Hopefully a simple one. We are changing cars and I have one to sell. My mother has just got a new one and I am taking her old one as a short term stopgap until the finances improve. I have a 55 plate Sportage to sell. It has about 130k on the clock and a big ding in the passenger door but apart from that is pretty sound. Valuation sites seem to be coming in around £1000 but similar looking cars are a good bit more on autotrader. I know that doesn’t mean they will make that and most are being sold by dealers. I don’t want two cars hanging around for long so what is the best way to get shot for a decent price? Is £1000 actually what it’s worth? Was expecting a bit more.

If by valuation sites you mean ‘we buy any car’ etc. then ignore them…

They reckoned the Ibiza that I sold recently was worth £128. I got £399 for it on ebay.

I would sell it on ebay (cos that’s what I did). I put it on with a 99p starting price & a probably over-wordy advert explaining everything about it – what worked, what didn’t, where there was any rust etc….

I had loads in interest & about 6 or 7 different bidders in the end. It crept up fairly evenly over the course of the week to £399 and the buyer paid cash.

I put a thread on here asking for advice on how to sell it on ebay at the time that had some good posts in it…..

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/selling-a-car-on-ebay-any-pitfalls-to-be-aware-of

Regarding it’s current value – dunno. Trawl Autotrader for similar cars & see what they are going for on there.
The advanced search on ebay is useful as well as you can select ‘completed listings’ and that will tell you what the car actually sold for, which is probably more useful.

Everything on Autotrader is overpriced IMO. It’s just a starting point for a negotiation.
You’d need to be selling with full 12 months MoT at that age/mileage.

Phone up local ‘We buy any car” types – they tend to have their own garage so don’t mind missing MOT’s and stuff, and can work out the dents themselves.

They tend to offer much more than the internet WeBuyAnyCar’s, but a bit below what you might get privately if you find the right buyer. The upside being they WILL take your car.

The local Facebook “cars for sale” group worked for me.

A few pics of the car and a detailed description posted up. It was gone the next day and £1300 cash in my hand, no fees. Car was a 2002 Seat Leon, webuyanycar offered less than a grand.

Whereas I got dragged across the coals on here for having the nerve to write a detailed description. Reduced it to nothing and lowered my price and still had no luck. Facebook has been useless, gumtree has been useless, now getting myself geared up for the inevitable avalanche of ebay dickheads or fling it to the auctions.

and lowered my price and still had no luck

If I remember rightly, you wouldn’t listen to those of us who kept telling you your car is not worth what you’re attempting to sell it for. You did reduce it, but not by nearly enough. You’ve an inflated view of it’s value and have let the MOT run down from a decent length to now a period of weeks by trying to sell too high.

I wrote up a short description for normal people and an epic description for fellow detail perverts, and some really good photos taken on a day with good light etc, slung it on ebay with a start price equal to the value of the alloys, the diesel in the tank and the remaining tax (*), and watched it go. Very painless though obviously could have been hassle, that’s ebay for you.

(* iirc this has changed now)

Thanks guys. Sounds like eBay might be a reasonable option or some local car buying people if such exist in my neck of the woods.

Clean it, take good photos, get a full MOT on it and write a no nonsense advert. Critically though, price it sensibly. Look at what online valuations say, eBay sold prices and current advertised prices then list yours on Gumtree at the mid-price of the similar examples. If the phone hasn’t rung after the first weekend, drop the price.

Stuck my folks 2000 Primera on eBay at 99p, no reserve on the weekend. Took an offer within a few hours. £250 (£100 more than any others I’d been following)

Likewise, sold two of my cars in the last year or so the same way, but for a few grand a piece.

As long as you get some interest (generate some of your own 😉 ) and people will bid if they think they’re losing out.