Ask the Expert: Where is the best place to sell a used car privately?
Dear Alex,
I want to sell my 2012 Volkswagen Golf GTI. I’ve always preferred to buy used cars from small, reputable local garages or dealers rather than a private seller, because of the peace of mind offered by the former and having been stung once by the latter. But as a seller, presumably a private sale will allow me to achieve a better price than selling to a garage. What else do I need to consider?
– SB
Dear SB,
You will definitely get the best price by selling your Golf privately. Where to sell it, however, isn’t immediately obvious.
Auto Trader is the largest used car classified advertising site, with a whopping 75 per cent of the market. Its advertising fees are reasonable, starting at ￡18.95 for two weeks, rising to ￡45.95 for its “keep your advert live until sold” service which runs for 10 weeks and then can be renewed free of charge.
But given your Golf is a GTI, you might be better off pitching it to enthusiasts, in which case Pistonheads is probably the most relevant place. Your advert won’t reach as many people as it might on Auto Trader, but a far greater percentage of the site’s users will be browsing for hot hatchbacks. There’s only one advertising rate, ￡29.99 for 30 days.
Also try eBay, where you can either set a car advert as an auction or as a classified. At ￡14.99 for an auction, plus a final value fee, or ￡19.99 for a 30-day classified ad, it’s the cheapest option. However, having sold several cars on eBay, I’ve found the experience to be demoralising, with auctions suffering from too many speculative bidders who cancel their winning bids within an hour of the auction ending (as they are now permitted to do), along with lots of time-wasters sending low offers on classified ads.
Finally, there’s Facebook Marketplace, which is free – but again you tend to get quite a few chancers making cynically low offers in the hope of getting a bargain.
For a car of your Golf’s value and calibre, using either Auto Trader or Pistonheads makes the most sense. Don’t forget to price it competitively, though – look at the values of similar cars on your chosen platform and take a little off the prices of cars being sold by dealers, which always command a higher value than private sellers’ thanks to their ability to offer warranties, finance and so on.
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