OT - Car Buying Site

I must have caught all these characters on an off day! None of them offered to do any real digging.

Maybe it's the time of year and the reg change which makes their job too easy.

Phil

first hit on ford website: Rotherham:

As I understand it, most of the downsides for selling cars on ebay auctions are the seller's problem, not the buyer's:

People coming to 'kick tyres', not seriously interested - or maybe they see the auction price and are interested early on, and then drop out when it becomes more realistic

People bidding unseen and then complaining it's not as described

People winning and not turning up

Prices being lower that achieved elsewhere

Basically the auction format doesn't work for this: you have to see the thing in person, but you don't know the price and have to go home before you know whether you're successful. If you spent a whole weekend you might go see half a dozen cars, but then have to go home and bid on them. Meanwhile there's a hundred other cars you could bid on, but don't want to bid unseen (and so the number of bidders for each car is lower). If those half-dozen go out of your price range, you have to go see another batch next weekend. It's very timewasting for both sides, compared to something like Autotrader where you can just show all cars below XXXX pounds within YY miles.

On the other hand, this can cause ebay auctions to have lower prices - if you do it right.

ebay classified ads are something different - just like Autotrader. One useful feature is there's typically more info in an ebay listing.

Another place that hasn't been mentioned in Gumtree - but mostly for lower value local stuff. And then there's the auctions (BCA, Mannheim, other local ones) - if you know what you're doing (and note the fees can be quite steep for non-trade buyers)

Theo

I've never bought or sold a car via Ebay, so this is secondhand. And mainly about the older classic cars I'm interested in.

Many will bid and win an auction, then seek to reduce the price when collecting the car. For any 'reason' they can think of, true or false. Of course if they'd had to pay the entire amount on winning via Paypal or whatever, they'd not be able to try this on so easily.

And many simply bid on a car with no real intention of buying - except perhaps the hope something will turn up so they can afford it. The after pub syndrome.

But so many advertisers just plain lie in the description of the car - like say genuine low mileage with zero proof of this - or never been welded when it has plainly had lots of repairs to the body. And so on. And very common is a bitsa which converts a basic model to the desirable one - like say a Cooper S - described as genuine.

In other words, one much deserves the other. ;-)

Much nicer to buy a car at a proper auction. Up to you to know what you're buying - but the auctioneer will be very careful to not tell lies in the description. Because that's the only way you can get out of the deal afterwards.