Selling a car, as you frequently tell me, is a complete and utter faff. Not only do you have to cope with the great unwashed coming round to your gaff, kicking the tyres and probably slagging the car off, but they don’t want to pay your asking price, either.
Oddly enough, I was talking about all this the other day and what’s missing from most adverts is presentation. A car, even a nominally interesting one, needs to have a twist. Plus it needs to be properly presented and realistically priced. So let’s see if there are any particular private ads out there that catch our interest.
I only have to rewind to the previous week where I spotted an otherwise unremarkable 2006 Ford Fiesta ST at £2500: the presentation was uniformly excellent. First, the seller had taken loads of pictures, to a decent quality, and it was expertly posed to the extent that it could have been an Autocar feature star. The icing on the ST cake was refurbished alloy wheels. Your eye was drawn to that detail. Feeding the Fiesta inner geek was an extensive description that included ‘Mountune exhaust upgrade’. Excellent.
The Range Rover Evoque, meanwhile, is a vehicle that is bought for style rather than purpose. Yet 99% of the adverts I looked at had them parked in their natural habitat, the suburban executive home estate drive. I looked twice at a 110,000-mile 2013 2.2 SD4 Pure Tech, though. That was partly because it was on grass and some point stone. Yes, it had strayed off Tarmac. The background was trees. Lovely. The ad also mentioned alloys, 22in ones. They had been kerbed, but there was a ton of detail, which I liked. No doubt about the damage at all, plus some bodywork nicks were highlighted. Maximum points for accuracy. The actual description was a bit sparse but, hey, pictures tell you more than boring old words.
Convertibles should never be tucked up in a garage or on a drive. That’s why the seller of a 2011 80,000-mile Mini Cooper SD Mini Convertible had not only cleaned it thoroughly but also made a trip into the countryside to take uncluttered, decent-quality pictures in the wild. What’s more, the description was both comprehensive and enthusiastic. The seller channelled their inner road tester, actually describing it as a fun drive and I quote: “The Mini has been a dream car for the past couple of years and makes me smile every time I drive it.” That’s how you do it, folks.
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Guys...
Please ignore 'Take it Slowly' he is a twat and gets his kicks out of trying to belittle individuals with his 'superior knowledge'.
He has an opinion on everyones input but no useful input of his own.
I’d go further 289
He's just a nasty guy. Has no pleasure or worthwhile contribution to make. One of life's losers who suck the joy out of everything. My guess is he has no friends, and only types on here when he's wiped his iPad down after he's finished playing with his inadequate member. He had a girlfriend once, but she burst, and since then he's only dated Palm.
Blue, £7250
that was the complete description of a car in the autotrader advert I recently bought from car store. It was actually a very well specced car albeit with some discoloured leather and a bit of cosmetic wear and tear. The advert and those other issues put others off so I ended up with a good deal.
They offered me £100 for my 2 owner 2008 Accord diesel estate. Hilarious, I declined. Took decent photos, wordy informative description, then priced it at top end of what I thought as there was a gap in the market when I placed the ad in autotrader on Fri night. Guy took car away that Sunday having knocked me down in price by what I’d marked it up anyway. Oh, and I serviced and MOT’d it to make it max attractive.
Too much hassle...
With one exception, I haven't sold a car privately in years, despite the fact that I really look after my cars and they should sell well. I really can't be bothered dealing with the typical time wasters, tyre kickers and fantasists that show up on your doorstep. Runnerbean's experience is really scary. Imagine if he had turned up with a mate and they simply dragged you out of the car!
The exception was my last Boxster, a 2006 model I sold in 2016 with just 40k. Reluctantly, I sold it to a good friend who was desperate to have it. This really worried me in case something major went wrong, so I had it serviced and inspected by my usual independent specialist and had the brake pads replaced early, even though they still had 5k miles life left in them. I then sold the car to him for its trade-in value, and he sold it on two years later for £1k more than he paid me! Despite that, I don't regret what I did and happy he had such a good experience.
Daniel Joseph wrote:
"Reluctantly"?. "don't regret"?. Idiot and in denial, you are both. Fool.