fairly big issue to fix. Headlights getting crazed and cruise control would switch off if you hit a bump.
Served us well for nearly 13 years but needed to move on.

WBAC paid £3k while the best I've seen from the same year on eBay got £3850.

Frankly I wouldn't have been happy selling it privately.

My experience of eBay was similar to B.A.Nana, in that someone treated the winning bid as a starting point for negotiations when they came to collect the car (with their two mates).

I can see why people want the low hassle option of webuyanycar etc

I used gumtree recently, but would have gone to ebay in the end.

I would adopt the same process – very honest description + make it very clear what you will and will not accept. i.e.tell people not to bid if they won’t pay the end price in cash within 7 days. Type it 5 times if you have to.

1 day of that month had been used, meaning that month is written off.

Simples.

And if I sold it on the 31st. i get the whole next month back, but the buyer has to buy all of the previous month.

Like I said, the taxman is getting a whole extra month every time a car sells.

Got £500 via eBay for our 15 year old Bora just before Xmas, few bumps and scrapes but honestly described, no issues, buyer turned up, went for a drive with me, paid cash, job done.

Going to sell my properly battered (not a straight panel on it but mechanically reliable) Hilux on there in a week or so and as long as I get more than the scrappy will be happy.

You could do a classified ad on ebay. I sold my camper at a fixed price.
My buyer came and looked, haggled and left a deposit, collected a week later after a bank transfer.
No hassle at all