Buying cars off facebook

[anonymous-user]

In the recent crop of threads in GG a lot of people mention that FB seems to do well with offering cars for sale.

The thing is; how do you search/utilise it effectively to search out cars you are looking for?

Is it a case of searching for say 'BMW M3 for sale' or whatever or is there more of a savvy way or are there good groups or pages for this?

I often follow the usual paths like PH, AT and eBay

Any help appreciated

[TooMany2cvs]

If there's something specific you're after, then there'll be a group for it - and probably a For Sale group, too. If you're just looking in your local area for "something", then there'll be a local Cars For Sale group. It'll be full of wuckfits selling utter chod, of course, but...

If you're just after inspiration and are happy to travel, then don't even try - you'll go mad.

[davamer23]

My local cars for sale FB is full of wannabe traders selling death traps, I wouldn't.

[anonymous-user]

Thanks for the replies.

I guess it makes sense that a free advertising medium will be full of crap cars and street traders.

I'm just looking for an option over the usual sites as the majority for sale are from the trade and the private sales are either overpriced or snaffled up by trade.

I suppose I'm trying to find the untapped gold

[anonymous-user]

davamer23 said:

My local cars for sale FB is full of wannabe traders selling death traps, I wouldn't.

imagine a place worse than Gumtree for buying cars, then these are FB cars.

But if you want join local groups, and you will see the tat being hawked.

[Jakg]

lord trumpton said:

I guess it makes sense that a free advertising medium will be full of crap cars and street traders.

I'm just looking for an option over the usual sites as the majority for sale are from the trade and the private sales are either overpriced or snaffled up by trade.

I suppose I'm trying to find the untapped gold

You've got it in one unfortunately - Facebook are trying to add more structure with "Marketplace" but people just aren't using it properly.

I was after a specific car (Renault Sport Megane 175) and there just weren't enough out there for sale on AutoTrader / eBay - so I had to go to Gumtree & Facebook to try to find the rest.

The best way I found was just to search under "latest" on Facebook (it helps that the car I was after was unusual). Some posts were to model-specific pages, other to generic nationwide for sale pages, and some to locality specific for sale pages.

When I eventually found the right car, the seller was a little difficult (which makes sense considering how difficult the advert was to find in the first place!) but I got the car I wanted (that I just couldn't find anywhere) for a good price so it worked out in the end.

I like Facebook for the social side (friends) but for cars (buying or owners clubs). Information gets lost very quickly, there's no structure to find anything and the quality of users is, well...

[TooMany2cvs]

The Spruce goose said:

imagine a place worse than Gumtree for buying cars, then these are FB cars.

There are exceptions.

I've bought (well, swapped) one, and I've sold one this year on FB. Both deals went very smoothly, and everybody was happy. BUT - they were on car-specific groups, not on general local areas.