Selling a car on a UK website

KinchTheBlade

Hi all
I've an e39 m5 that I'm probably (as in reluctantly) going to sell in the next few months as I barely use it any more
However I can't imagine there's much of a market for it here any more so I'm considering putting up on pistonheads and autotrader in the the uk. I bought it in the uk a few years ago so its a UK car anyway (not that it matters much I imagine).

Has anyone any experience of this? Am I wasting my time?
It seems pretty common for us here in Ireland to go to the UK to get a car but does it ever go the other way?

Obviously if I price it low enough it'll sell here - but that's not the goal

Cheers
Kinch

166man

There'll always be a market in Ireland or a car like the M5 in the right condition at the right price of course. If it's clean I'd take some good pictures and put a detailed ad on Donedeal and see if anyone bites. Should that not work then the UK may be the best option.

I don't know how it works with selling an Irish car on autotrader.co.UK but I'd imagine it's fairly similar to the Irish website.

r3nu4l

When you're searching for a car on autotrader you have to put in a postcode and select the distance from that postcode you wish to search. The max distance is set as 'National', therefore the OP may have to use a fake UK postcode but mention in the ad that the car is in Ireland.

Best bet would be to contact Autotrader and ask about this, otherwise you risk having the ad pulled within hours of it been posted and no refund given.

KinchTheBlade

r3nu4l wrote: »

When you're searching for a car on autotrader you have to put in a postcode and select the distance from that postcode you wish to search. The max distance is set as 'National', therefore the OP may have to use a fake UK postcode but mention in the ad that the car is in Ireland.

Best bet would be to contact Autotrader and ask about this, otherwise you risk having the ad pulled within hours of it been posted and no refund given.

That's a good point and I will follow up on that if I decide to proceed that way. In order to make that decision though I'm trying to get a feel if its even worth doing. What % of Irish cars adverrtised on a UK site has been sold - if its close to 0% then I won't bother. Clearly its only worth doing with a "niche" car - they have plenty of the more popular models of their own.

r3nu4l

I don't know the percentage success of ads relating to Irish cars that are advertised for sale in the UK but I do know three dealers in East Anglia (all of whom I've dealt with for test drives over here) who do exports to the Ireland. You could ask if such dealers would be interested in bringing high quality cars back here (England) if you wanted to sell back to a dealer. Obviously you wouldn't get best price but it might save you hassle if you end up selling it in the UK.

That said, I agree with 166man, surely you'll sell this in Ireland? There should be quite a few people who can afford a second-hand M5, despite the state of the economy, there's still some people with money out there.

KinchTheBlade

Again, thanks for the comment.
Perhaps I'll put it up for sale in Ireland first and see what happens. However at the risk of being a little pessimistic, the attitude here these days seems to be "how much will you pay me to TAKE the car". At least when I read some of the threads on here
The market here is so weird it seems more challenging to put a price on it - I struggle to sell anything - I'm a hoarder!

tossy

For a car like that pistonheads and BMW forums is always a better bet,i wouldn't bother with auto-trader personally.

When i was selling my old Bora i went the pistonheads/UK forums route as i was convinced it wouldn't sell here,i got plenty of interest from the UK/US but in the end it sold via an Irish forum.

It's not as big a deal for UK residents to register a car as it is for us,i think it costs them £50.00

KinchTheBlade

Is it permitted to put up a thread requesting opinions on valuing a car prior to sale?

tossy

KinchTheBlade wrote: »

Is it permitted to put up a thread requesting opinions on valuing a car prior to sale?

On here? of course it is - plus we all get to ogle some M5 porn

On the Ad,so many cars are let down by crap or poor quality ads,a good detailed Ad detailing the cars spec,service history,modifications along with decent pics pref professional quality ones from a BMW meet or show is what you need to set the car apart from the rest.

KinchTheBlade

Great stuff - it ocurred to me it might be considered shilling my own sale or whatever

tossy

KinchTheBlade wrote: »

Great stuff - it ocurred to me it might be considered shilling my own sale or whatever

Well i don't have an issue with it lol but i'm not a mod i think as long as you are genuinely asking for advice and not just shamelessly linking to an advert from another site then you might be ok,i'm sure one of the prefects will be along shortly to let you know.

KinchTheBlade

tossy wrote: »

Well i don't have an issue with it lol but i'm not a mod i think as long as you are genuinely asking for advice and not just shamelessly linking to an advert from another site then you might be ok,i'm sure one of the prefects will be along shortly to let you know.

Perhaps if I solicit opinions before I place the advert then I'll be ok. I'll wait to be cleared for takeoff. Have to go and take photos and all that jazz so it won't be any time soon. I'm a lot quicker to buy things than I am to sell them!