Sell privately or trade in?

corkgirl17

Hi All,
Bought a 2017 Nissan Qashqai N-Connecta last year. It currently only has 13.5k miles on it. I'm pregnant now with no 3 so need to change cars to get a 7 seater. Would I be better off to sell privately or would it be easier to just trade in. Husband wants to sell privately but I hate all the hassle that goes along with that and would there be much demand for this car?? Also don't want to get screwed with a low offer by trading in. Are there any decent garages in cork that would be good for trading in? Thanks!

Duffryman

My wife changed her car about 18 months ago, and for the first time, we decided we’d try sell the ‘old’ car privately instead of doing a trade-in. Similar cars of that year, mileage, etc., were listed by dealers on the likes of carzone.ie for around €9,000 and by private sellers on donedeal and adverts.ie around €7,000 to €7,500. The garage offered us a trade-in value of €5,500 so we decided we’d just advertise it ourselves at €7,500 and take an offer around €7,000.

Well, never again. One problem was people just phoning up to shoot the breeze. I remember one guy spending more than half an hour on the phone, talking about cars, where exactly we’re from, people near us that he knew himself, and the local GAA scene, before deciding he wasn’t interested in the car after all.

Then there were countless people phoning, texting or mailing just to ask how much we’d actually take for the car. Our standard response was to come look at the car if they were genuinely interested, and we could talk about that then. Never heard back from most of them, while a couple of those who did turn up were either just wheel-kickers or else made ridiculously low offers below even the trade-in we’d been offered.

Even had two ‘scam alert’ instances where people said they wanted to buy straight away without even seeing the car, and would send us a PayPal link for us to enter our details to allow them send us money.

Eventually, after more than two months, agreed a price of €6,000 with somebody. But when he came back a few days later to collect, the bank draft he had was just for €5,800 and he insisted that was all he’d give. We just let him have the damn thing and thought ‘good riddance’ to both him and the car as he drove it away.

So, while we ended up €300 better off than the trade-in we were originally offered, all the hassle just wasn’t worth it for that amount.

I can’t advise on likely demand for your car or how much it might be worth…but I would say to make sure your husband is fully aware of what’s likely to happen if you do decide to sell privately.

Good luck with it either way. And congrats on number 3 too.

corkgirl17

This is what I don't want. Think I will visit a garage and see what they offer me and go from there. Thanks for your post!!

Squidgy Black

You'll always get a better price from the garage if you walk in with cash, compared to trading in. What you need to take into account is the cost to trade, vs the cash price.

For a trade-in, most dealers will give you a trade in value for you car, and then stay as close to the sticker price as possible of their car. Or in some cases (as seen on donedeal quite often) is they'll state the sticker price is for cash only and the part exchange value is higher. Whereas if you walked in with cash, you can generally haggle a bit off of the sticker price, depending on the model etc.

087brain21

well of course your going to get lonely boys looking for a chat dung deal is full of fools like that
i sold all of my car private and that's about 8 cars now and id never darken a dealers door to trade in my car you be ripped off straight away
just don't entertain people who ring up saying "whats the lowest you go" "would you take €1000 cash today"
i never talk cash over the phone otherwise your going to be lowballed

It may take a few weeks but eventually someone will be genuinely interested and buy it

Also to the fella who came to the deal with €200 less on a bank draft i tell him to go cram it with walnuts
The friend of mine is a devil for that he got €500 off the agreed price one time doing that trick

Duffryman

087brain21 wrote: »

well of course your going to get lonely boys looking for a chat dung deal is full of fools like that
i sold all of my car private and that's about 8 cars now and id never darken a dealers door to trade in my car you be ripped off straight away
just don't entertain people who ring up saying "whats the lowest you go" "would you take €1000 cash today"
i never talk cash over the phone otherwise your going to be lowballed

It may take a few weeks but eventually someone will be genuinely interested and buy it

Also to the fella who came to the deal with €200 less on a bank draft i tell him to go cram it with walnuts
The friend of mine is a devil for that he got €500 off the agreed price one time doing that trick

Well, each to their own. If you don't mind putting up with all that bull and hassle, then by all means, sell privately if it suits you to do so. I was just letting the OP know what to expect if they go down that road, since it seems that they haven't done so before, just like we'd never tried it before either.

corkgirl17

I have sold privately before but wondered with a higher value car would it be different. Obviously would prefer to sell privately but hate the hassle that goes along with it. Time wasters, all the calls (if we're lucky!) And worrying about payment methods etc.. when I bought this current car I thought I wouldn't be changing for many years again!!! Ah well!!

JoeA3

A higher value car brings its own challenges. You won't get as many low balling lonely hearts as you'll just be out of their price range!

But your pool of potential buyers is likely to be small. People spending big cash on a relatively fresh car will want dealer backup, warranty, finance, etc, none of which you can offer. If your car was especially desirable or unique, it would help, but it isn't (no offence!).

Also beware the email scammers... they are rife on DoneDeal. Don't entertain the emails from a buyer in foreign lands who wants your bank details...

That said, if you price it aggressively and put up a good ad with lots of decent photos, highlight its good points, you never know.

slave1

With folk well onto importing from the UK you have to price your car pretty much at an import price (give or take a few €).
With Brexit looming surely there will be an adjustment of used prices in Ireland and your (and all in that nice 1-3yr bracket) car value would increase as the market shrinks to just Ireland?

slave1

Oh, congrats!

terrydel

Duffryman wrote: »

My wife changed her car about 18 months ago, and for the first time, we decided we’d try sell the ‘old’ car privately instead of doing a trade-in. Similar cars of that year, mileage, etc., were listed by dealers on the likes of carzone.ie for around €9,000 and by private sellers on donedeal and adverts.ie around €7,000 to €7,500. The garage offered us a trade-in value of €5,500 so we decided we’d just advertise it ourselves at €7,500 and take an offer around €7,000.

Well, never again. One problem was people just phoning up to shoot the breeze. I remember one guy spending more than half an hour on the phone, talking about cars, where exactly we’re from, people near us that he knew himself, and the local GAA scene, before deciding he wasn’t interested in the car after all.

Then there were countless people phoning, texting or mailing just to ask how much we’d actually take for the car. Our standard response was to come look at the car if they were genuinely interested, and we could talk about that then. Never heard back from most of them, while a couple of those who did turn up were either just wheel-kickers or else made ridiculously low offers below even the trade-in we’d been offered.

Even had two ‘scam alert’ instances where people said they wanted to buy straight away without even seeing the car, and would send us a PayPal link for us to enter our details to allow them send us money.

Eventually, after more than two months, agreed a price of €6,000 with somebody. But when he came back a few days later to collect, the bank draft he had was just for €5,800 and he insisted that was all he’d give. We just let him have the damn thing and thought ‘good riddance’ to both him and the car as he drove it away.

So, while we ended up €300 better off than the trade-in we were originally offered, all the hassle just wasn’t worth it for that amount.

I can’t advise on likely demand for your car or how much it might be worth…but I would say to make sure your husband is fully aware of what’s likely to happen if you do decide to sell privately.

Good luck with it either way. And congrats on number 3 too.

The guy who turned up with 5800, I'd have laughed at him and told him to sod off and find 200 quid or find another car.
300 better off? Do you not value your time and stress at all? Astonishes me the number of people who never put a value on that.

terrydel

corkgirl17 wrote: »

This is what I don't want. Think I will visit a garage and see what they offer me and go from there. Thanks for your post!!

Go to 3 garages and take the best offer, will be a fraction of the time spent dealing with idiots if you try to sell privately.
Time is precious and the most valuable commodity you have.

Duffryman

terrydel wrote: »

The guy who turned up with 5800, I'd have laughed at him and told him to sod off and find 200 quid or find another car.
300 better off? Do you not value your time and stress at all? Astonishes me the number of people who never put a value on that.

After two months of messing and hassle, which included at least a month of us both agreeing that we should have just taken the trade-in value in the first place, we were just glad to get rid of the damn thing. Certainly wasn't going to go back to square one of the whole process, waiting and hoping that some other genuine purchaser might get in touch. It was also getting to the stage where the €6,000 hole in the bank account was becoming a bit of a problem.

As for the '300 better off?' part of your post, I'd advise you to read the rest of my sentence on that.

Shefwedfan

If your happy with the car and like it then why swap? a Multimac could be an option.

What are you trading in for?

corkgirl17

Don't want to pay nearly 2k for a car seat.
Went into Keary's carstore today and they offered a good trade in price, better than I thought they would offer. Only thing I dont like is the cars are more expensive than if you were buying straight out so really they are offering me much less!! Is that the case in every garage? Different prices?

grogi

corkgirl17 wrote: »

Don't want to pay nearly 2k for a car seat.
Went into Keary's carstore today and they offered a good trade in price, better than I thought they would offer. Only thing I dont like is the cars are more expensive than if you were buying straight out so really they are offering me much less!! Is that the case in every garage? Different prices?

Yes, that is the trick designed to fool you.

We will give you 5k for your basically worthless car!! (so you think 'This is a good deal!) While what they are really doing is offering you a 5k discount on the new vehicle...

You always need to look at the total cost to change, not the trade-in figure.

Squidgy Black

corkgirl17 wrote: »

Don't want to pay nearly 2k for a car seat.
Went into Keary's carstore today and they offered a good trade in price, better than I thought they would offer. Only thing I dont like is the cars are more expensive than if you were buying straight out so really they are offering me much less!! Is that the case in every garage? Different prices?

Yes, you want to look at the cost to change as that's the figure you work off.

Their sticker price they'll always argue that it's for cash sales. They'll always have margin to haggle on the sticker price if you were buying it outright, so work off maybe a grand or two below that (depending on the model and year, newer cars generally have higher). Then see what the difference is compared to what you're being offered to change, vs what you would get the car for if you were to walk in with cash and had sold your own car privately. There'll generally be a couple of grand in the difference.

Brian Scan

Duffryman wrote: »

So, while we ended up €300 better off than the trade-in we were originally offered, all the hassle just wasn’t worth it for that amount.

terrydel wrote: »

The guy who turned up with 5800, I'd have laughed at him and told him to sod off and find 200 quid or find another car.
300 better off? Do you not value your time and stress at all? Astonishes me the number of people who never put a value on that.

?

colm_mcm

corkgirl17 wrote: »

Don't want to pay nearly 2k for a car seat.
Went into Keary's carstore today and they offered a good trade in price, better than I thought they would offer. Only thing I dont like is the cars are more expensive than if you were buying straight out so really they are offering me much less!! Is that the case in every garage? Different prices?

How much are you going to spend on upgrading to another rapidly depreciating newer car though? In that context surely €2k is a bargain?

Shefwedfan

corkgirl17 wrote: »

Don't want to pay nearly 2k for a car seat.
Went into Keary's carstore today and they offered a good trade in price, better than I thought they would offer. Only thing I dont like is the cars are more expensive than if you were buying straight out so really they are offering me much less!! Is that the case in every garage? Different prices?

Strange attitude, your willing to spend more to swap a car

The multimac would depreciate less that the car and can be used up to 10/12 so even if you invest it will out live the car and second hand market is great for them with people paying top prices.....

Any garage will offer less as a trade in, they take a car which they have to service/clean etc and then spend time selling, none of above comes free so they charge the seller for this

Selling on your own in Ireland is a disaster, you have clowns not even looking at Irish websites but looking at uk, they will use that price to compare to your car because seemingly to import is free....

You might be better to hold on till Brexit as it might stop that stuff

The Bishop Basher

087brain21 wrote: »

just don't entertain people who ring up saying "whats the lowest you go" "would you take €1000 cash today"
i never talk cash over the phone otherwise your going to be lowballed

X100

Selling privately is fine but you need to be able to spot the time wasters and bat them away which takes a little experience and practice.

"What's the lowest you'll take" is by far the most asked question and my response is always the same..

"Come take a look and if you're still interested we can talk cash then".

Most people who take the time and trouble to view the car will have some interest at least and then it's down to your selling technique from there.

Each to their own but there's no way in hell I would drop a few grand on a car just to save myself a couple of weeks of selling.

Henry Ford III

3 kids doesn't mean you need a 7 seater surely?

JoeA3

The 3 kids will have mates... school runs with the friends, etc.
Then there’s the fact that hardly any “normal” family cars will accommodate 3 child seats on the rear bench.

Hardtochoose

Funny how we all got by 20 years ago fine without any of these 7 seaters and SUV types. Times and expectations have changed I guess.

corkgirl17

I get why people think it would be cheaper to get the multimac but then you are stuck with the car seat in the car constantly and never being able to give anybody any lifts. The pros of upgrading to a 7 seater outweigh the cons for us so hence why we are going to change. I think we'll chance putting it on the market privately, if no-one bites, or it gets annoying then we can always trade it in. Thanks for all the insights!

grogi

Hardtochoose wrote: »

Funny how we all got by 20 years ago fine without any of these 7 seaters and SUV types. Times and expectations have changed I guess.

50 years ago people were fine without cars at all. Times changed indeed.

We are much more aware how dangerous for kids an incident can be - the car seats became compulsory, with ERF car-seat getting more and more public traction.
There are much more cars in the roads right now as well - which makes the probability of those incidents much bigger.

So I am happy that kids ride in seats now - but you cannot put three of them side by side. You need MPV if you have three and want to drive all of them at the same time.

ELM327

Hardtochoose wrote: »

Funny how we all got by 20 years ago fine without any of these 7 seaters and SUV types. Times and expectations have changed I guess.

I don't think 7 kids in the back 3 seats with no seatbelts, 2 in the boot and 2 in the front will be allowed these days.

Shefwedfan

corkgirl17 wrote: »

I get why people think it would be cheaper to get the multimac but then you are stuck with the car seat in the car constantly and never being able to give anybody any lifts. The pros of upgrading to a 7 seater outweigh the cons for us so hence why we are going to change. I think we'll chance putting it on the market privately, if no-one bites, or it gets annoying then we can always trade it in. Thanks for all the insights!

Onces it is installed you can take it out, check out youtube video


Also you can get an adult connection, alright my fat arse would never get into it but it could work depending on how many times you transfer adults.....


Have a look at youtube video on how to install the adult buckle

slave1

Been there, done that with a 7 seater for 3 kids, you get roped into doing all the "loads of kids" journeys, then you decide no more and then the rear two seats lie flat for 364/365 days a year and you realise a good sized 5 seater is way better for you, we moved from SMax to CRV, best move ever

bigroad

To save the trouble of selling privately you could go to some of the second hand traders and see if they will buy the car off you at trade price.
Then go cash in hand and haggle as much as you can off the new car.

Shefwedfan

OmegaGene wrote: »

I tried haggling with cash at a few dealers and they said the sticker price is the cash price and one fella told me they make money on the finance so cash sales are no advantage to them,I could be wrong but that’s what he said
I gave one dealer cash and he complained he had to pay x amount to deposit the cash into his business account

Yes dealers make a cut from the finance company so in reality it is better for you to walk in and ask for finance than walk in with cash....


Unless it is a dodgy back street dealer the big dealers prefer you to buy via finance

corkgirl17

slave1 wrote:

Been there, done that with a 7 seater for 3 kids, you get roped into doing all the "loads of kids" journeys, then you decide no more and then the rear two seats lie flat for 364/365 days a year and you realise a good sized 5 seater is way better for you, we moved from SMax to CRV, best move ever

What car is a CRV, I'm not completely set on a 7 seater. Wouldn't mind a 5 seater that has 3 full seats in the back.

corkgirl17

OmegaGene wrote:

How long before you need to upgrade ? Can always try it privately for a period of time and then part exchange it if there is no interest, car dealers vary hugely in what they offer and they will search for your car online to get a price, one dealer showed me his research and he basically checked done deal, another car dealer I went to with a car that was making €13k roughly and he offered me €6k I was gobsmacked and I went to another dealer a week later and got €11k against another car. What I was doing in the finish was asking how much it would cost me to go from my car to that car and didn’t bother with asking how much for mine because a trade changes the sticker price lately.

Not in a rush to upgrade, have another 5 or so months so gonna pop it up privately and see what happens. Not sure what garages would buy the car from me without trading in.