Evening.

I have an MX-5, which is lovely, but it has to go. I’ve not much spare cash, so I thought I’d have a look around and see what I could get for it P/X.

I trotted off to a local car dealership this afternoon, where they have a Mazda 5 I like the look of. The guy offered me less than £5k for mine, which was a bit of a surprise. The fella didn’t even look at my car.

I then went over the the local Mazda dealer (where I bought my car) and they offered me £6k, but the problem is they don’t have any of what I’m after.

So, it’s a bit of a no brainer that I will get more money if I sell my car privately. Trouble is, I have never done this and don’t know where to start. I wouldn’t even know how much to advertise it at, there don’t seem to be many of my model for sale.

Autotrader? I know it costs a few quid but I wouldn’t mind this if it actually sells.

Gumtree?

Ebay? I have no idea how to use ebay and have no clue on what the fees might be.

The car is very shortly due to be taxed, serviced and MOTd. Are these really big selling points to prospective purchasers? Is it vital I get it all extended?

Thanks all.

Mot and service are big things tax is not so big

My first ports of call for a new vehicle are local paper and gumtree , no success there i go to ebay classifieds ( not auction just the classifieds)

Wont you get more demand for a rwd sporty car in spring though ?

Wont you get more demand for a rwd sporty car in spring though ?

Probably. It’s nearly February though – that’s spring enough for me! 😆

Have you had a look at your cars value on Whatcar.com and parkers.co.uk?

If you are happy with £6k, then go back to the original dealer with the Mazda 5 and tell them that you’re up for a deal if they can get to the £6k.

You also need to look at what they are selling the Mazda 5 for. If it’s a really good price, then they might not have much profit to possibly over allow on your MX5.

If you can get near to what you want from a dealer without having to tax, service and MOT it, then happy days.

I’ve just been through this. I got about ~£500 less for my car traded in than I could have selling privately. For me, the convenience of moving it on, not getting robbed/stabbed/visited by wierdos is worth the £500.

Vauxhall do free valuations on their site. They’ll give you trade and trade retail values, private sale is a bit (~£500?) less than retail. Have a look on Autotrader at similar cars both private and trade and you’ll get an idea of the numbers involved.

For my money, if it comes out at a grand or less than the trade in the garage are offering, I’d go back and negotiate both ends of the deal. Get money off purchase price, get money on trade in then go for the extras (fuel, mats, servicing, tax, extras, freebies etc). Keep going until you’ve bored the tits off both you and them and when they’ve told you ‘no’ at least half a dozen times (and stopped the ‘I’ve got to talk to my manager pantomime’), you’ve probably gone as far as you can.

Ooh…

Whatcar – Dealer price £7704, Private £7148, P/X £6447
Parkers – Dealer price £8805, Private £7770, P/X £6990

Interesting. There is a dealer near me selling an identical car for £10495! It has less mileage though, but what a difference!

Thanks chaps.

wallop – Member
Ooh…

Whatcar – Dealer price £7704, Private £7148, P/X £6447
Parkers – Dealer price £8805, Private £7770, P/X £6990

Interesting. There is a dealer near me selling an identical car for £10495! It has less mileage though, but what a difference!

Thanks chaps.

Have a look at the values of the cars you’re interested in as well. That might make for very interesting reading!!!!

On the Whatcar.com website, you can get a cars value from it’s registration number.

The car I looked at at the first dealer is over priced by about £1300!

Sounds like they offered you the deal of the century!!!!

Can’t believe you didn’t bite their arm off 😆

It might be worth having a look at the completed listings on Ebay to see what similar MX5’s have sold for.

I do hope youre not planning on buying a mazda 5 diesel…. If you are do a web search for mazda dpf problems.

A new DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) will range from £1500.00 – £2500.00 (+Labour & +VAT). We can remove the entire DPF for a fraction of this cost and you’ll never have to worry about it ever again.

😯

Thanks for the heads up on that one…. actually I seem to recall my husband talking about that to someone. Hmmm…

stick it on Pistonheads, it’s free

Ebay completed listings are a reasonable way to get an idea of value as it’s easy to search listings.
Pistonheads is popular these days – the key i’ve found to getting an easy sale was get it cleaned thoroughly inside & out, get a new MOT on it, and if you advertise online get some decent photos – one from front quarter, another rear quarter, engine bay & inside does the trick as a minimum.