Selling a knackered car?

[randomman]

Cut a long story short the Mrs needs to sell her Skoda Fabia with a knackered head gasket. We can't afford the repair work (circa £600) on a car that is realistically only worth 1200. (W reg 100k on the clock)

Obviously we have auto-tradered, Pistonheads'd and gumtree'd (ebay can sod off!) but, as we expected, no one wants it. I would like in the region of £400 for it, but what are my options? Carry on throwing money into advertising or are there (semi) respectable places that would take a car like this and make a reasonable offer?

Open to all ideas.

Cheers

[*Al*]

randomman said:

Cut a long story short the Mrs needs to sell her Skoda Fabia with a knackered head gasket. We can't afford the repair work (circa £600) on a car that is realistically only worth 1200. (W reg 100k on the clock)

Obviously we have auto-tradered, Pistonheads'd and gumtree'd (ebay can sod off!) but, as we expected, no one wants it. I would like in the region of £400 for it, but what are my options? Carry on throwing money into advertising or are there (semi) respectable places that would take a car like this and make a reasonable offer?

Open to all ideas.

Cheers

Lol, only thing missing was your phone number!

[Shaw Tarse]

Would a website which will buy any car notice That it's broken?

[falkster]

I'd eBay it spares or repair - I know you say they can sod off but the longer you leave the car without fixing or selling the harder it will be to sell.

Other option is to telephone local scrap merchants and see what they'll give you - approx £150 I think.

[MarJay]

The only place people buy broken cars is ebay in my experience.

[JC2012]

Has the head been removed... this immediately puts people off...

[daveparry]

Fix it yourself it really isn't that hard if you have the time!

[RZ1]

Try putting an ad up in a local newsagent?

[randomman]

*Al* said:

Lol, only thing missing was your phone number!

Deliberately left out! Yeah, looking like ebay. Oh well.

[Dr Doofenshmirtz]

daveparry said:

Fix it yourself it really isn't that hard if you have the time!

That's easy to say if you know your way round a spanner....but the vast majority of people would probably stuggle to change a head gasket - it's a pretty involved task!

Sadly, eBay is the only way IMO.

[VeeDub Geezer]

Have you considered a second hand engine?

I regularly see people buy second hand engines to replace one with nothing more than a head gasket gone.

[*Al*]

randomman said:

*Al* said:

Lol, only thing missing was your phone number!

Deliberately left out! Yeah, looking like ebay. Oh well.

Lol, as said Fleabay could be your answer. Swallow your pride and advertise it.

[16vMinuki]

As long as the head doesn't need a skim and there is no other damage, a headgasket is only about £30 to replace. Amazing how the price goes up for a bit of labour.

I imagine lots of people would want to snap that up, as it could be a cheap repair. Put it on ebay and say whats wrong with it.

[paulmoonraker]

ebay - people buy knackered st all the time from there... I sold a busted washing machine once, followed by a used oven which still had grease and tin foil on the grill tray (I did however state this in the advert).

[was8v]

eBay it or find a friendly mechanic to fit a scrapyard engine (£150? + labour).

[CrisW]

Might be worth looking at a Skoda/Fabia owners club. No idea if such things exist but you might find you could break various parts of the car then scrap the shell.

I flogged an old Micra with a chuffed engine for £200 back in the days when scrappies would charge you to take away stuff like that. New owner was happy and I was happy to be rid of it.

[aka_kerrly]

paulmoonraker said:

ebay - people buy knackered st all the time from there... I sold a busted washing machine once, followed by a used oven which still had grease and tin foil on the grill tray (I did however state this in the advert).

This is so true people really do buy st and think that because it is on ebay it must be a bargain.

A Skoda needing a head gasket you say...... where abouts are you located?
dave

[Rich n Em]

Just to re-iterate what people have said, eBay is the way.

I had a catastophic engine failure on my Merc just a fortnight ago - sold is as spares or repairs on 'Bay in a day and made what I was offered as a trade in price when it was fully working!!

[randomman]

I'm in Northampton.

[Rude-boy]

Have a mooch about the car with a set of spanners and a camera.

Bet you will find over £400 worth of trim and bits you can strip in less than an hour to sell on fleabay and then send the hulk that's let to the scrappy for £150.

job jobed