Is Autotrader worth the cost?

[gina2201]

erIn the past few years I have sold a fair few cars and a van (not all mine and am only a private seller) on ebay with success, sometimes had to relist twice due to not meeting reserve etc but it does take the right person to look on that right week of you advertising. (Saying that though, it was a cabrio over Xmas!) I've bought alot off their too, and would consider to have got them at a good price.

I didn't go to Autotrader purely because of the cost and as the car was advertised elsewhere would be pretty annoyed if someone bought it the next day seeing it on PH and then that £40 is lost!

The two cars I have bought off dealers however were off Autotrader rather than ebay.

And a dirt cheap car from freeads.net !

Personally I go with all the free ones and ebay

Even our local paper charges £36 for 2 weeks!!!

 

[Joe_SP]

Well I am another ebay fan. Have just taken a deposit on the car, buyer is picking it up on Wednesday.

Will be sad to see her go, however I have to make space on the drive - I have defected to the Dark Side!

 

[SilverSaloon]

noaways, i think anyone looking for a car would look on ebay.... therefore little point in putting an ad on anywhere else to begin with anyway.

what i do is start the car at 0.99 with a reserve of what i want (or sometimes no reserve). this guages interest; then people come to view the car and then when they are there, they often just say "how much do you want?". you then sell the car to them there and then and end the ebay ad.

good luck

 

[jeremytaylor]

As a buyer I would much prefer Autotrader over eBay, unless you are talking bargain basement end of the market.

 

[imadoofus]

Sold my coupe on Autotrader after one week, to the first (genuine) caller. Was also on PH and in Classic Cars mag, PH produced nothing, and CC produced around half a dozen bites.

The buyer also researched it (and me) on here. And still hasn't joined AFAIK!

PJ

 

[lil.smartie]

This interests me as it has been the polar opposite for us.

We tried ebay motors classifieds aswell as auctions and with a 3 month trial we did not sell a single car.

Our adverts were excellent with plenty of pictures.

All we got was idiots who think that a car we have for £4995 was bought at auction for a grand or something. I kid you not, we had nothing but messers thinking they were going to buy cars £000's below trade money.

We even experimented with "calling birds" such as an e320cdi avantgarde estate, It was advertised as a 2001-Y with 46,000 miles, 1 owner, full MB history, unmarked condition with every extra and we had it at £3995. We got offers of £2500.

It really was ruining our patience so we had no choice but to pull the plug.

We ran both side by side, some cars on each. The ones on Ebay we had loads more calls for than the Autotrader ones. When we then called to cancel Autotrader they put a traceable number on the ads and we couldn't get an answer when we asked just how few calls were made through the number but they accepted our cancellation after that!

You do get the chancers but TBH I tend to ignore them and we only use the classified ads not the auctions so that might help on that front!

Kate

 

[kusanku]

I bought my last car off Autotrader, because I was quite specific about what I wanted. Never had any real sucess selling, and I have tried several times. Tend to get either canvassers, or the type of car buyer who always says "what's the lowest you'll take?". Also get the ones who phone up after the ad has stopped running to ask if the car is sold, and if not ask if you will take half the asking price.

Bizarrely, I have had most sucess by driving round with a for sale sign with all relevant details in the car window.