Getting rid of old car

rubberduck · 5 Jun 2021 at 20:30

My 12 year old Astra failed its MOT fail and Mrs and I have decided to go down to 1 car as I am now working from home. What is the best way to get rid of such a car while getting a bit of cash for it? I guess a couple of hundred pound is what you'll get for it if you pay the scrap man to come pick it up but as the engine/gearbox/clutch is fine and it drives ok I wondered if I can do any better?

ShiWarrior · 5 Jun 2021 at 21:07

check WBAC for price, chuck it on ebay

gc123 · 5 Jun 2021 at 21:08

stick it on the bay plenty of pictures , be honest with it , you would be surprised what people will pay especially if they think it a do it upper .

think wbac need a mot now or at least looked that way last time i priced up with them

NVP · 5 Jun 2021 at 21:51

Advertise it on Facebook marketplace as opposed to ebay, it's free.

jsmoke · 5 Jun 2021 at 22:01

I think gumtree is still useful.

BUDFORCE · 6 Jun 2021 at 08:52

I sold a car for £400 on eBay which was ******.

I was very honest about all the issues, sold it as spares and repairs although it did run.

Very detailed and honest description, buyer was happy never had any come back.

-Ad- · 6 Jun 2021 at 09:05

What did it fail on?

watercooledman · 6 Jun 2021 at 10:01

Torch it

silvagti · 6 Jun 2021 at 10:08

watercooledman said:
Torch it

This is exactly the kind of practical real world advice people come to OCUK forums for

killerk · 6 Jun 2021 at 18:34

Arnold Clark have a promotion on where they will buy any car from you for what they value it at plus £500. We got £550 for an 04 micra with no MOT.

Mysterae_ · 6 Jun 2021 at 20:32

killerk said:
Arnold Clark have a promotion on where they will buy any car from you for what they value it at plus £500. We got £550 for an 04 micra with no MOT.

Arnold Clark? The OP is trying to get rid of a knackered car, not buy another ****** one.

ShiWarrior · 6 Jun 2021 at 21:46

Mysterae_ said:
Arnold Clark? The OP is trying to get rid of a knackered car, not buy another ****** one.

he didnt say you had to buy another car though

Mysterae_ · 6 Jun 2021 at 22:19

I doubt Arnold Clark are giving top dollar for old bangers unless you're buying one of theirs.

Joe T · 7 Jun 2021 at 07:32

Mysterae_ said:
I doubt Arnold Clark are giving top dollar for old bangers unless you're buying one of theirs.

I would normally agree with you, but it seems to include selling cars to them. https://www.arnoldclark.com/voucher

Tom_ed1987 · 7 Jun 2021 at 09:19

I'd just do an eBay auction, lots of pictures, 99p start.

HangTime · 7 Jun 2021 at 10:36

This Arnold Clark thing seems a bit of a standard marketing thing, just put our reg in and they are offering about £700 less than WBAC, amazing they will add £500 to that with their voucher... so I'm £200 worse off?
edit: to be fair it says they have no transactions fee, I think WBAC charge £75 ish for cards over £5k.

That said, probably works really well on absolute sheds that are only worth a few hundred quid, even if they lowball you the lowest they can pay is £500 heh.

K.C. Leblanc · 7 Jun 2021 at 16:47

ShiWarrior said:
check WBAC for price, chuck it on ebay

Bare in mind WBAC will squirm once they actually see the car. I was offered £200 for a 51 plate Octavia with 250k on the clock. When I got there they then started knocking cash off because of nonsense like a missing parcel shelf. If I'd have brought them a newish low millage car then it would be understandable, but not a 17 year car with 250k on the clock.

They ended up only wanting to give me £50 so I got a local scrap car collector to take it, they gave me £80. Would probably have got more selling on ebay, but this was last May so not an easy environment to sell used cars in.

ShiWarrior · 7 Jun 2021 at 16:59

i didnt say sell it to WBAC, i said check price, then put it on the bay

rubberduck · 7 Jun 2021 at 21:09

-Ad- said:
What did it fail on?

Brakes balance/wear and front coil suspension spring.

Put it on ebay and it got taken at buyout within 20 mins... A bit suspicious but as will be cash on collection cant see anything obvious that can go wrong other than the buyer turning up then trying to low ball haggle.

Iamzod · 7 Jun 2021 at 23:09

rubberduck said:
Brakes balance/wear and front coil suspension spring.

Put it on ebay and it got taken at buyout within 20 mins... A bit suspicious but as will be cash on collection cant see anything obvious that can go wrong other than the buyer turning up then trying to low ball haggle.

It's sold quick as they are just consumables, no different really to tyres. Discs, Pads a pair of springs & a couple of hours on the drive and it'll likely be MOT worthy. What did you put it up at out of interest?

People scrap cars for nothing nowadays, I once bought a broken Escort Estate for £25, it was only a wire to the starter motor had broken. Fixed it in an hour at no cost & sold it in under a week for £300 to some guy that wanted to use it for his fishing trips.