Seriously. I understand why people trade in.

[Chicane-UK]

J B L said:

Whilst the experiences I read in this thread make me laugh and cringe in equal measure, I must say I must have lived a very sheltered life.

I only sold 3 vehicles privately over the 9 years I lived in England.

- MGF: 2 viewings, 2nd man bought it after some light haggling, got what I wanted for it.
- Golf TDi mk6: 1 viewing, sold. No problem. a few retarded emails but nothing offensive, just chancers.
- Yamaha R1: 12h from going onto ebay to being loaded in a van. Couple of text messages, 2 phone calls, done.

So it's not all bad... and I live close to Coventry

I live IN Coventry - and whilst it has it's share of cretins (but then where in the UK doesn't?!), there are some of us here who can conduct ourselves correctly in private car sale & purchasing negotiations

That said - my last few car sales have been to dealers / traders as I didn't want to risk dealing with the nut jobs out there. But I have sold several cars privately and aside from some mild time wasting, never had any real problems!

Best guy was a chap who showed up to buy my MK4 Golf TDI. I advertised it at a fair price and with details of any issues it had. He shows up, we have a test drive. He likes the car, makes a fair offer which I accept. He then says "Right. Now you have the money - are there any other problems I need to know about?" - I say nope, other than it has developed an extremely slow puncture on one tyre very recently - seems to need topping up every few weeks. He says fair enough, hands over the cash and he's on his way. Not before pointing out he's in the armed forces, he knows where I live, and if the car is hiding some terrible fault he'll be back to seek a refund! I said I had nothing to hide - it was a good car. And he was off on his way. Never heard from him again.

Edited by Chicane-UK on Friday 6th March 13:40

Edited by Chicane-UK on Friday 6th March 13:41

[mccrackenj]

Falsey said:

Sump said:

mccrackenj said:

Selling a brand new tyre (was on a car I'd just bought but didn't match the other 3 Michelins so I replaced it). Anyway, advertised for £18, and got a text saying "I'll give you £15 cash. Today!"

Haggling over £3 I ask you?

Who the utter fack wants to start dealing with coins? £15 seems perfectly reasonable here on the convenience aspect. Let's get realistic here, no one is ever going to give a toss about the £3, infact, who even advertises it at such an odd number in the first place?!

I sold a pair of headlights for a BMW 1 series for 97p on ebay. The guy came to pick them up and I tried to give them to him for free, but he insisted on giving me a whole £1.

He sounds like me. My wife, on the other hand, would have given you another £1 as a tip for your time.

[mccrackenj]

MarkBT52 said:

funkyrobot said:

My fiancee's brother, who lives in Surrey, just sold his Y reg Mercedes S Class.

He put the car up for sale and within a couple of days thought he had a buyer. The chap who wished to purchase the vehicle was from Romania. Unfortunately, my fiancee's brother decided to do the deal from his house.

The chap turned up to collect the car and just to show how friendly he was he brought three big blokes with him. A bit of intimidation started and the price was haggled down from £2000 to £1400. Money exchanged hands but before the Romanians left, one then demanded fuel money. Apparently, because my fiancee's brother lives in a nice house, the chap said 'you live in big house so you can give us diesel money'. This part of the deal wasn't agreed and the term 'fook off' was used. It wasn't very pleasant.

The Romanians left in the car. However, the chap is now away on business for a few days and he is worried because his pregnant wife is alone in the house. I'm sure everything will be fine as they have good security and she isn't stupid. Not good though.

So, if ever I sell a car privately, I'm meeting the potential seller in a car park miles away from home.

I had a very similar thing happen when selling my A8.
First they were late turning up with no messages, so I had left to go out to play snooker.

Then I get a call saying they are there can they have directions. So I arrange to meete them at a petrol station since I'm not at home.

Turned up with 3 huge guys, and then proceeded to tell me all kinds of rubbish about what was wrong with the car and offered something stupid.

I feel very lucky that I was at a well lit CCTV forecourt in the end because they were obviously going to try the intimidation thing.

So I said no to their offer and left.

I once sold a lovely 1968 Rover 3500 (or to be really beardy a "three-thousand-five" as the very 1st V8s were called). Anyway, arrranged to meet a chap from RoI so I drove down to a hotel on the border with a chum. He arrived with his 2 sons, who drive and prepare rally cars. In their rally support van, cum mobile workshop!

Then they basically start to dismantle the car in front of me in the hotel car park! It looked like a rally service area, car up on stands, bits of it everywhere, them looking for every fault they could find.

Eventually they chipped me down a fair chunk from the asking price, put it all back together again, and drove off with it. I have to say they were very pleasant about it but it was an experience I don't want to repeat.

When they'd gone, and my mate and I recovered over a pint, all we could do was laugh at the thought of it. Or the notion of them effing off and leaving us with the car in bits in a car park 40 miles from home.

[longblackcoat]

Turkish91 said:

+1 also keen to hear what car it was out of interest...

I hate these people who offer over the phone/email before even seeing the car. Boils my piss!

Hate away then. I always do this because if I'm travelling any significant distance I want to know if there's room for movement. Typically if a car's up for £7000 and I think it's really worth £6k, I'd say to the seller that if it's in the condtion described, it's worth £6k to me. If we agree on price, then I agree to turn up at the agreed time, no further negotiation, cash in your hand etc.

Gives them the chance to assess and see if it's the right ball park - otherwise there's no point me wasting my time and theirs, is there?

[mccrackenj]

mazm3 said:

Its payback for the sellers who describe cars as mint and get you to drive halfway across the country too see an absoulute heap.

I drove 300 miles once to view an M3 which the seller had used somebody elses photos to advertise it!! They werent even photos of the same car!! The only thing they had in common was the interior and exterior colour

There's a lovely looking Mercedes W124 for sale very close to me, £1,250. I know it's lovely because the picture is from Cheshire Classic Benz (look them up).

Maybe it's not the same car?

[mccrackenj]

9mm said:

I couldn't care less what you think of me but I'd suggest there's some powerful learning in there for you if you look deep enough. I share that stuff with friends, not the masses. I think there's a thing called Facebook for people who have those needs.

Jes*s who the F**k is this bloke? It's an exquisite trick being able to balance on one's high horse while simultaneously having ones head up one's @rse.

[johnxjsc1985]

mccrackenj said:

Jes*s who the F**k is this bloke? It's an exquisite trick being able to balance on one's high horse while simultaneously having ones head up one's @rse.

[nick heppinstall]

Guys I've already said this once.... Lets not have the thread develop into a slanging match ...

[johnxjsc1985]

its all a bit of a game.My last purchase I wanted a certain amount in P/x so I advertised it on Autotrader and then went to view the car and when we discussed price I showed him my car on AT.
I put it at the top end of a private sale price and we agreed a price about £500 less than my advertised price which was exactly where I wanted to be.
I always go armed with the information required and I always stick to the my budget. Its amazing how walking out of a show room focuses the sale person's mind.

[VolvoT5]

bqf said:

I've sold many cars on eBay. Almost always genuine buyers and nice people. I sold my mint VW Touran to a young family who didn't even try to haggle, so I had the car detailed for them before sale - they turned up and were thrilled. Smiles all round.

Sounds like a case of nice buyer meets nice seller.... very rare!

Off topic but is the Touran a decent car and can the seats come out the back so it can be used like van as per other MPVs?

[iloveboost]

Chicane-UK said:

I live IN Coventry - and whilst it has it's share of cretins (but then where in the UK doesn't?!), there are some of us here who can conduct ourselves correctly in private car sale & purchasing negotiations

That said - my last few car sales have been to dealers / traders as I didn't want to risk dealing with the nut jobs out there. But I have sold several cars privately and aside from some mild time wasting, never had any real problems!

Best guy was a chap who showed up to buy my MK4 Golf TDI. I advertised it at a fair price and with details of any issues it had. He shows up, we have a test drive. He likes the car, makes a fair offer which I accept. He then says "Right. Now you have the money - are there any other problems I need to know about?" - I say nope, other than it has developed an extremely slow puncture on one tyre very recently - seems to need topping up every few weeks. He says fair enough, hands over the cash and he's on his way. Not before pointing out he's in the armed forces, he knows where I live, and if the car is hiding some terrible fault he'll be back to seek a refund! I said I had nothing to hide - it was a good car. And he was off on his way. Never heard from him again.

Edited by Chicane-UK on Friday 6th March 13:40

Edited by Chicane-UK on Friday 6th March 13:41

You had someone threaten you whilst you were selling him the car?! I'd have told him the sale is off unless he's happy with it. No one should physically threaten you like that.

Guess he doesn't know you, and could have been un-knowingly sold a car with serious problems. Still, what a **** (fill your own insult in!).

Edited by iloveboost on Friday 6th March 16:06

[KTF]

VolvoT5 said:

Sounds like a case of nice buyer meets nice seller.... very rare!

Off topic but is the Touran a decent car and can the seats come out the back so it can be used like van as per other MPVs?

I dont think so but you can take them out of the Sharan.

[Chicane-UK]

iloveboost said:

You had someone threaten you whilst you were selling him the car?! I'd have told him the sale is off unless he's happy with it. No one should physically threaten you like that.

Guess he doesn't know you, and could have been un-knowingly sold a car with serious problems. Still, what a **** (fill your own insult in!).

Edited by iloveboost on Friday 6th March 16:06

Yeah - reading that back it sounds bad, but at the time it didn't come across as overly threatening and more light hearted. But it's a fair point.

[cplmadison]

wish i partexd mine, had my Dodge Caliber 2.0 CRD on various websites for 2 weeks now and only had 1 call (hes coming to see it tomoz apparently) and 3 scammers , 1 of which hacked my autotrader account and changed the price and phone number, weird autotrader scam.

So much stress arrrrgh !

someone buy it ! Dodge Caliber 2.0 CRD SXT (VW tdi engine) 58k miles 56 plate excellent condition £3500 you know you want it

[ZX10R NIN]

Toaster Pilot said:

I find eBay even worse than trying to sell a car via classified ads (although Gumtree runs close) - far too many people "win" an auction and then never turn up to buy

You do understand that when you put a car up for sale as a Classified there is no Auction to win!

[GTID]

I've had mine advertised for nearly 2 weeks and had 3 time wasters ruining my weekend by not turning up. Then a dealer offering a frankly ridiculous £1000 less than what its advertised for. WBAC may be getting a phone call very soon!

[Toaster Pilot]

ZX10R NIN said:

You do understand that when you put a car up for sale as a Classified there is no Auction to win!

What difference would using eBay for a classified ad make over any of its competitors? I made the assumption anyone "chucking it on eBay " was doing so with an auction format listing

[Pesty]

bigkeeko said:

Here`s the car here.





Car (now) has zero issues and is spot on. I replaced or repaired anything needing done. Cheapest anywhere.
Apparently not enough though.


Oh and "Is the 6.1L V8 ok on fuel?" question. That was another head scratcher.

Edited by bigkeeko on Tuesday 3rd March 15:42

Edited by bigkeeko on Tuesday 3rd March 15:45

Edited by bigkeeko on Tuesday 3rd March 15:47

Wouldn't have thought you would get grief with a vehicle like that. It's a pretty specialist vehicle.

Old mondeo I can understand tyre kickers

[bqf]

VolvoT5 said:

Sounds like a case of nice buyer meets nice seller.... very rare!

Off topic but is the Touran a decent car and can the seats come out the back so it can be used like van as per other MPVs?

I love the Touran - v practical. Yes you can totally remove the rear seats and make a van. Seats are heavy though

[Fastchas]

VolvoT5 said:

Sounds like a case of nice buyer meets nice seller.... very rare!

Off topic but is the Touran a decent car and can the seats come out the back so it can be used like van as per other MPVs?

Ex wife has a '58 reg 2.0tdi sport. It's ace! You don't get the emasculated feeling you get in other mpv's. Great build quality, handling, spec. I'd advise anyone to have one.
And the seats all plug out.