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What is the value of my car? One of the most important elements of trying to sell your car, is to price your car correctly. Advertising costs money and the longer your car is sat around unsold, is money out of your pocket. Think of yourself in a competition against hundreds of other sellers trying to achieve the same goal. I reccomend Parkers Guide for a free car valuation, you can do this on-line its takes a couple of minutes. Ask for help from a local car dealer. Almost all car dealers subscribe to Glass's Guide, this is the car valuation version of the bible and the industry tends to revolve primarely around its information. You also need to look at your competition. What are other people selling your car for elsewhere. Research the newspaper classifieds, car selling websites (Ebay Motors, Fish4cars, Froogle, AutoTrader), dealer four courts and this should give you an accurate representation of where to pitch the price of your car. Finally bear in mind a vehicle with a fully documented service history gives you an advantage over a lot of other sellers and makes your car more desirable. Your car may also be worth more money with one.
Its not rocket science. Your not going to sell a car when it looks like the contents of your wheeley bin has been empted all over it. This part of the sale needs a bit of elbow grease. A wash, vac and polish might be all your car needs but you could always pay for a professional valet, on average depending on area £40 should get inside and out looking pristine. If your going to do it yourself, here are a few valeters tips i can pass onto you. Car Exterior After washing your car use a chamois leather to prevent water marks and streaking on the paint. If your car has alloy wheels, over time they can suffer from a build up of hardened black brake dust that is hard to remove with just hot soapy water. Invest in an alloy wheel cleaner. Wonder Wheels make a solution that you paint on your wheels containing acids that are good enough to dissolve the brake dust but is none corrosive to the wheels finish. The result, a set of rims that will be hard to resist by any potential buyer. If you have damaged wheel trims or a couple missing, treat the car to a new set, you will get change from a tenner and it will make all the difference when your clinching that all important deal. Tyres next, follow the example of a good valeter. Buy some tyre shine or tyre foam. A two minute job to spray or paint the tyre walls to give them a gleaming new straight from the showroom black finish. If your car has black un-painted bumpers or black trim (wheels arches, door handles)etc, Autoglym offer a range of products which you can use on bumpers and trim and tyres. Apply a coat of wax polish to the cars paintwork. If your car is a few years old this is an easy way to freshen up the cars colour. Preperation here is the key though. Pay attention to any paint chips first by using some touchup paint and try to remove any light scratches with T-Cut This is a mildly abbrasive polish that takes off a fine layer of paint and any old polish giving you a clean surface to wax up your car. Pay attention to these tips and your car will look fantastic. Car Interior First things first de-clutter, get rid of any rubbish, traces of smoking, ie cigarette dimps in the ash tray and give the car a good vacuum. This may sound simple but you'd be amazed what i have seen in my years in the Motortrade. Get a damp chamois leather and wipe down the dash board and interior plastics. If you want to add a touch of sheen there are some great inexpensive low shine dashboard cleaner products on the market to spruce up your interior. Don't use household cleaners it makes plastic shiney and cheapens the look. A great tip for windows, forget Windowlene and Mr Muscle try a few drop of vinegar on newspaper. Trust me i have tried it and it works. ( no smears) Smoking, pets and selling cars don't go together. Make sure before you show a potential buyer your car there are no unpleasant odours that may put them off. The smell of cigarettes or presence of dog hair on the seats will not go down well, although they may not bother you try convincing a non smoker that hates dogs that your car is the best in the area. Finally lift out any tatty old car matts, the carpets underneath will look much more attractive. It may also be worth while replacing any none standard parts such as racy gearknobs and alloy pedal covers. They won't impress buyers, who'll think your car has been trashed. Standard is always best. Mechanicals Oil changes are cheap and clean oil looks better than sludgy treacle. The attention to detail will impress any buyer. Make sure your water and washer bottle levels are full, maybe using a sweet smelling windscreen washer. Tidy up generally make the engine bay appear cared for. Attach alarm cabling correctly, clean off any leaves from air intakes and wipe down the engine bay. Don't go to the extent of steam cleaning the engine, car dealers love it, but it can arrouse suspicion that you may be trying to hide oil leaks. Documentation Every car must have these important documents before you attempt to sell it.
Writing your advert
Your Advert should go something like this.
Heres a good example advert. For a full list of the abreviations used in car adverts Click Here...
Where do you advertise There are hundreds of places you can advertise your car and various mediums such as newspaper and internet to mention a couple. The best advise i could give is to have your car seen in as many places as possible. Invest in a descent size advert with one of the well known advertisers, get your car in a local newspaper motoring classifieds section and spread a bunch of other ads across the internet. There are a lots of quality sites these days like UK Car Ads who get a vast amount of visitors each month and are inexpensive to advrtise with, some even give free advertising. Would you believe that over 72% of people now search for a car on the internet before looking elsewhere. Also put an advert in your car window, tell your family friends and collegues, bulitin boards the list is endless. If you can think of any other worth while car advertising mediums and you wish to share your comments, you can contact us at press@ukcarads.co.uk How to handle an enquiry Take a tip from and old car salesman this section is about how to deal with an enquiry, handle visits, test drive and all importantly closing the deal. Your advert has been carefully scattered around some papers and websites and you get a phone call. "Hello i'am ringing about the car you have for sale". First impressions last. This is'nt difficult, please be receptive to the enquiry. Be forth coming with any information they require, a good tip is to have a copy of the advert with you at all times in case you get caught off guard. Sometimes the easiest thing to forget is the price you want. Try to gain a viewing from the phone call, ask them when would "they" like to see the car. Be flexible don't restrict your viewings to just evenings and weekends, they may find another car in the meantime. Two key things you need from that enquiry are, where have they seen your advert? Try to get a name and contact phone number, f they don't offer this information straight away ask them, don't be shy. Explain you have the advertised your car in several places and you are interested in what works best and out of courtesy you would like to call them should the car sell. When someone comes to view your car they usually bring a friend or relative for moral support. Bet your bottom dollar they're the first to set about the car with a fine tooth comb. Don't get discouraged leave them to it. Suggest you take a test drive, after all you spend more time inside a car driving than outside thinking how pretty it looks. Golden rule, make sure before they arrive that the car has plenty of fuel. I ran out of fuel once on a test drive. Do you think they bought the car? Pay attention to this part. The Test Drive you drive the car first. They may have never driven this type of car before and every car does feel different. Let them get accustomed to being a passenger before they start to gain ownership by driving. If the car has been stood for a while it will always drive better when the engine has warmed up. Ask them about there driving habits and where they usually drive there car, if they do lots of motorway miles test drive on the motorway, if they just use the car for shopping and dropping the kids off at school, a spin around town would be better. Tailor the test drive around the buyer. When you stop to change over take the keys out of the car. They could drive off without you. Handing them the keys when you've over creates ownership in there eyes. Believe me this works. After the test drive get the keys back of them and tell them you will leave them to look around the car. Leave them with any service history and reciepts you have to perues. Now disapeer, go away, leave them to it. A good way to make yourself scarce is to offer them a brew. Give them five minutes or so, they have spent enough time in the car all they have to do is examine the body work and decide whether the colour is right. The next words from your lips should be "DO YOU WANT TO BUY IT". Don't be shy, no-one likes to get to the point of talking money, it always seems to put people on there guard so just get it out of the way. Down to buisness, the price negotiation. If your car is priced correctly you are in a strong position but may still need to be flexible. Give yourself a floor limit that you can go down and be confident your car is worth at least this. If they offer less than the asking price which lets face it everyone does, give them some unique selling points your car has over others they may have seen. Examples could be 1 owner from new, a full main dealer service history, sunroof etc, and push this in your bargaining. Follow this simple advice and you will have yourself a sale. Don't forget to transfer your registration V5C document and pass on your MOT and service history. For helpful advice on these matters visit www.dvla.gov.uk/newrules and www.vosa.gov.uk Finally don't forget to take the money. The best advice we can give is to avoid taking cash unless you have accompanied the buyer to the bank to get the money. If they write you a cheque, insist on the funds clearing into your account before you release the car. Apply this caution to a banker draft or builing society cheque. A genuine buyer will not see this as a problem. Occasionally someone may prefer to do an electronic money transfer or BACS, always be careful who you give your bank account details to. Even with this type of transaction it could take several days for funds to clear into your account and insist you keep the car until money has appeared in your account. Good Luck...
A few things to bear in mind Never allow anyone to test drive your vehicle unacompanied. Always wait for cheques and bankers drafts to clear before handing over the vehile. Where you are unsure ask for a proof of identification. The newest car scam at the moment is known as the West African advance fee, or 419 scam. You recieve an e-mail or a phone call from someone saying that they want to buy your car but are unable to collect the car themselves and will send an agent to collect it. The next part of the scam involves you recieving of cheque that is greater than the amount you want for your car which includes the agents fee. The cheque will look genuine, it may even be a bankers draft. The final part of this scam is for you to give the over payment back to the to agent either by bank transfer or by cheque, guess what the cheque you receive is a fraud, you end up out of pocket and without a car. The bank may process this cheque or wire transfer as normal however sometime later the bank will discover the wrong doing. Some ways of spotting the scams. If you recieve an email, the grammar may be confusing and difficult to read, these scams predominantly operate from abroad and there English may not be great, they my try to appear uneducated as to lull you into a false sense of security, ie: this person couldn't possibly rip me off. They may also say they are buying it for the family, making the email sound overly sentimental. They may request payment by wire transfer through Western Union. For full details on this scam visit, www.met.police.co.uk/fraudalert/419.htm Important links. Trading Standards- www.tradingstandards.gov.uk National Criminal Intelligence Service- www.ncis.gov.uk/uk.asp Other scams- www.consumer.gov.uk Police links- www.police.uk Metropolitan Police Fraud Alert- www.met.police.uk/fraudalert Report a scammer- fraud.alert@met.police.uk Please do not email the Metropolitan Police unless you have details of the fraudsters bank details, address or telephone numbers. Also bear in mind the Metropolitan Police covers the Greater London area. For help across the rest of the UK, please contact your local Police force. For a good example of what to look out for read this email i was recently sent. Hello, Dear seller, Seller beware if it seems fishy it probably is. Don't reply to these types of emails and if you are unsure there are some useful links above that will provide helpful information.
Car Buying Tips Looking to buy a car. Don't buy a car until you have read our Car Buying Tips. You've perused the car dealers, searched the car classifieds, and surfed some car websites on the internet and found finally found a car to want to spend all your hard earned on. Next step is contacting the seller to book a viewing. Always check the details of the advert with the seller before booking a viewing to make sure the adverts details are correct. Always view a car in daylight and never in the rain, you have a better chance or spotting bodywork damage and paint defects. View from the sellers address or trade premises. Never agree to meet half way or make a transaction in a car park chances are the seller has something to hide. Take a friend or relative to give a second opinion, its easy to get carried away and miss defects or potential problems if your heart starts to rule your head. Insist on a test drive before you make your mind up. Choose a route that reflects your own day to day driving and only hand the keys back your thoroughly satisfied with everything you've seen. If all seems ok make these simple checks below before you hand over the readies. Things you should check Tyres - uneven wear - sign of suspension faults, tracking or wheel balancing. Exhaust - smoke - always an ominous sign, whatever colour. Dipstick - black, sludgy oil - tired engine, poor maintenance. Bodywork - kinks in the metal, paint variations, check panel gaps, overly large gaps between panels may mean possible crash damage. Identity VIN (Vehicle Identification Number) and engine number, are they different from what's on the registration document - rogue car. The VIN number on the car can sometimes be found on a metal plate in the engine bay, or a small tag near the near side corner of the windscreen. Here are a couple of examples below.
Buyer beware - that is the wise attitude to adopt when you're considering buying a car that someone else has already owned. One in three second-hand cars have a suspect history, according to many car history check organisations. Click here for a vehicle check.
It's vital to be careful, because the car you fancy might be stolen, could have been a write-off, or maybe has outstanding finance on it. Any of these would turn a purchase into a major headache. Click here for more information. Don't set your heart on a particular car until you make sure it has no dark secrets lurking. Remember, there are always plenty of other cars to choose from. Write off categories explained There are four categories where the inspecting Vehicle Engineer has to determine which is appropriate. Category A - Total burn outs where the vehicle does not contain any parts which are economically viable for resale. According to the Code of Practice produced by and supported by the Association of British Insurers, Lloyds' Motor Underwriters' Association, the Police, Institute of Trading Standards Administration and Government (Home Office, Departments of Environment, Transport and the Regions DVLA) category A or B write offs must never re-appear on the road.
Where to Buy Franchised dealer - unlikely to be cheapest, but the least risky. If there are problems, you can complain to the manufacturer. Non-franchised garage - be sure it's a reputable one, check for membership of a trade organisation such as the RMI (Retail Motor Industry Federation) and get a recognised guarantee. Small ads - you might find a bargain, but you have little comeback if things go wrong. Watch out for the same phone number recurring: a clue to an amateur dealer. Auction - bargains to be had, but only for the brave. Don't try it unless you're very confident and knowledgeable. Auctioneer fees are added to the purchase price of the car. The auction houses will always have a printed list you can take, but bare this in mind when bidding. Depending on the price of the car it could be as little as £20 up to a few hundred pounds. Internet - the newest way to buy and well worth browsing. Most car companies have their own website where you can track down a new or approved second-hand car. A huge market for private sellers where you can as good as view the purchase before making an enquiry.
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The rules here are be thorough and be honest. Compose your advert with pencil and paper before submitting it. If your advert can be accompanied by pictures, try and take at least one exterior and interior picture. 
