What is the best way to sell a car online?

What Rich said. That said it's good to know what the market is. I wanted to buy my M3 at rock bottom. That said there was plenty of dross for sale.

But what car are you selling? To keep it simple:

-Daily runner worth less than £3k = eBay on 99p no reserve. But the advert has to be right.
-Classic car? = Car & Classic, Classic & Sports Car, Pistonheads
-Sports car? = Pistonheads.

Autotrader can be good ; I actually bought my last car from here but it's mostly traders now.

I personally would avoid Gumtree. I've rarely seen a good car for sale on there and it seems people will only offer breaker money for cars on there.

As an example I was trying to sell my 106 GTi for £1k. IMO that was a reasonable sum back then. Minters were going for £2k+ but IMO mine was not that even if it was a desirable spec (Diablo Red, the fancy wheels and Alcantara interior).

I had a bloke turn up:
-He picked on a couple off issues I mentioned in the advert
-He offered me £500 ; bear in mind I had a mate offer me £600 no questions asked for the car "as a punt".

I could have broken the car for not far off my asking price... The front bumper alone goes for around £100+ even back then : I know as I hunted around for one for months for less than that!

A week later a bloke came down from Pistonheads and gave me my asking price after a quick drive. It's not like £1k is a massive amount to drop on a car!

retrorides.proboards.com/thread/118735/1998-peugeot-106-sold-warwick

I do wonder if I should have sold that on eBay in hindsight...

Example of a good ebay advert but IMO it wanted a better ad ; eBay was playing up when I listed it. I do not get an offer close to that anywhere else:

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/302094254648?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Oh and don't say "No timewasters etc." in the advert. You'll just get more of them and put off genuine people ; I won't buy a car on the spot if I don't think it's good and people definition of "good" is interesting. Does that make me a timewaster ; I saw 5 M3s before I bought mine as a bad one can soak £1k in parts alone without scratching the surface.

Saying that, if flaws are present above I'm happy to be corrected . After all this is what the forum is about.

ChasR has it right I think.

If it is eligible for this board I always advertise on here, likewise with other specific forums. If it is eligible it goes up.

Sub £1,500 run abouts or hacks I advertise on gumtree. The more expensive the car is the more users of gumtree think they can knock you down for some reason.

£1,500+ I go eBay.

Out of the 40+ cars I've sold over the last 8 years I have never used auto trader. That said I have never sold premium vehicles that I suspect auto trader would help sell.

Pricing the vehicle correctly I think is vital. I always price my vehicles with room for negotiation. If I want £3,500 I advertise at £3,750 as people always like to haggle.

Edit.

Having read the above post it is very much correct. There are an incredible amount of time wasters on gumtree who will arrange a viewing and never turn up, however some things I've sold through gumtree have been sold to the first viewer with no haste at all. You will also get a lot of ridiculous offers but the best method with these o find is just to ignore or block the buyer/time waster.

Thanks guys

Its a 1997 Mazda MX5 1.8 MK1
107k miles
Got history and original book pack
2 keys
Interior is grey and black leather
Momo steering wheel
15inch original alloys
Arches seem alright..
It has had a repair on the rear sill
Getting a new roof fitted next week.. As current one has rips..

Just had pads n discs done and service..

Thanks

Thanks.. I will post it on ebay and pistonheads

What about anglia car auctions?

This I think make or breaks the sale.

Highlight all of the flaws, as many as you can. This will prevent people saying "due to X I want Y knocked off of the price" in turn you can respond with "that is highlighted in the advert and already reflected in the price".

A decent description, decent photos in decent light and clean will also help.

But as said, a proper description will weed out the plonkers.

I can see your point.

The last thing I sold the chap said that I had undersold it and that he expected a right crock when he came to view it. However my view on the sale at the time was, the buyer has ended up with something better than he expected, which in turn meant he was happy with the advertised price and pleased with what he had bought.

If I hadn't disclosed these faults as meticulously then I probably would have got more viewings but perhaps I would have got a negative response about the vehicle and I would have perhaps questioned my selling method.

I will concur though with what you're saying. It's always a bit of a tricky one because you don't want to downsell your vehicle.

I have had more luck buying and selling using ebay than any of the others, no matter what price, just try to say as much as you can about the vehicle, good and bad.

With MX-5s and Facebook I would tread carefully. Ask dickdasterdley ; A certain MX-5 Facebook group all want an MX-5 for around £300 with no rust and 12 months ticket (and no I am not joking ; we all want that but we don't go slating fellow owners to get it!).

At the RetroWarwicK event, I had a clean sale within a day much to my surprise for my MX-5. Normally I associate classic car shows to be a place where people will find every little detail wrong and break your balls for the lowest price ; it was the exact opposite of Richard's experience ; I had people falling over me to buy the car and it's not like I had up for a low price either (around £2.5k).

I won't even mention him trying to sell coilovers on the same MX-5 based Facebook group.