[KatieBen]

Anyone got a good idea of how to sell a reasonably new car in immaculate condition other than trademe?

We've had our Prius on trademe for a couple of weeks, at a price comparable to the others (about $1k lower than the nearest similar one) and offered delivery anywhere in NZ (husband will take it to wherever and then fly back).

We've not had a single spark of interest.

We do need to get rid of it fairly fast but equally we need to get a realistic price for it. We've called round the local used car yards but it's not really something they'd take (they mostly deal in the under $20k bracket), the Toyota garage isn't interested because we didn't get it from them to begin with.

Suggestions welcome (as are offers! :exit)

[nickiware]

Are you near an auction house?

[seattle]

We took our cars to a dealer in Chch who sold our cars on consignment. He advertised them on Trademe and had them on his lot. Worked out well for us especially since one of them wasn't sold until after we left NZ.

[Fern01]

Selling on behalf can work well.

[broadsword08]

having sold a few vehicles on trade me i would say you need to be patient... the quickest car we sold was an impreza and that took 4 weeks (we live in the sticks mind)
your car is unlikely to be the most popular kind out there so i would expect it would take 6-10 weeks minimum for it to sell via trade me... dropping the price markedly is unlikely to make it sell quicker... its about the right person looking at the advert and being that there arent that many people in the first place... as a for instance we sold a saab once and it took nearly 9 months to sell... there arent that many around and not many people want them... when it did sell we got what we wanted for it and a little bit more
patience is not want you want to hear of course!
good luck!

[richard]

We've had our Prius on trademe for a couple of weeks, at a price comparable to the others (about $1k lower than the nearest similar one) and offered delivery anywhere in NZ (husband will take it to wherever and then fly back).


Assuming your Trade Me account is Toby.Ben (it is the only one advertised as being in Nelson) then your car is one of only three non dealer cars on there at the moment. It has the highest k's of the privately sold by nearly 20k and is joint first most expensive. In fact I think yours is the highest mileage 2006 on there full stop.

I hate to say it but if I was paying mid-20's for a car I would prefer to buy from a dealer especially when there are around twenty of the 2006's available on Trade Me.

You may therefore need to drop the price a few $k to get some interest.

If you aren't Toby.Ben then please ignore the ramblings above :o

[KatieBen]

I'm not - but my husband is. Thank you for this - we priced ours based on what else was available on South Island at the time we listed it but haven't checked the others since to see if anything else has come in.

Why would you prefer to buy from a dealer? If we went to the AA and bought a 2 year electrical/mechanical warranty type insurance policy for the car to pass to the new owners do you think people would be more interested? We have had 60+ views of the car so I don't think it's just that people aren't looking.

I will also look at how much we can drop the price by - we only bought it ourselves 3 months ago and paid a fair bit more (from a dealer); I was hoping we wouldn't lose too much on it. Sadly now we have a section we want to buy 2 years sooner than our savings schedule allows!

[richard]

...
Why would you prefer to buy from a dealer? If we went to the AA and bought a 2 year electrical/mechanical warranty type insurance policy for the car to pass to the new owners do you think people would be more interested?
...


I believe that if you buy from a dealer you are cover by the Sale of Goods act so would have more come back if problems arose. A private sale would not be as they are generally 'sold as seen'.

Having said that, I have only ever bought 2 cars from dealers in the past but in Christchurch there is such a choice I wouldn't bother looking in the private ads unless I was after something quite rare.

A mechanical warranty would definitely help. If you haven't already got one you could find out the cost then just say in the ad that one is available then negotiate when the car sells.

I bought one for peace of mind for my car from State. It says that it covers anything that the original manufacturers warranty covered, which was very comprehensive, and was also the cheapest. The excess is reasonably high though as my car is an 'exotic European' and, unlike yours, wasn't NZ new.

[mylesdw]

This is what carjam says about your car so at $25k you're way out. If you want to sell quickly and get exactly its worth why not auction it?

Turners Auctions price indication

Estimate auction price: $20,412 (includes correction for estimated odometer reading)
Average auction price: $21,465 (price range $14,405 - $25,605)
Average odometer reading: 62,588 (kms range 21,112 - 120,491)
Estimate is based on: 5 sales of TOYOTA PRIUS 2006 (all submodels) and average kms of 62,588 (kms range 21,112 - 120,491)
Upcoming Turners auctions for: TOYOTA PRIUS (all years)

[KatieBen]

Thankyou! As I said, our pricing was based on what the other models on trademe were going for, less 1k because it's a private not dealer sale. Am somewhat annoyed we didn't do our homework more before we bought it - we paid over 26k for it 3 months ago, wouldn't have paid nearly that much if I'd realised how overpriced it was (although that was comparable to other trademe prices at the time too).

Do cars generally sell for less at auction then? (All the dealers here are listing theirs in the high 20s - there's one very similar to ours but with 10k less on the clock going for $27k)

PS How do we go about getting it into an auction? have googled for "car auction nelson nz" but not got very far with it.

[mylesdw]

I suspect there is a big difference in what things are advertised for and what they are selling for. Try watching the auctions a see what they actually fetch.

The dealers buy them at auction, then they mark them up and then you come along...

[Georgebulldog]

Check out Turners.co.nz We have been trying to sell our Golf for 6 months now on Trade me, been priced a bit less than others & we have had all of 1 phone call so we've now taken it off the road but after reading this we are going to get Turners to value it & maybe stick it in their auction with a reserve, seems all you could lose is $50 & still have your car at the end so is worth 1 try I reckon, having just had to spen $280 on fixing the window I want it SOLD :wah

[Georgebulldog]

Well just as an update on ours in case it may help anyone out there
I took ours into Turners who valued it at around $4k less :wah so was going to put it into their auction, needed to get the WOF done which failed :wah cost us another $200 :wah BUT re-listed on Trade me at $7k ono & within 1 day we had 3 enquiries, 2 more than the last 6 months & today accepted an offer & got rid of the car & got cash in bank :clap
So cars listed on Trade me were over priced & the more we looked into it we were never going to get what we originally wanted but a happy ending as we have now got rid

[bluesky]

One of these "popular economics" books - I think it's "Naked Economics" - has an interesting piece on why the used car market is dodgy. i.e. you can never get anyone to pay what a car is actually worth. This is because you may know you're selling a great, reliable car, but the buyer can never be 100% confident of that, so they factor in a discount to cover their risk.

Car dealers get a better price because they are an ongoing business with a reputation to maintain and they don't disappear after you buy the car. These things give buyers more confidence over the quality of the car. In NZ, the difference is really big because buying from a dealer also gives you great protection under the Consumer Guarantees Act.

In the book, they extend this to insurance, and particularly why US health insurance costs more per head than public systems like in NZ and the UK. Every individual will have a theoretical insurance premium that would perfectly correspond to the risks of them contracting various illnesses, based on their current state of health, age etc. But insurance companies can never be 100% sure what your current state of health is, just like you can never be 100% sure whether the car you're buying is a lemon or not. So they have to inflate their premiums to compensate for this additional risk.