Secondhand car price crash? (Vol. 2)

I'd support that. Maybe a similar fine for brake lights not working etc.

Re scuffs and scrapes, many private sellers advertise their cars for sale with these. In some cases repairs would probably cost a grand or two, but the cars are still advertised at top retail money.

Problem with brake lights is unless someone tells you it's a very easy one to miss.

I try to check all our bulbs regularly but only noticed my wife's car had a brake light out whilst following her to the MOT test centre. When we arrived I told them it was out and asked if they could change it before the test. But they failed it anyway and then replaced the bulb. Bit annoying as the MOT history now looks like we don't care about maintenance which is far from the truth.

Good to know you check yours daily, well done.

So many cars you see clattering along with black smoke coming out.

I think a lot of people think they do maintenance during the MOT test.

Quiet thread, obvs everything is fine!

Kia/ Nissan in Yeovil today, one person browsing, only 2 on in sales. Great march, terrible April they said. Certainly no need for more people in sales, just valeting and servicing.

I think it was the last vol where I posted some falling trade values on a particular car, which was chopped in for a ford which turned out to be a disaster. The trade in came back as it hadn't left a compound, now worth 20% less than when it went in, just from sitting about!

Naturally retail prices have hardly moved. Well played dealers!

based on trying to sell my car (including using Motorway), my experience is that selling privately, there are not many takers in the £15k-£20k range, even for a premium brand.
Not even getting the usual spam / timewaster wanna be gangstas & pimps offering "£12K cash (freshly printed) take it away tonight bruv" are buying.

Trade prices for my car are low, where as the retail is still at a premium, as is anything I would be looking to buy, meaning the cost to change to get in a similar car is more than expected.

I must be really lucky then, I always sell privately £10k-£35k. Plenty of people either with cash or getting their finance at lower rates than in the trade while preferring to pay less than retail.

Thats the key, pricing less than retail. Alot of the private sales the last few years are on par with retail, with quite a few looking more expensive. When you consider the additional risk of buying private and the lack of part ex, finance , warranties etc it's always been the way that the private sale price reflects that.

I often bought privately as I liked chatting to the owner and understanding more about the car, it normally ends up a win win for both buyer and seller, but these last few years with silly prices and the likes of WBAC, motorway and others desperate to mop up stock offering decent prices private car sales have really dropped off.

And now with IRs the way they are, even personal loans are over 7% and that's if you can get that rate, and on the flip side getting 5% on savings many don't want to use cash. So alot of things stacked against private sales at the minute, but with the big buyers lowering their offers and trade in prices less then what they have been, it can still work out well for both buyer and seller doing things through a private sale.

I think a lot of private sellers dont want to be bothered trying to sell to the general public. People expecting something for nothing who then get butt hurt when you wont accept their offer of half your asking price "for cash mate" (as opposed to....?). Roll that in with the amount of scammers, thieves, trade buyers trying to buy your car for a song and stories of people being threatened with court action months down the line when a private sale car is "not as described".

Bit of trade observation, it was noticeable this past week how a lot of the dealership car parks and over flow compounds that where stacked full of part ex change cars and PCPs are now cleared or certainly far less congested; I can actually find a parking space!

Can only assume BCA and Manheim have ploughed through the mass churn of cars from March plate change and prices may start to stiffen up as supply gets reduced.

I wonder if anyone’s WBAC price quotes have gone up since March?