Chancers and Tyre Kickers

After having to buy new tyres for my Golf last week I though my automotive expenses for the next year were all done and dusted. Of course, there is no telling for the Law of the Sod. On Monday, I had a rather apologetic phone call from Nina informing me that the door on our Toyota MPV had fallen off or, more specifically, that it wouldn’t now shut again. On examining it, it appeared that the latch that prevents the door from opening too wide had ripped through the sheet metal. Our local friendly car repairer pointed out that the structure of the door was compromised and that simple welding was unlikely to fix it.

My initial thought was to see how much the door would cost to fix. I managed to find a used door on Ebay and asked the repair guy how much it would cost to fit (given that it would need a respray). The answer was that it would cost a lot – in fact more than the car would be worth. This was important as we had been looking to replace the car at some point. Actually, we had looking to replace it for the last few years but each repair wasn’t enough to justify it and, being a Toyota, it is largely mechanically indestructible. A quick valuation with a an auction house in Glasgow showed that it was worth little more than the repair in perfect condition and certainly less given that car was fairly scruffy. A new (well, newer but second hand) car would be in the offing.

The odd thing about second hand car prices is that they are all about appearance. When I sold our diesel Mazda I got a decent trade in price, even though it let in rainwater and wouldn’t start before midday, simply because it looked smart and shiny. The Toyota was still in good mechanical order but it had various scuffs to the back bumper, a bit of rust along the tailgate, scuffed alloys and various small chips and imperfections across the body as well as an interior that looked like it had been regularly assaulted by 3 children for the last eight and a half years. Needless to say that I wasn’t expecting much in the way of trade in prices but I thought the offer of £100 from the used car dealer was rather taking the proverbial – particularly when I realised that £100 was the cost for them to take it off our hands.

The way to get the best price for a second hand car is to sell it privately but this is a hassle. Aside from having to arrange for advertising, dealing with a succession of chancers and tyre kickers and arranging for test drives and so on there is no guarantee as to when the car will actually be sold – this is far from ideal when expecting to get a replacement car which will need taxing and insuring in its own right. The obvious alternative is to stick the car in an auction and that was my initial thought. It was only when I told Nina that I would trek into Glasgow to drop it off that she suggested “We Buy Any Car” who have those utterly irritating adverts on the TV (which obviously must have worked on some level). I’ve always been rather wary of these firms as they come across as being the aforementioned “chancers and tyre kickers” but the no obligation quote and appointment seemed fair enough and their estimate of valuation looked similar to the auction house with the added bonus that their fee was £50 less.

The initial valuation is based on the description of the car, which is the registration (giving the make, model and age) tied to declarations of the mileage, service history, outstanding finance and so on. There are then options to add imperfections which will reduce the price by a few pounds (for a simple chip) to several hundred for serious damage to body panels. This latter bit is where it gets a bit tricky as there is no check list as such and it is a case of the owner’s opinion of condition against their standard. I put on the things I could specifically remember and made a booking at the local outlet (which was a good deal more convenient than the auction house in Glasgow).

The first thing to say about the assessment is that there were no “chancers or tyre kickers” in sight. The man carrying out the assessment was both friendly and professional. Initially he checked that all my paperwork and documentation was in order and then went on to carry out an examination of the car. Some of his assessments were more severe than mine – where I had described the rear bumper as scuffed, he put it as dented (which it was) but he actually removed some of my assessments of interior damage as acceptable wear and tear given the age and mileage of the vehicle. The only mechanical check (which he jokingly described as “an extensive test drive”) was to start the car, reverse it by two metres, drive it forward two meters and apply the brake. The only major item I had missed from my assessment were the scraped alloy wheels which I had forgotten about, mainly because when I examine a wheel I am more concerned about the condition of the tyres. However, as a bonus he marked my “partial service history” as full because, although I had lost the original service book with the dealer stamps in, I had a full set of service receipts.

The final figure that I was given wasn’t too bad. It was slightly below the auction house estimate but, once the fees were taken into account this was less than £100 difference with the bonus that it was all done and dusted on the day and I was not running the risk of a no sale. I was also saved the inconvenience of getting back from Glasgow on my own steam. I decided it would be a good opportunity to take the dog on a long walk so I wandered back home with a whippet on one hand and my magic beans in the other. Needless to say that it rained on us torrentially. So, would I recommend “We Buy Any Car”? On my experience, yes, although I think it helps to set one’s expectations fairly low. In my circumstances it was a good service and a reasonable deal and given that the initial valuation is online and free it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do this before visiting a dealer just to see whether they are taking the proverbial or not. Above all, it's a good way of avoiding the "chancers and tyre kickers" altogether.