Trade in/Scrappage/Private Sale

Lorddrakul

Hullo all,

am looking to buy a small 7 seater after Christmas, for cash in the 2010-2011 range. By small, I mean Verso/Zefira/5008 etc as opposed to the larger Scenic/Touran/Galaxy sized thing.

Would like to buy from a dealer and I have an old diesel family saloon car.

The current car is a '03 with 125k miles, in January it will still have 8 months NCT and has had a recent clutch and flywheel, as well as all new brake discs and new rear calipers.

Would I be better off doing a private sale, or will a dealer give me anything on this as a trade in?

Never bought from a dealer before, so no frame of reference at all.

Cheers all

LD

bazz26

Sell the old car privately if you can, you will probably get more for it than a dealer will give you as a trade-in. The only downside to selling it yourself is that you will be dealing with every time waster in the country offering you a fraction of your asking price. If buying from a large franchised dealership chances are they will not be retailing a 12 year old car on their forecourt as it is too old to for them to make money from it while offering a comprehensive warranty. They tend to just sell it on to smaller dealers at trade or sold as seen price.

If trading in, people tend to focus on the trade-in price rather than how much the garage want with your old car for the new one. This is why trade-in prices can be made out to be very attractive when in fact all the dealer may be doing is adding it back onto the price of the newer car they are selling you.

Also without a trade-in you should also get a bigger straight deal (no trade-in) discount off the newer car.

finalfurlong

Think you will do well by selling the 03 privately.Mileage and work done is a plus for the private buyer.In my experience ,dealers have a set fairly inflexible price for cars over 10 years old and tend to look more at the plate.That car should pay its way and put you in a good position to cash buy.Know from a friend in the trade that lots of cars coming in jan are 2010 and 2011.The verso is a rock solid buy and takes any wear and tear.But they are snapped up with some Toyota dealers having buyers lined up.

commited

What's the 03 car? Whether or not it's easy to sell will depend on what it is!

Generally though, you're always better off selling privately than trading in as a straight sale will always mean a lower purchase price than trading in and you will be offered much less than the private value of your car, so net cost to change can be much higher.

When looking for a 3-4 year old car, the UK is a great place to look as a lot of the motability vehicles come off lease and many are in excellent condition with FSH etc.

Lorddrakul

Cheers guys, that's all fairly unequivocal!

Unfortunately the old car is a Renault Laguna II, and so is probably worth two sweets and a half eaten bag of Rancheros!

Still, mileage is low for the year, it is still very economical and had the NCT too, so hopefully is still worth a look for punters.

LD