Buying a used car

[swill453]

Does every dealer use Autotrader these days? Is it worth looking anywhere else? Do Gumtree/eBay have much that you wouldn't find on Autotrader?

Also - 95%+ of adverts are from dealers rather than private sales. Is buying person-to-person becoming a thing of the past?

(I'm looking at cars 6 years old or less, I guess the answers might be different for older cars).

Scott.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

Does every dealer use Autotrader these days? Is it worth looking anywhere else? Do Gumtree/eBay have much that you wouldn't find on Autotrader?

Also - 95%+ of adverts are from dealers rather than private sales. Is buying person-to-person becoming a thing of the past?

(I'm looking at cars 6 years old or less, I guess the answers might be different for older cars).

Scott.

I went through this 4 years ago. Had to have a car less than 5 years old for the company I worked for then. Private sales were difficult as the minute the price was correct they went within moments. And dealers were just wasting my time talking the talk. In the end I settled on a brand new pre reg vehicle. Insignia. It's done 80K miles with no issues and the fuel consumption is excellent. I get over 44K on front tyres too. It cost £16K and I reckon I'll get a good 10 years from it if not more. I went for Vauxhall finance which will cost me less than £860 over five years. Ticked a lot of boxes for me at the time. Probably still would as I generally don't need anything more than my "white" . It's well spec'd without going mad.

I also tried Autotrader with my good ladies vehicle which was used. An ex rental that had done high mileage. Managed to get an Astra for £9K delivered. That was cash with a trader. I think it was just over a year old.

Unless you're in a rush I'd be prepared to wait a little. January will be very dry for anyone trying to sell cars.

AiY

[swill453]

Ticked a lot of boxes for me at the time. Probably still would as I generally don't need anything more than my "white" .

Interesting. One of my most important criteria is "anything but white".

Scott.

[swill453]

I went for Vauxhall finance which will cost me less than £860 over five years.

Taking a slight tangent, though still sticking with the thread title. Is it going to be worth my while taking some kind of dealer finance, even if I have cash in the bank (earning very little) to pay for a car?

I recognise they earn commission on credit, so will be happier taking profit on both the car and the loan. So might mean I can push them further on the sticker price. But overall how can it be in my favour, if someone else is in the mix taking a cut?

Scott.

[AsleepInYorkshire]

Ticked a lot of boxes for me at the time. Probably still would as I generally don't need anything more than my "white" .

Interesting. One of my most important criteria is "anything but white".
Scott.

AiY

[AsleepInYorkshire]

I went for Vauxhall finance which will cost me less than £860 over five years.

Taking a slight tangent, though still sticking with the thread title. Is it going to be worth my while taking some kind of dealer finance, even if I have cash in the bank (earning very little) to pay for a car?

I recognise they earn commission on credit, so will be happier taking profit on both the car and the loan. So might mean I can push them further on the sticker price. But overall how can it be in my favour, if someone else is in the mix taking a cut?

Scott.

The Vauxhall deal was a no brainer for me as my car was used for company business and I was paid an allowance to buy one. I've thought several times about paying the loan off, but as it's the only debt I have I don't fret over it. The money's in the bank to pay for it for the next year and then some. And in all fairness I didn't have £16K in cash at the time.

Years ago cash spoke. Today it's about as useful as mammary glands on a rocking horse, in my humble opinion. In priority I would sooner listen to Donald Trump for an hour or visit Curry's rather than try to buy a car. Really drove me mad at the time and I genuinely don't envy you. Some of that is driven by my perception that cars only depreciate (well the ones I can afford do)

Try Carwow - 4 years ago they mostly dealt in new but they did "some" used.

AiY

[airbus330]

In addition to eBay and Autotrader, try CarGurus. Nice UI works on PC or App.
A newish fad is Cazoo which is an entirely online transaction with money back guarantees. Lots of tech investment money behind it as a possible disrupter technology.
I was told by a dealer that the private market has declined due to worries of scammers and the problems doing cash deals and rebanking the cash afterwards with your bank thinking you are a drug baron! Certainly still works in the cheap end of the market.

[Sobraon]

I also like and use Car Hunter (http://www.carhuntr.co.uk ) which aggregates searches from a number of car sites ( e.g Autotrader, Gumtree, E&M, Motors). Created by a young man called Rory ( see the about page). No relationship, commercial or otherwise, I just like the site and would miss it if it disappeared !

[bungeejumper]

I also like and use Car Hunter (http://www.carhuntr.co.uk ) which aggregates searches from a number of car sites ( e.g Autotrader, Gumtree, E&M, Motors). Created by a young man called Rory ( see the about page).

Young? :LOL, I wonder. Take a close look at the computer gear he's sitting in front of. Dot matrix printer, 12 inch screen. Late 1980s, at a guess. Oh well, it's one way to get noticed, I suppose?

BJ

[Sobraon]

OK BJ ... I didnt inspect the picture that closely .

[bungeejumper]

OK BJ ... I didnt inspect the picture that closely .

LOL, talk about being sold a pup.

BJ

[tacpot12]

I think private sales are becoming much less common these days. There are a few reasons for this:

1 The Consumer Rights Act 2015 gives a good level of consumer rights for purchases from traders, whereas with a private sale you still have very few rights.
2 The rise of car buying services such as WeBuyAnyCar.com, these make it easy to sell your car on
3 The risks of selling privately, e.g. payment frauds, theft during test drives, arguments about faults after purchase
4 Having to sift genuine buyers from scammers/touts

Most private sellers seem to be people who either need to get the absolutely best price for their car, or believe they are selling something slightly special.

[DrFfybes]

I bought our Avensis from a dealer, the first time I haven't bought private in 10 years. Mainly as we wanted a relatively new Estate car and (like last time 10 years ago) the biggest choice was in dealers. The couple of purchases and sales in between have all been done privately. Many are ex lease so dealers pick them up at Auction.

I suspect one reason for the decline in private sales is the rise of the 4 year renters. There are much fewer 4 year old cars actually owned by private buyers than there used to be as they hire them for 4 years and hand them back. If the final value is higher than the balloon payment then most owners simply use this to offset the deposit on the next one.

Lower down the food chain there are still a lot of private sellers out there, and as tacpot says, special cars often sold through forums.

Paul

[didds]

Most private sellers seem to be people who either need to get the absolutely best price for their car, or believe they are selling something slightly special.

Or those selling "old" vehicles for just a few/several hundreds of pounds where traders just aren't interested - presumably becasue there just isn't the margin on a car worth e.g. £600 to make storing it and adminstering the sale worthwhile.