Are cars hard to sell at the moment?

[fomb]

For a few months now we've been trying to sell a car, which is pretty good condition, has average mileage etc. We got a valuation from Parkers, which I know will be high, and that reckoned we'd be looking at getting 5-6K for it.

Well, a few months later we've still got it and can't get offers above 3.5-4K for it. WBAC will offer more. It was on Autotrader for six weeks, during which we got no calls, and it's been on EBay a couple times neither time reaching a price anywhere near what we would accept.

The puzzling thing is all the dealers selling the exact same car (it's a diesel Freelander) are pricing them at 6-7K and I would have to assume that at least some of them are selling.

Question is, is it just me, or is everyone finding it hard to shift cars at the moment?

[mike9009]

Any links to your adverts? Maybe we could give some guidance to the advertising?

Mike

[sawman]

They do seem to be hard to shift, I have had my forester in the classifieds here for a month or two off and on, but so far only one email query.

As an aside, there seems to be very few private ads on AT these days, almost all ads are dealers

[MondeoMan1981]

I'm selling mine and its been slow. Although to be fair I've resisted putting it into auto trader thus far, using other lower costs and free outlets, as there is no real hurry.

I've been looking online at potential replacements and there are a lot of cars seeming to be up for sale for ages - one car I was looking at is still for sale since this time LAST YEAR ! ....and the dealer has put the car up by £300....

Patience and no rash decisions are the order of the day just now I think !

[carreauchompeur]

Bizarre as it sounds, you can sometimes underprice a car. People look at it and if it's significantly cheaper than other things on the market will figure there's something wrong with it. Maybe try it just below what the others are selling for...

[snuffle]

At about the £6k mark it is too high for the majority of cash purchasers, dealer can sell because they can offer finance.


This is not saying your car is wrongly priced, it's just in the wrong price field .

[TomM]

Took 3 weeks to shift our 11 reg Polo last month, and sold my SL today after putting it up here on PH on Tuesday.

[fomb]

mike9009 said:

Any links to your adverts? Maybe we could give some guidance to the advertising?

Mike

Not sure if this is OK but here it is: http://pistonheads.com/sales/3708652.htm

Mods, if it's not OK, feel free to remove it.

[carreauchompeur]

Be a bit more explicit on the SH- Landrover or specialist? When? Mileages. Specify about things like the cambelt if it's near an important interval.

Oh, and get a new MoT. June is too short.

[snuffle]

Get a full MOT £50 max, smart repair on bumper £75, dont tell us it hasn't got noises that it hasn't got. boot polish the wear marks on the driver seat cushion.

Otherwise fine, just the problem of cash versus finance.

[Ozzie Osmond]

Hmmmm, an 8 year old car with 72,000 miles is not worth much money these days.

Note the ad' contains two "danger" words for the used market - "turbocharger" and "automatic".

[andy-xr]

So when's the MOT and whats up with the engine?

[RWD cossie wil]

Freelanders are a nightmare to shift it seems, lad I used to work with gave up trying to sell his as dealers were offering pocket money, & private he had about 2 calls in months of advertising.

I don't know a huge amount about them, but do they not have a rep for being nightmarishly unreliable & expensive to fix?

[Ozzie Osmond]

And also, what was the cost new in 2004? About £18,000?

Most cars lose around half their value in the first 3 years - so that's a value of £9,000 by 2007. We're now another 5 years on from there with depreciation at, say, £1,000 a year. You see where it lands.