selling a car privately - bit of a rant

[bluespit]

not sold a 'modern' car privately for many many years. For reasons not worth going into we've decided to 'upgrade' our winter car so Ive advertised it on a couple of the free listing websites.

Ive had at least 10 scammers, two offers at 50% of the asking price, another four have asked for the car to be delivered for viewing because their too far away. Four 'genuinely interested' buyers have arranged to come and view and none have shown up. wasting last night and tonight.

have these people nothing better to do and no common manners?

yet when I've sold classics its always be a straight forward, if a bit slow, process.

Rant over and looking for a dealer held car to PX

 

[mr wilks]

Much sympathy & empathy with you
Selling a used car privately has become a unpleasant experience for the mostpart .
Plenty of options on where to sell & at reasonable rates but you really have to brace yourself for the constant stream of low ballers , late night texts , timewasters & con artists
Ive had our 120d up for the last few weeks & had 7/8 different offers from different folks yet none viewed ?
Had to ban via ebay one persistent offender from any further contact & have stopped replying to any texts as you can usually suss out the knobs " Hi , what is the lowest you will take for the car " :headbang:

 

[maxman]

I usually sell privately ,sold my Mazda 6 two months ago.The buyer came up from Bristol.
I used Auto Trader, price is the key,there are loads of private sellers asking garage prices and wondering why they won't sell.

 

[Denis O]

The growth of "we buy any old s**t" companies is not a coincidence.

I recently sold my X5 privately, for a reasonable price and never had 1 muppet to contend with. I was probably just lucky.

 

[brightonbimmer]

I had my 2003 Porsche Boxster S listed on the free sites but had no replies yet due to the time of year, I suppose (except for one attempted scam). I found the Z4 at a used car dealer who specialized in reselling trade-ins received by a local BMW dealer and they were willing to consider the Porsche in trade for part value. Had I sold my car privately and then purchased the BMW, it would have cost me CAD 1625.00 more in sales taxes. When purchasing via a registered dealer, the 13% sales tax is payable only on the net difference in cost, not the full price as would be the case if I were making a straight purchase without trade. This is the case in Ontario, Canada.

 

[slick]

After a bad experience buying a car privately , I now only buy from a franchised dealer, ( the seller was an elderly lady , a magistrate no less )....and landed me with a bill for an engine rebuild two weeks after purchaes

 

[bluespit]

More wasted time yesterday. Young woman this time, really keen she said, exactly what I need she said, can't wait to view the car she said. I'll be there at three she said. Still waiting!

Think I'll trawl the local dealers tomorrow.

 

[TonyP]

On the flip side to this my wife & I recently bought her a brand new run about car to replace her ageing Ford SportKA, the dealer offered us £21 for it which was it's scrap value price, needless to say we advertised it on Gumtree & within 20 minutes a guy called, he was there within the hour, paid us £400 cash on the spot & took it away that evening, couldn't have been easier but I guess we were in a different market & were a bit lucky too.