Premium for trade seller over private seller?

[Zerosumgame]

Is it just me or does the premium between trade and private sales (on headline prices anyway) seem to be narrowing significantly? What kind of premium should there be for buying from a trade buyer when buying an identical car (assuming no extra warranty etc?l

[Scrump]

The last two cars I bought (one for myself, one for a family member) there was almost no price difference between private sales and main dealers. Both these were pre-covid purchases.

In general though I would not pay any premium if the dealer is a ‘back street’ type, but would pay a bit more for a main dealer car (although my experience is that I didn’t have to).

[samoht]

Legally there's quite a difference, buying from a dealer and if anything major goes wrong in the first six months you can take it back, and it's on them unless they can show the fault has developed since the point of sale. Private sellers there's very little practical come-back unless they've been foolish enough to lie in writing.


I think it's hard to discuss a premium without considering the price range.

If spending £80k on a used 599, say, I think most people would prefer to go to a dealer so I'd expect any private sales to be rare and at a notable discount (£5-£10k?).

If buying a cheaper, you'd expect any dealer at that level to be adept at evading their legal responsibilities anyway, so you might prefer to buy from a private seller so you can meet the previous owner face to face and get a feel for how they've used and cared for the car. At that level I'd expect dealer and private prices to be similar.


Also on some enthusiast cars, there are some dealers who build a reputation among the community for good stock, good preparation, honesty and aftersales support, and where many people might be prepared to pay a fair chunk more if they feel they're getting peace of mind.

[drgoatboy]

Always an interesting topic. I think a lot of private sellers see an equivalent car at a dealer for say £25k and think, well my car is the same as that but has 5k less miles on so must be worth more.
Well it's not. It's just you are being a bit optimistic and you are unlikely to sell the car. You see this a lot!

Maybe the more reasonable priced private sales just get sold really quickly so you always end up seeing the stuff that is overpriced?

This does of course depend on the price point. Selling realtively ordinary cars at £10k+ privately in my experience is pretty tough ....

[Jasandjules]

Oddly I found looking at cars recently that the private sales were very similar to the dealer prices and I was actually pretty surprised at the Main Dealer prices when they come with a 12 month warranty which is why we ended up buying from a main dealer (they also touch up the chips etc which other dealers were not keen to do).