Can you sell a car to a dealer without 'trading in'?

Toots

Hi all, as the title suggests, I'm wondering will a dealer buy a car from you, as opposed as taking it as a trade in.

Reason I ask is that we have 2 cars, but due to financial circumstances we just can't afford to keep and run both of them. We're trying to sell my hubby's freelander but it's just not shifting. The car is in great shape, has an NCT til next march but all we seem to be getting is timewasters on the phone and only 2 people have come to look at it. We don't want to just leave it gathering dust and we weren't able to renew the insurance which was up in April, so I'm also concerned that if it's stolen or damaged we'll be out of pocket in a major way.

Does anyone have any experience of doing this, or know if it's even a possibility?

Idbatterim

op post a link to the ad and we can give you some advice. Dealers would give you an even worse deal than you will get selling privately... the other option might be to auction it. How long have you been trying to sell?

Anything hard to sell privately won't appeal too much to a dealer, what year is the freelander?

slimjimmc

Drop the asking price and improve your advertising, you'll always get "timewasters" but those who did come to view it probably expected to get more for their money until they saw it.
If you can find a dealer who is willing to buy it you can be sure he'll be looking for a serious discount, after all he won't be buying it if he can't turn a decent profit on it quickly.

mullingar

Idbatterim wrote: »

op post a link to the ad and we can give you some advice.

+1

bazz26

I'd say most dealers will be reluctant to take a Freelander unless it is a fairly recent model. The trade don't like the older model Freelanders as they can be alot of trouble, if someone did take it they would offer you well below trade price for it.

Jimbob 83

Most won't do it and the few that will take your car will give you alot less than selling privately

bbam

Have to agree with the posters above. If you have a good add, nice photos, well worded, then the only problem is the price.
A dealer will only take it if it's a total steal.

Best get the add right and drop your price, wait two weeks and drop it again, and then again until you find it's price. When the price is right it will draw genuine callers and sell quickly.

DoneDeal is the best place to sell it.

Toots

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'm posting from my phone and for some reason it won't let me paste in the link to the ad, I'll try and link it from my laptop later on. In the absence of the ad, I'll give you some of the details:

2000 Freelander, 1.8 petrol 3 door
150k miles
NCT til March 2013, tax expired at end of May this year.
The four wheel drive is fully functional (which seems to be a bonus because loads of the ones we looked at when buying the car last year had the 4wd disabled). The timing belt, water pump and other belts were changed in Sept 2012 at about 145k miles.
It's got air con, sunroof, and cd player with car kit and alloys. It's a bronze/coppery colour (why oh why would someone pick that colour when ordering a new car???)

We've had it for sale for about 3 weeks I think. It's on at €1400 open to offers with a quick sale needed.

It hasn't been used since the insurance finished in April, our original plan was that when my hubby gets work and our financial situation improves, we'd insure it again and keep using it, however he's out of work over 6 months now and prospects aren't good. We don't want the car potentially sitting in one spot for months and months and then have it not work properly when we do go to start using it again. And, as I mentioned earlier, I'd be concerned about damage/theft considering it's not insured.

Drop asking price to 1100, a 1.8 freelander of that vintage with those miles is worth Feck all. Take what you can get for it.

bazz26

Being honest, I cannot imagin any dealers willing to buy a 12 year old petrol Freelander with 150k miles. There just would be no profit in it for them. Imo if you want a quick sale you will need to drop it to around €1100 and accept an offer close to €1000.

green123

this looks like the ad :

http://carsireland.ie/802645

Toots

Yes that's the car alright, I didn't realise it was on carsireland too, thought the hubby just had it on donedeal.

Someone is coming to view it tonight so fingers crossed!!

Toots

Hey all, just wanted to pop in a update on this, we reduced the price and sold it last night for €1000. Delighted to have the spare cash and not having to worry about leaving it lying up anymore! Thanks for all the advice here!