Selling Privately – The Benefits
Do you have a lot of time to spend finding the best buyer? Selling privately may well be the best option. You’ll be able to secure, in most situations, a higher price for your car, by selling it privately rather than part-exchanging it. As the money you make is not also reliant on a dealership making money, you will get all the money you sell your car for. Another major benefit is that you can really drive home selling points that dealerships are not interested in, such as special features and modifications. These are far more appealing to private buyers.
Private Selling – The Downsides
It follows that while you’re able to get more money from selling privately, it takes a lot of your time. If you, therefore, have a limited amount of time or just need to secure a sale quickly because you need a new vehicle, this is not the best way to go about it.
Another major reason why you may want to avoid selling privately is the fact that you’re bound to run into lots of timewasters selling privately. People who want to try to haggle down to stupid prices.
Part Exchange – The Benefits
Convenience is, by far, the biggest benefit of part exchanging your current car. As we noted, it can often take weeks to sell a car privately, whereas you can immediately get the keys to a new car if you decide to part exchange.
Rather than having to go through all the palaver of creating ads and waiting for buyers to show interest, you can just make a trade right there and then when you visit a dealership. Perfect if time is of the essence.
Part Exchanging – The Downsides
Neither of these methods of selling your old car is foolproof and there are downsides to part exchange. For the dealership to make a profit, you lose out on some yourself. That means for the convenience that comes from part exchanging, you’re trading in some of the money you would have made selling privately.
It may also mean that you must negotiate with a dealership, which is not something that many people relish or enjoy. As well as negotiating on a price for the value of the motor you trading in, you’ll also be negotiating on the new car’s price. You have to decide whether that’s something you want to do.
Which is best for you? There are good points and bad points to both – you need to look at them all and consider what fits in with your own situation best.
Next up: Tips on buying a new car on finance
