Cars are only worth the highest amount someone will pay and what private sales are advertised at and what they actually go for are often two different things. I would offer what is the trade price to start at and if the seller refuses slowly raise the price to the level YOU think the car is worth NOT what the seller thinks its worth. Obviously if you can find faults such as worn tyres, paint and body issues, non functioning accessories, short MOT its justification to keep the offer low.

Edited by TedCrilly on 06/12/2015 at 11:47

It depends on demand for a specific model at any one time - WBAC gave me £1000 over p/x price on a 5 year old Hyundai Santa Fe but I'm aware of other with derisory offers from WBAC - so their valuation can't really be used as any yardstick.

The price/value of anything is what someone's willing to pay for it - it's capitalism and quite common now under communism!

It depends on demand for a specific model at any one time - WBAC gave me £1000 over p/x price on a 5 year old Hyundai Santa Fe but I'm aware of other with derisory offers from WBAC - so their valuation can't really be used as any yardstick.

The price/value of anything is what someone's willing to pay for it - it's capitalism and quite common now under communism!

The complexity is in trying to decide how much to pay for it. It would have been easier if there was a common standard. Problem here is that autotrader and other sites, list asking prices, but you never get to know how much cars actually sell for.

The other problem is that I dislike and am bad at haggling. I would rather go by a standard formula, such as trade price + a reasonable margin.

I believe the concept of the price/value of anything is what someone's willing to pay for it, is inherently flawed. It should be the cost of the item plus a reasonable profit, the way it used to be. Before marketing people / brand managers started calling the shots at companies and focus on creating image / perception, rather than building a decent product. And bean counters started cost cutting.

Oh, and speaking of capitalism, capitalism died the day goverments moved of the gold standard, and decided it was ok to start printing money, without any underlying basis.

There is really no incentive for private sellers to sell a car for similar to what WBAC or a dealer PX would offer. All that hassle, advertising, waiting in for someone to never turn up when they said they would, test drives, double insurance, double tax, parking it somewhere etc.

This is no doubt why there are vastly fewer private sale cars for sale than there were a few years ago.

With a crap car a desperate seller may well take a low offer but I bet many will just say "sod it, I'll px it or sell it to WBAC tomorrow rather than give it away to you and risk you coming back in 3 weeks complaning an electric window isn't working, worry about payment menthods etc."

Thanks for you inputs PD, that makes sense. If you were selling a car with a PX price of £3000, what is the minimum, you would be willing to accept from a pvt seller? Particulalrly with the understanding that the car is sold as seen, and that there will be no recourse if anything goes wrong.

In my experience many private sellers are more unrealistic about the value of their car than a dealer. Furthermore, most haven't MOT'd it, polished it, cleaned it, got the paperwork in order or basically done anything to make it more appealling.

A private seller is no less likely to lie, conceal or whatever than a dealer in my opinion and they are a lot more likely to clock a car.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules. The asking price gives an idea of what they want for it. Many sellers expect to see 100 or 200 chipped off or maybe a bit more but if they're asking 4000 and you offer 3000 then many will tell you to get lost.

I do genuinly think private sales are dying. Lack of parking, continous insurance, difficultly in test drives, road tax, dual insurance costs and the prolification of car buying agents has seen a collapse in private sales. I reckon in a few years time all that will be left are enthusiats and specialist car sales privately.

So I wouldn't offer as low as the actual part ex price, because the seller is not getting anything for his /her effort in selling the car, versus px-ing at a dealer.

He just might be, if he can go back to the dealer and get a no-part-ex deal. Otherwise his part-ex comes off the dealer's screen price.