How much have you lost on a used old car in a short period?
Discussion
Just wondering what people on PH have lost on buying and selling cars worth 3-7k?
My example is to scratch an itch bought a high mileage 99 Alfa gtv V6 in september 2019 for £4000 and sold it in february this year for £3000 as I wanted to sell it quickly. So a loss of £1000 in about 6 months. Burns a little but I enjoyed it.
My example is to scratch an itch bought a high mileage 99 Alfa gtv V6 in september 2019 for £4000 and sold it in february this year for £3000 as I wanted to sell it quickly. So a loss of £1000 in about 6 months. Burns a little but I enjoyed it.
Funnily enough mine was also an Alfa. 156 Sportswagon flew through it's first MOT then went terminal in year two. It ended up at the scrapper leaving me about £3k out of pocket. On reflection it was possibly my worst ever purchase but the decline was unbelievably rapid, especially as it was only bought as a tip runner and lead an easy life.
M22s said:
I try my best not to think about it (but of course I do). Unless something significant changed about the car I would have still expected to get about £4K. But the used market can be so variable.
Your Alfa is on my ‘to scratch’ list too though!
It’s a fun car (not that I’m trying to persuade you or anything Your Alfa is on my ‘to scratch’ list too though!
) can't remember said:
Funnily enough mine was also an Alfa. 156 Sportswagon flew through it's first MOT then went terminal in year two. It ended up at the scrapper leaving me about £3k out of pocket. On reflection it was possibly my worst ever purchase but the decline was unbelievably rapid, especially as it was only bought as a tip runner and lead an easy life.
What made you scrap it? I do lots of miles. My old 328ci had ruined it's rear axle mountings. I thought I'd buy a diesel as a sensible decision.
330d Sport, black, leather, xenon lights, bluetooth. 6 Speed manual, with sensible miles. Paid £2800.
Fitted a pair of thermostats, DSC pressure sensor, and wiper blades. Drove it 2,000 miles in a month.
Sold it for £1800 because I wanted something else.
Circa £1,200 for a months use of a 330d. What a moron.
330d Sport, black, leather, xenon lights, bluetooth. 6 Speed manual, with sensible miles. Paid £2800.
Fitted a pair of thermostats, DSC pressure sensor, and wiper blades. Drove it 2,000 miles in a month.
Sold it for £1800 because I wanted something else.
Circa £1,200 for a months use of a 330d. What a moron.
JakeT said:
I do lots of miles. My old 328ci had ruined it's rear axle mountings. I thought I'd buy a diesel as a sensible decision.
330d Sport, black, leather, xenon lights, bluetooth. 6 Speed manual, with sensible miles. Paid £2800.
Fitted a pair of thermostats, DSC pressure sensor, and wiper blades. Drove it 2,000 miles in a month.
Sold it for £1800 because I wanted something else.
Circa £1,200 for a months use of a 330d. What a moron.
I hadn't considered the maintenance/minor fix costs. I am sure I will end up doing something like this again.330d Sport, black, leather, xenon lights, bluetooth. 6 Speed manual, with sensible miles. Paid £2800.
Fitted a pair of thermostats, DSC pressure sensor, and wiper blades. Drove it 2,000 miles in a month.
Sold it for £1800 because I wanted something else.
Circa £1,200 for a months use of a 330d. What a moron.
Needed to replace ageing Passat estate for towing etc with another car,before it would start costing me money,so spent good while looking til i found 'exactly the right one',couple years ago.
2008 model, NON- DPF 2.0 TD high spec job, clean as a whistle,mint full heated leather interior, 82k on it ,no dog hairs or gummi bears,and full ream of stamped history,every service at dealer or indy,Gates cambelt recently fitted with documents to prove,happy days. Paid £4100 for it.
£350 getting a twin electrics towbar fitted.
Took it Devon 4 months later,fuel pump packed up.AA towed to a diesel specialist (AA originally diagnosed injectors!) . £400 later,back in business.
As it was going to be a long term car,couple months later I furnished it with 4 new tyres,and a full set of discs and pads.Why not. I know these are 'wearable' items,but going to list them anyway,as its all money for the purposes of the thread. Cost,around £600 total.
So 6 months of ownership. Another month goes by,and then it goes rapidly downhill.Coming back along the motorway,dashboard lights up like a xmas tree.Computer crying about take me to a dealer,I'm dying,you know the thing.Engine had made a weird whooping,whistly noise (?) so I've pulled over ASAP.
Didnt take a chance with oil light on etc so AA out again.Towed to a local garage I've used on and off for years (lucky it packed up at my 'home' junction.
Basically the oilpump has died,needs new one and balance shaft plus bits.Luckily I've shut it down quick enough to not lunch the engine.Got AA parts cover,they concur diagnosis and agree to pay the £500 cover towards the bill.Which in total is £1200.. so thats £700 from me.Not a happy bunny,but the AA man points out that when the pump goes like that ,the knockon effect is that the turbo usually gets borked as well.Phew,eh.
Car gets done,its had a shakedown but they tell me it seems to be running fine,all new fluids etc but itll need a good few miles on it.Right.
20 miles and couple days later,you guessed it,I'm going up a hill and BOOOOF the turbo lets go.Old fella behind me in his Skoda nearly has a coronary due to the sudden smokescreen and oil coming at him. AA wont now cover it again as the miles covered is so low,its a consequence of the first issue.
Search about and can get a recon turbo etc fitted and done for £850. Its at this point Im doing man maths,how much does this flunking POS stand me in, and the missus isn't happy either.God damn. But as it stands the car is worth jack,so kind of committed to getting it done,get it sold and not lose as much as i could.
So yeah, car stood me in around £6600 quid now,had it 8 months,and soon as it was back i put it up for sale.Managed to get £3300 quid for it,don't care,just get it off my drive.So around £3300 out of pocket in the 8 months.
Now some friends were of the opinion that hey,at least now everything fairly major is now done,tyres good,brakes tip top,might as well just keep it.
But I was just sick of the poxy thing,reckon I'd covered about 2k miles in it.And I felt it hated me,was just waiting for something stupid like the electric handbrake to bust its motors,or sensors of some kind,and I still had no confidence in it to do a long drive towing.So it went.Fairly local as it happened, (private sale,was hoping it would go somewhere miles away,not someone local).
Anyhoo,I had to go up to the garage again for something a while later,the guy i know there says.'oh,we've had your old Passat in here couple of times.Keeps going into limp mode and its had a couple or three sensors done as well'.
So knew i was right.Feel bad for the new owner,but not guilty as such.I sold it with brand new parts on it,and it was running fine when i advertised it. But it was the car from hell. I shouldve just kept the high miles 1.9PD one I had.Bad mistake.
2008 model, NON- DPF 2.0 TD high spec job, clean as a whistle,mint full heated leather interior, 82k on it ,no dog hairs or gummi bears,and full ream of stamped history,every service at dealer or indy,Gates cambelt recently fitted with documents to prove,happy days. Paid £4100 for it.
£350 getting a twin electrics towbar fitted.
Took it Devon 4 months later,fuel pump packed up.AA towed to a diesel specialist (AA originally diagnosed injectors!) . £400 later,back in business.
As it was going to be a long term car,couple months later I furnished it with 4 new tyres,and a full set of discs and pads.Why not. I know these are 'wearable' items,but going to list them anyway,as its all money for the purposes of the thread. Cost,around £600 total.
So 6 months of ownership. Another month goes by,and then it goes rapidly downhill.Coming back along the motorway,dashboard lights up like a xmas tree.Computer crying about take me to a dealer,I'm dying,you know the thing.Engine had made a weird whooping,whistly noise (?) so I've pulled over ASAP.
Didnt take a chance with oil light on etc so AA out again.Towed to a local garage I've used on and off for years (lucky it packed up at my 'home' junction.
Basically the oilpump has died,needs new one and balance shaft plus bits.Luckily I've shut it down quick enough to not lunch the engine.Got AA parts cover,they concur diagnosis and agree to pay the £500 cover towards the bill.Which in total is £1200.. so thats £700 from me.Not a happy bunny,but the AA man points out that when the pump goes like that ,the knockon effect is that the turbo usually gets borked as well.Phew,eh.
Car gets done,its had a shakedown but they tell me it seems to be running fine,all new fluids etc but itll need a good few miles on it.Right.
20 miles and couple days later,you guessed it,I'm going up a hill and BOOOOF the turbo lets go.Old fella behind me in his Skoda nearly has a coronary due to the sudden smokescreen and oil coming at him. AA wont now cover it again as the miles covered is so low,its a consequence of the first issue.
Search about and can get a recon turbo etc fitted and done for £850. Its at this point Im doing man maths,how much does this flunking POS stand me in, and the missus isn't happy either.God damn. But as it stands the car is worth jack,so kind of committed to getting it done,get it sold and not lose as much as i could.
So yeah, car stood me in around £6600 quid now,had it 8 months,and soon as it was back i put it up for sale.Managed to get £3300 quid for it,don't care,just get it off my drive.So around £3300 out of pocket in the 8 months.
Now some friends were of the opinion that hey,at least now everything fairly major is now done,tyres good,brakes tip top,might as well just keep it.
But I was just sick of the poxy thing,reckon I'd covered about 2k miles in it.And I felt it hated me,was just waiting for something stupid like the electric handbrake to bust its motors,or sensors of some kind,and I still had no confidence in it to do a long drive towing.So it went.Fairly local as it happened, (private sale,was hoping it would go somewhere miles away,not someone local).
Anyhoo,I had to go up to the garage again for something a while later,the guy i know there says.'oh,we've had your old Passat in here couple of times.Keeps going into limp mode and its had a couple or three sensors done as well'.
So knew i was right.Feel bad for the new owner,but not guilty as such.I sold it with brand new parts on it,and it was running fine when i advertised it. But it was the car from hell. I shouldve just kept the high miles 1.9PD one I had.Bad mistake.
Edited by BEAMS 162 on Monday 19th October 17:41
Edited by BEAMS 162 on Monday 19th October 17:46
I don't remember precise details but about 12 years ago, we bought a MINI Cooper S from a dealer for about £11k. Sold back to the dealer about 12 months later for £7.8k when we were expecting our first child. That hurt at the time.....
and we bought an Alfa 156 SW as a replacement.....
and we bought an Alfa 156 SW as a replacement.....
Beams, that was a good read but...jesus you were unlucky. If it's any consolation I would have done the same as you. That's really bad luck on what's supposed to be a reliable VW with low-ish mileage. (Wimmin don't help in our hours of need either.)
Similar happened to a friend - she bought a new Skoda Octavia estate and at about 70,000 miles everything started to go wrong - replaced turbo twice, fuel pump, oil pump, everything that could go wrong did.Ended up replacing the entire engine and after a couple of months something else major went wrong she was so fed up she sold it for scrap for £150. I would have bought it off her and tried to save the car but it was a wrong-un from the start.
Hope you've found something more reliable now. Fingers crossed for you.
Similar happened to a friend - she bought a new Skoda Octavia estate and at about 70,000 miles everything started to go wrong - replaced turbo twice, fuel pump, oil pump, everything that could go wrong did.Ended up replacing the entire engine and after a couple of months something else major went wrong she was so fed up she sold it for scrap for £150. I would have bought it off her and tried to save the car but it was a wrong-un from the start.
Hope you've found something more reliable now. Fingers crossed for you.
993kimbo said:
Beams, that was a good read but...jesus you were unlucky. If it's any consolation I would have done the same as you. That's really bad luck on what's supposed to be a reliable VW with low-ish mileage. (Wimmin don't help in our hours of need either.)
Similar happened to a friend - she bought a new Skoda Octavia estate and at about 70,000 miles everything started to go wrong - replaced turbo twice, fuel pump, oil pump, everything that could go wrong did.Ended up replacing the entire engine and after a couple of months something else major went wrong she was so fed up she sold it for scrap for £150. I would have bought it off her and tried to save the car but it was a wrong-un from the start.
Hope you've found something more reliable now. Fingers crossed for you.
Well yeah,bit of a story but hey,passes the time for you LOL.Similar happened to a friend - she bought a new Skoda Octavia estate and at about 70,000 miles everything started to go wrong - replaced turbo twice, fuel pump, oil pump, everything that could go wrong did.Ended up replacing the entire engine and after a couple of months something else major went wrong she was so fed up she sold it for scrap for £150. I would have bought it off her and tried to save the car but it was a wrong-un from the start.
Hope you've found something more reliable now. Fingers crossed for you.
Yeah the VW reliability thing has been a thing of the past for a long time from what i know. Saying that we have a 2011 VW engined Fabia 1.6D as the wifes car.Had it 6 years now and its actually been pretty golden.Uninspiring,agricultural but been a good car.Still running the dodgy VW emissions software too.
Reason for the towcar was because we had a caravan.. (yeah,yeah I know ). After the Passat wen,t we sold the caravan as well.I've always had my Beams engined 1987 Celica as a weekend car,but I needed another daily-ish ride. I work local so dont need to worry about a regular miler.So bought another ST205 GT4 instead
. Though with my recent need to pick the grandkids up from school and practicality reasons,I sold it on for a 4 door car. So now i run a Honda Accord Euro-R import 
Best of both worlds.And I dont have to tow anything either,ha.Sounds a similar thing with the Passat to the Skoda your friend had.You can do your due diligence,but when a car is a lemon,its a lemon .Like any bad relationship.....At some point you gotta get rid.
I had a 9 year old seicento a while back, which cost £1900 as it had 3k miles on the clock and was basically new. Problem was that low mileage was the only thing propping up it’s value. 18 months and 35k miles later I gave it to a friend to sell - it took 18 months for him to find anyone who was interested, and he managed to get £400 which he kindly split 50/50.
It wasn’t cheap when I owned it- breakdowns and £700 changing the braking system bit by bit, due to brake issues from being stored for so long by the previous owner.
It wasn’t cheap when I owned it- breakdowns and £700 changing the braking system bit by bit, due to brake issues from being stored for so long by the previous owner.
Just under three years ago I bought a Fiat 500S. Screen price £4500, paid £4400 a week or two before Christmas, with an unrepaired gouge in the bonnet. Dealer showed me his purchase invoice for £4300 or so, wanted to reduce his stock.. Felt I'd bought pretty well.
Had bonnet fixed, put on 2 new tyres, lovely car. 9 months later we are emigrating. Best trade offer I can get is £3300.
£1100 in 9 months not the worst outcome, but what really hurt was seeing it appear on a dealer website immediately afterwards at £4995...
Had bonnet fixed, put on 2 new tyres, lovely car. 9 months later we are emigrating. Best trade offer I can get is £3300.
£1100 in 9 months not the worst outcome, but what really hurt was seeing it appear on a dealer website immediately afterwards at £4995...
JakeT said:
I do lots of miles. My old 328ci had ruined it's rear axle mountings. I thought I'd buy a diesel as a sensible decision.
330d Sport, black, leather, xenon lights, bluetooth. 6 Speed manual, with sensible miles. Paid £2800.
Fitted a pair of thermostats, DSC pressure sensor, and wiper blades. Drove it 2,000 miles in a month.
Sold it for £1800 because I wanted something else.
Circa £1,200 for a months use of a 330d. What a moron.
Not as bad as my 330Ci; £5,250 for it from a dealer, had to spend over £2k chasing faults and sold it (fixed) after 14 months for £3,500. The constant breakdowns and depreciation hit are what inspired me to go leasing; figured if I was going to rinse £4-5k a year on getting around I was a) bloody well going to enjoy it, b) not spend my time waiting for a recovery truck or c) a garage to call with another wallet-raping number.330d Sport, black, leather, xenon lights, bluetooth. 6 Speed manual, with sensible miles. Paid £2800.
Fitted a pair of thermostats, DSC pressure sensor, and wiper blades. Drove it 2,000 miles in a month.
Sold it for £1800 because I wanted something else.
Circa £1,200 for a months use of a 330d. What a moron.
Ironically my E36 328i that preceded the E46 was the most reliable used car I've ever owned. I'm currently now wafting in a luxo-barge for peanuts a month.
Breaking your £4k-£7k rule but bought a 330D in January this year for £19k. Was doing about 500 miles a week (as I have been for almost the last 10 years) and thought I would get something nice for a couple of years and just take the hit come resale time after a lease deal fell through.
Then Covid happened and haven't been commuting at all since March. Put about 8k miles on it since I bought it and WBAC comes back at £16k.
If life stays like this for the foreseeable I don't even need a car, the wife and I could share one. Been thinking about getting rid of it and just taking the hit on it then can get something again when things go back to normal, but I know the minute I decide to do that it will be my luck that things go back to normal.
Then Covid happened and haven't been commuting at all since March. Put about 8k miles on it since I bought it and WBAC comes back at £16k.
If life stays like this for the foreseeable I don't even need a car, the wife and I could share one. Been thinking about getting rid of it and just taking the hit on it then can get something again when things go back to normal, but I know the minute I decide to do that it will be my luck that things go back to normal.
993kimbo said:
I bought a Grand Cherokee Jeep V8 privately and hated it so much due to the wallowy-ness in the corners and hateful mpg that I traded it in and lost erm, not much. Probably a grand.
Maybe two, maybe three.
I drunk-bid on one of these one night. Awoke in a cold sweat wondering what I had done, and was immensely relieved when I was outbid. It seems like the winning bidder must have got cold feet too, because I got a second chance offer but fortunately I had sobered up by then. Maybe two, maybe three.
Edit: in keeping with the theme that has emerged in this thread, I've currently got an Alfa 156 as well. It cost buttons and in two years it's needed a radiator, thermostat, belts (and water pump to be on the safe side) and four tyres. Love it, going to keep it as long as possible.
Edited by underwhelmist on Monday 19th October 23:43
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