Selling through Motorway

[Itsallicanafford]

Some questions please chaps, I have an auction due to go live shortly for my car on motorway. Never sold through them before but thought I would give it a go. To complete the listing I called them and the agent was keen to stress that it was a free service and also keen for me to ascertain if the car is for sale elsewhere at present (it’s not) and if it achieved it’s valuation would I be happy to sell. The question is, how do they make their money? Will the ‘winning’ offer from the dealers be presented to me in full or is the difference between this and their initial valuation where they make their margin?

Any advice greatly appreciated, cheers

[The Road Crew]

Tbf to them they were great when I sold mine recently I think the pre auction estimate on mine was 34, they said they put it out to their dealers... If they get a bid of 34 it sells, if they get lower bid then they come back to me to see if I'll accept lower offer.
34 was bid, trader collected and paid 3 days later. Didn't try to chip me a penny.

If 36 was bid and they only wanted to give me 34 I'm not sure how that works cos the sale is with the dealer and the payment direct from the dealer. Motorway don't get your car or any of your money. I guess they take a fee/% from the trader for introducing us both.

I'd use them again for sure, they offered more than WBAC etc. (depends on your vehicle, and the demand for it of course)

[J1990]

I'm not sure if they make their money from an auction fee they charge to the buyer or from a membership fee to be on their mailing list for auctions.

However, when it comes to selling via them I had a great experience. Completely trouble free, got £2.5k over my reserve and they then called asking if I was happy with the price and willing to accept. I was definitely happy, I hadn't had to deal with tyre kickers, no getting bent over by WBAC over minor imperfections that have a low cost to rectify etc.
My photos were an honest reflection - one curbed alloy, small graze on the front from a runaway trolly at the supermarket and that was it. Money was transferred once the pickup chap had confirmed it matched the images, was in my account within 30mins and we did the paperwork over a cup of tea.

A week later the defects were fixed and it was up for sale for a 3K more at a dealership. Slim margin for their efforts/costs and offering a warranty with the sale. Couldn't help but keep an eye on it and it took about 3months to sell.

[nick1871]

Their fee is paid by the dealer, the price the dealer bids is the amount you receive.

Worked well for me, got £1k more than the estimate. Only downside was it took about 2 weeks for the dealer to collect and the communication (from the dealer) was poor.

[boombang]

nick1871 said:

Their fee is paid by the dealer, the price the dealer bids is the amount you receive.

Sold two to motorway in last year.

On first dealer who bought it said they had paid £400 to Motorway on a £21k car. Motorway hadn't passed important info to dealer but they reluctantly honoured the price.
I had been speaking to that same dealership previously to sell them the car direct but they weren't interested, the guy who came out (head buyer) was a bit gutted at his team not acting on it as obviously ate into their margin.

Motorway did accidentally pass my details onto a third party firm who contacted me believing me to be a dealer, resulting in a very awkward 'interview' call for my feedback on buying via Motorway. Motorway did apologise and gave an Amazon voucher to make up for ot.

On second it was straight forward sale but Motorway doubled up on damage (they merged old photos when thought about selling the car last year) and it resulted in lower bids. I still wanted rid and got way more for car than hoped at that point so went ahead.

Their submission process via website is flakey, a signal dropout whilst doing it is painful and photos won't always retake.

Would use them again however but given values from elsewhere I would try the others first then put into 'auction' with your eyes wide open and don't be afraid to say no.

[sealtt]

I tried using them a couple of years ago and found it a huge waste of time, of course this is down to the dealers themselves.

I had a perfect condition 1 year old car to sell, the dealer made an offer and came to view it - viewed it, test drove it, etc. He said it was perfect condition but they would be offering £4k less than the price originally stated. Simply said that was the max they could pay.

It was obvious they overstate their initial offer with the plan to knock down on anything they can to get to their real price.

Took it to Webuyanycar 2 hours later and got the full money.

[codenamecueball]

sealtt said:

I tried using them a couple of years ago and found it a huge waste of time, of course this is down to the dealers themselves.

I had a perfect condition 1 year old car to sell, the dealer made an offer and came to view it - viewed it, test drove it, etc. He said it was perfect condition but they would be offering £4k less than the price originally stated. Simply said that was the max they could pay.

It was obvious they overstate their initial offer with the plan to knock down on anything they can to get to their real price.

Took it to Webuyanycar 2 hours later and got the full money.

They can't do this. Unless there's a discrepancy between the advert you gave and the actual car, they can only pay the agreed price.

[ScubaBiker]

I recently sold a car via Motorway. Overall a pretty easy experience, and the car went for more than I was expecting. At the time I had a P/X offer of 13k, WBAC were offering 13.8k, Motorway suggested 14.1k, and it sold for 15.4k on Motorway. So I was very pleased with the outcome. I did have a couple of issues with the experience. I took a personal plate off the car a few weeks before selling, for some reason Motorway kept referring to the car via the personal plate reg, rather than the correct reg, this wasn't a major problem. Second problem was that the car was a diesel, and there seemed to be some mix up at there end as when I received the winning bid it showed the car as a petrol, it took me an hour to get through to anyone on the phone to make sure that the winning garage knew they had bid on a diesel, not a petrol. It turned out they did and this wasn't a problem, although highlighted that Motorway aren't easy to speak to if you have an issue.

It sold on the Monday afternoon, the winning dealer contacted me on Tuesday morning and collected the car on the Thursday. The guy who collected it had a good look around the car, drove it backwards and forwards on the driveway, and then rang his office to transfer the money. The money was in my account 10 minutes later. The car was in very very good condition, so that seemed to help with getting a good price and made the collection process very easy.

[sealtt]

codenamecueball said:

They can't do this. Unless there's a discrepancy between the advert you gave and the actual car, they can only pay the agreed price.

Well, unfortunately that’s what happened to me. Everything was correct and perfect condition, the guy who came to value said as much. He apologised saying they could only pay ca. £31k - the original was £35k.

I just checked and this was 4 years ago in 2017 so maybe things have improved since then. But I have only used WBAC in the interim to avoid this nonsense.

[Itsallicanafford]

Chaps, thanks for all the replies, interesting stuff, the auction goes live tomorrow so let’s see what they come back with, it’s not a particular common car so I’m not sure how popular it will be but let’s see.

[a_dreamer]

A mate sold his through carwow after seeing Matt Watson mention it in one of his videos. He said it was really simple to do and was made up with the price as it was a lot better than the wbac and others (plus they tend to knock you down when you get there)

[jason61c]

I've sold twice to them.

However I'd 100% say try cazoo. they paid 6k more than WBAC and Motorway.

[Itsallicanafford]

Sold for £28,300.00 to a Lexus dealer

that's circa £3K more than the local Lexus dealer would give me and nearly £4K more than WBAC valuation

If all goes smoothly from now on then i am more than happy with that...

thanks again for all the advice, much appreciated!

[mikeswagon]

Sold my daughters Fiat 500 through them a few weeks ago.

The price Motorway quoted was almost exactly what I'd paid for it in Jan 2019, so when the dealer offered around £300 more I was happy enough.

They said they couldn't collect for approx 2 weeks, so dropped it off at the dealership, chap took about 1 min to go over any scuffs etc I'd declared, and that was that.

[sealtt]

Itsallicanafford said:

Sold for £28,300.00 to a Lexus dealer

that's circa £3K more than the local Lexus dealer would give me and nearly £4K more than WBAC valuation

If all goes smoothly from now on then i am more than happy with that...

thanks again for all the advice, much appreciated!

Was that dealer found via motorway or you went to them directly?

[Itsallicanafford]

sealtt said:

Itsallicanafford said:

Sold for £28,300.00 to a Lexus dealer

that's circa £3K more than the local Lexus dealer would give me and nearly £4K more than WBAC valuation

If all goes smoothly from now on then i am more than happy with that...

thanks again for all the advice, much appreciated!

Was that dealer found via motorway or you went to them directly?

Through Motorway - at the end of the auction, they informed me of the winning bid and it looks like a Lexus dealers from the south west

[sealtt]

Itsallicanafford said:

Through Motorway - at the end of the auction, they informed me of the winning bid and it looks like a Lexus dealers from the south west

Thanks for confirming.

[Itsallicanafford]

No Problem

[Itsallicanafford]

Itsallicanafford said:

Sold for £28,300.00 to a Lexus dealer

that's circa £3K more than the local Lexus dealer would give me and nearly £4K more than WBAC valuation

If all goes smoothly from now on then i am more than happy with that...

thanks again for all the advice, much appreciated!

To top and tail this thread, the main dealer has the car for sale at £30,990.00. I get they feeling they just bought it so they had some stock and not an empty forecourt as that margin looks thin.

[ScubaBiker]

Interestingly the Mondeo I mentioned earlier in the thread was listed by the dealer who bought it (via Motorway) at £18k. So a similar £2.6k markup to your Lexus, although much bigger a %. I paid just over £22k four years and 55k miles ago, so to me it seemed well over priced at £18k. It looks like the car sold with ten days of them collecting it from me, so there is definitely still a market for second cars at the moment, even at these crazy high prices.