Our trusty 09 plate Zafira has reached the end of the road (with us anyway). Just shy of 170k on the clock, still goes OK (under 40mph!) but head gasket needs replacing.

Want shot of it but doubt attempting to trade in would get me far!

I can see that people sell sickly cars like this on FB marketplace for a few hundred quid, that sounds like a good way to go. Other than the rear wiper motor being defunct there’s not much else wrong with it.

Realistic? Any tips? What do I have to do regarding paperwork etc should someone want it?

This is our 3rd ever car – traded in the last one, the one before was murdered by my brother in law. I let him deal with the crime scene.

Trade in might be possible- I traded in a car with significant faults which I told the dealer all about. They just punt the old stock to auction so weren’t too bothered….

I traded in my old van – was up front with the dealer that it had real issues with starting. He wasn’t bothered – gave me a £1000 against a new van (on top of a 30% discount because the new van was pre-registered). But that was 5 years ago when it was a buyers market for new vans.

I did check and my old van had been MOT’d by someone after me so I guess it still had some life in it

I’ve Ebay’d a few old rot boxes, no reserve – prolly won’t get much but as long as you’re utterly honest, people won’t complain.

I sold my C-max before Christmas for scrap via an online “scrap my car” type site, they paid £300 and collected it.

And that was after I’d stripped out miscellaneous bits like the towbar (£40) and stereo (£40), wheels (£275, swapped for knackered winters), I even took all the bulbs out as spares! Their only criteria was that it was complete and could be driven onto the trailer.

Webuyanycar and keep quiet about any issues 😉

If you just want rid then there plenty of operations buying ‘any car’

You can get good prices for sick cars if you want to on ebay. Write the most comprehensive  description of the car’s faults and things thats are good – things that have been replaced in the last few years / x-thousand miles – some people are looking for a fixer upper and they’ll buy if they are confident the faults are within their abilities to fix. Some people are looking for a donor car for parts – so they’ll buy if they know the good bits they want are good.

you might be surprised at what you can get – most sellers are too keen to reassure the buyer the car is good – what buyers  want to know is whats bad

I told my last car via Gumtree, easy enough and free too.

You can try We Buy Any Car?

I used them many years ago, for the test drive all they did was switch engine on, reverse backwards 2m and then forwards 2m, switch off engine.

The guy didn’t look at any of the mechanical points on the car he just inspected it for cosmetic blemishes, quickly glanced under the boot to make sure an engine was present. He checked the service book had stamps, didn’t care about what the services carried out actually entailed or the receipts I had kept, he just wanted stamps in the book.

Don’t know if mine was odd case or they are all like that?

But if your car can pretend to be a good runner long enough to pass that check it might be worth a go?

I go on the basis that if a dealer doesn’t ask I don’t tell. Let them look round and make you an offer, keep your mouth shut!

The last 3 cars I’ve traded in have had issues which to me were financially unviable to fix.

I should add if selling privately be upfront about everything! 🙂

Current MOT will be up in April, annual service stamps in the book.

Online scrap-my-car idea sounds good but if it isn’t out of the question to trade in then might consider that.

I ditched my old Focus- which was pretty tired and needed a clutch slave and just basically wasn’t economically worth fixing- by putting it on ebay with a reserve of the scrap value + the diesel in the tank, and a really good description with lots of photos. No magic, just basically a competent listing. Sold it for not much less than I’d have expected it to go for in full working order.

Thing is, these days most used car ads seem to be absolutely terrible. So just by making the listing comprehensible and getting things like the engine size or gearbox type right, you’re already ahead of the game, and by giving people all the info they want you’re probably beating about 80% of all ads.

Does eBay actually work with cars? I can’t imagine buying a car without having had a shot in it first.

eBay does work – but I’d rather trade in at a lower price than deal with all the dick-heads that come out the woodwork.

– Car listed at £3000 – endless messages to say they can be round in 30 minutes if you’ll take £1500.

– No MOT? – they’ll still will want to drive it away despite the fact it’s falling to bits! 🙂

Be honest and if you sell it privately then video the transaction and get them to sign somit with a list of defect on it.

Latest scams are gumtree based and are based on buying shit cars and demanding money back for faults etc.

Me ? I’d sell it to a scrap yard. You might get a surprise at whet you get for it.

I got excited when I saw the thread title.

Evidently some people still use the word sick to describe things which are unwell rather than rad and gnarly.

Try cartakeback.

Evidently some people still use the word sick to describe things which are unwell rather than rad and gnarly.

I can carry 8 bikes and a kayak in/on it, that makes it pretty rad in my book.

eBay can work. I got well over twice what WBAC etc. were quoting, and three times some of the part-ex offers. As above, give a completely honest description of good stuff and bad stuff.

Had to deal with a load of tedious time waster messages, but only the final buyer actually turned up in person.

I think the gap in price was down to the specific spec and history of the car. Had WBAC made a better offer, I probably would have gone for that.

what engine is it? I had a signum with the 1.8 petrol head gasket go (same miles), threw a bottle of head gasket sealant in the header tank and it lived till I sold it (was very honest when I did).

I stuck it on facebook marketplace and gumtree for £500, had lots of calls

WBAC (and equivilent) were useless – there’s no trade value for cars of that age, I think they offered £20. Local scrappys were offering £300 – so if you want hassle-free that’s the best option (I figured selling it to someone who could use it for at least 8 months till the MOT expired was a ‘better’ end for the car)

when selling, you can do the V5 update online – https://www.gov.uk/sold-bought-vehicle – its instant, whereas doing it by post it 10-12 weeks at the moment

Latest scams are gumtree based and are based on buying shit cars and demanding money back for faults etc

Er, good luck with that.

Problems with used cars bought privately
Buying privately is one of the riskiest ways of buying a car. If something goes wrong with it you don’t have as much legal protection as you would if you’d bought the car from a dealer.

The car must match the seller’s description, be roadworthy and the seller must have the legal right to sell it to you.

In other words, the car must work, meet the legal requirements for being driven on public roads, and be owned by the seller.

But you are responsible for ensuring the car is “of satisfactory quality’’ and “fit for purpose” before you buy it.

Watch out for any unscrupulous sellers pretending to be private owners so they can offload faulty or stolen cars.

https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/your-rights-if-something-is-wrong-with-your-car#problems-with-used-cars-bought-privately

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/buying-or-repairing-a-car/problems-with-a-used-car/

the-muffin-man
Full Member

– No MOT? – they’ll still will want to drive it away despite the fact it’s falling to bits!

You can drive a car with an expired MOT away after buying as long as you’ve booked an MOT for it- which doesn’t have any common sense limits so you can get pretty creative, buying a car in John o’groats and driving it to your friendly local tester in Land’s End isn’t actually illegal. I think the same applies if it’s failed as long as it’s not got a Dangerous fault, though not 100% of that. Seems to be a lot more cars on sale with no MOT that have just not been being used through the lockdown and have timed out because the owner’s a div.

OTOH my brother sold a pickup with no rear axle and half the messages wanted to drive it away.

eBay, sold my 10 year old Audi with 160000 miles and a knackered multitronic gearbox, bought buy a guy and taken to Poland to be stripped for.parts
Though I’d get £500, had numerous offers of £1500 plus.

ebay did work for me but not before I was screwed over by an idiot who demanded by ebay messages that I sell it to them at their decided price on their terms, when I said no thanks they deliberately over bid with a dummy account to effectively ruin my auction out of spite. Luckily I had the name and number of someone genuinely interested in buying it like a normal person (a copper from Selby). I probably wouldn’t auction a car on ebay again but might consider selling at a set price (for them to view and then negotiate in person).
Unfortunately for whatever reason I’m not able to walk away from a shed without describing in detail every known fault. 2nd hand car salesman would not suit me.

You can drive a car with an expired MOT away after buying as long as you’ve booked an MOT for it

That’s about the only way you can get away with it – while I was driving for BCA, it was made very clear, and very often, that before picking up a car from anywhere, private address, dealer, business, etc, it was our responsibility to check with the DVLA or an online vehicle checker for the vehicles MOT status; if the MOT had run out, or was due to run out in the next couple of days, if it was a carry-over, we had to abort the pickup and report it. Under no circumstances were we to drive without an MOT. Our trade-plates covered us for insurance, but no MOT meant serious legal consequences.

Just a thought – it might be worth checking out Copart, see what they might offer.

You can drive a car with an expired MOT away after buying as long as you’ve booked an MOT for it

Did this very thing with a 15yr old motorbike yesterday, mind you it’d only done 2800 miles in all those years so not even run in 🙂

Does eBay actually work with cars? I can’t imagine buying a car without having had a shot in it first.

yes. The good thing with eBay compared to any other car transaction – as the seller- is rather than try to haggle you down buyer are bidding up.

You can achieve economical car ownership at the bangernomics level by buying from classifieds where you haggle the seller down then after a year or two selling on eBay where buyers bid each other up.

I had a couple of vans that I bought with taxed and mot, drove for a year, and sold without either for between £10 and £50 of what I bought them for.

Mate of mine used to work at a main Ford dealer and he said as long as it could drive on and off the auction plinth they were not bothered about other faults. This was obviously in relation to old cars that they were not going to sell at the garage, I was trading in a car with slipping clutch.