I’m looking to get rid of my Civic in exchange for a newer Focus. I cannot afford to buy the Focus without selling the Civic. I cannot wait to sell the Civic privately (plus it’s probably too expensive to sell privately). I guess I’m looking at part exchange.

I’ve never done this. What should I be aware of. Any tips on getting a good deal?

It’s a tenner to sell privately on eBay for cars.

You’ll gain a lot more money by selling privately.

Otherwise part exchanging your car is making sure it’s presented in its best light, clean tidy, if you have any mats with heel holes in throw them out.

If you spend a couple of quid on Glass’s guise for a valuation then you are in a better position than just looking on parkers price guide as it’s far more respected,when it comes to haggling.

Enter your detail into We buy any car and get a basline of what £ to expect.
What you think it’s worth bay be completely different to what the trader/ delay is willing to pay.

As above best deal will be to sell privately and haggle on the Focus as a cash buyer. PX-ing is for convenience. If you wish then just make sure the car looks presentable, the dealers are hardnosed and son’t care too much about you trying to tart it up, its quite likely they will pit the Civic straight into an auction.

Depends a lot on which kind of dealer. As above the bigger dealers will put cars straight into auction so will not budge on the original valuation. You will be better placed trying to get a deal on the car you are buying. Years tax, tank of fuel etc etc

Short term loan if you really need the money now. Though if money is tight and you’re considering trading in a car new enough that it would be difficult to sell privately in order to get new car depreciation then you’re mad.

plus it’s probably too expensive to sell privately

Not sure I understand that bit ?

Any tips on getting a good deal?

Do you actually need to swap to a Focus, or do you just want to?

If the latter, keep it.

.

Don’t get hung up on what the civic is worth PX. Just get the best deal you can on cost to change.

You’ll probably get more from Webuyanycar than from a dealer, and they’re dead easy and quick to use. As with anything though, they’re capitalising on your laziness and in this scenario there’s a lot of money at stake for a small amount of extra hassle. In my experience the best option is just to sell privately at an aggressive (ie low) price. You’ll sell within a week or so, and expect to get £500 or so more than the part ex / WBAC options.

Be aware that dealers might offer you an attractive part ex price to lure you in. Which is basically what is said above.

Just to balance, px can work…

Webuyanycar offered £60.
Privately at £500 we had no calls in two weeks.
Dealer gave us £500.
And new car was a cracking deal on top…

Thanks for the tips. I want to get rid of the Civic for several reasons. Overall its proved to be a bad buy. The wife also hates it – despite wanting no input into the car choice.

I’ve sold cars privately before but much older cars. This is 2010. Auto Trader suggests they are worth about £5-6K. I’m dubious about how easily it will be to sell this privately. We’ve only got onencar so if I sell this privately then I don’t have a car to go car shopping. Taxis and hire cars would soon wipe out the difference I suspect between PX and selling privately. Again though I’ve got little experience of this side of car buying.

Have you considered anything other than a focus and is it new or used that you are looking to buy?

Trade in is the easiest route.
You could sell it privately but there are a lot of timewasters, esp on ebay. If they did show up they will then try and haggle. There is also the hassle and worry of payments and them being reversed. Check cash carefully!

Like I say, trade in is easy, saves a lot of valuable time, you will get book price for the condition/mileage of your car (less than what you would retail it for because now the dealer has to try and make profit on it including the legal stuff you dont have to do as a private sale)
Honda Civics do sell reasonably well, so at least its a car the dealer will be interested in.

Yes, you can try and haggle the trade in price up a bit, it wont make any real difference as this margin will come of the deal on your new car so less movement on that.

I have only had one experience of webuyanycar and it was a bad one in that they tried to discount the price offered by nearly £350 using any paintwork blemish whatsoever on a 5 yr old car that other dealers and the eventual private buyer thought was pretty much mint for it age. Ymmv of course.
Best tip would be to negotiate cost to change then seek free servicing, extras etc. Next best tip, recognise a good deal when you hear it.

New car would probably have been an even better deal without the PX though – I doubt the dealer really gave you £500 for it compared to how much they’d have sold the new car for without the PX.

I’ve never sold a car for anywhere near that much, as that’s not the way I do cars, but I bought one privately for £3k over 20 years ago, which has got to be a similar amount allowing for inflation. I paid cash.

Decided on a Focus becuase both the wife and I have driven one for an extended period of time as work hire cars. We both really like it. Plus our Civic is diesel. We don’t need a diesel any more as we’re only doing short trips. I’d rather not have to deal with short trip related diesel issues. Much prefer petrol

Time is an issue. I plan to hang on until April-ish and save a bit more. However, we cannot be without a car for anything more than a week. Otherwise my wife cannot get to work, kids to childminder etc.

I went through the same scenario a couple of years back, it went like this:

Webuyanycar offered £400.
Tradein offered IIRC £700
Then the clutch broke and I sold it on ebay as a nonrunner for £500. Was a pretty simple process.

Buy a cheap, reliable run around with 12 months tax & mot for less than £1k. THen you’ll have all the time in the world to sell your civic for what it’s worth second hand. And you’ll have a few thousand pounds in your back pocket once you do sell it.

We’ve replaced both our cars this year. Both went on Autotrader. 55 reg Zafira and an 02 reg A4. In both cases, the calls started flooding in within 20 minutes of being online and both sold for full asking price to the first people to view them. Zafira was gone on 3hrs (which includes the time it took for the guy to drive 150 miles from Birmingham) and the A4 went same day in the evening (I had 4 viewings stacked up and the first guy bought it)

So probably much easier than you imagine (I certainly expected it to be a ball ache)

My top tips are: a
describe it very well including any faults – Be very honest and buyers will trust you.
Lots of photos
Explain why your car is the best out there
Price it keenly – somewhere between the webuyanycar price and the cheapest competition. Too greedy and you’ll still have it 2 weeks later

Can’t believe if you’re short of cash you’re thinking of taking on a more expensive car – are you mad? I bought an old Saab 95 estate a couple of years ago off EBay for £900. Ran it for a year and approx 10k miles and only thing I did to it was check the oil. Took some much better photos after a thorough valet and sold it on Autotrader after 12 months for £1,300. Why don’t you just sell the Civic, pocket the £5k you’d save and do similar if you’re short of cash?

Many car dealers base their trade in on what we buy any car will offer. One large dealer in the midlands says that’s what they do on their web site. I guess they use them as a kind of underwriter.

I would be very carefully with the ‘car buying houses’ as some have a bonus scheme for their ‘buyers’ to knock off between £500 – £1000 from the amount original offered on line?
Plus do they still take an admin fee at point of sale as well?
Do you have a relative or friend that you can borrow a car from for a short time, that would give you more options selling and buying?
I leant a friend a car for a month when he changed jobs and didn’t have one, he paid the insurance admin fee as that was the only additional cost and returned it with a full tank 🙂

I have sold cars for more than £6k on autotrader no problem at all, plenty of people won’t buy cars from dealers (me included). I wouldn’t rule out trade in, I know of people that have been offered more for a car than they were planning to sell privately, Honda Jazz, the dealer had someone waiting for one to come in.

Nowt wrong with a diesel civic (I’ve got one!), have you considered a divorce instead?

I don’t know why you feel £5-6k is too expensive for a private sale…its bang on what I normally spend on a car.

An afternoon giving it a proper clean and a polish, find a nice place to take some pics (in front of a park or similar) and take about 8 outside pics and 3 or 4 interior. Close ups of any notable scratches really increases the buyers confidence they are going to see an honestly described car.

Ebay, don’t set a reserve, just start it at your lowest acceptable price, or put it on at Buy it Now.

(2009 Civic Diesel here, it’ll hit 100k this week and I hope it’ll still be around in another 80-100k 🙂 )

I’m now tempted to go down the private sale route. Unfortunately I don’t know anyone with a spare car. Or even a second car.

I know loads of people like the civic. We’re just not getting on with it. I don’t trust the glass roof to carry any more than one bike on it for example. Its going. Oddly ever other car I’ve had has been a Ford.

another alternative which might work for you is to find a new car you like, put down a deposit and arrange to pay balance and pick it up in a couple of weeks, then advertise the Civic for sale (if you ebay you can fix the end date precisely, Autotrader not so much, but should shift quickly if you price keenly)

bang it on gumtree, sell it cheap, people will be biting your hand off

Try an ad on here?

The Honda Civic is a good buy second hand and the price range you are looking at I am sure there would be quite a bit of interest

we’re looking for a civic/astra sized car, although preferably petrol, as like you, we do short journeys. if the price was right tho we’d consider diesel.
wifes just passed her test and isnt comfortable with our large octavia.

if you only get offered derisory prices for your civic by all means get in touch and see if youd be interested in my ‘slightly above derisory’ offer 😀