How is the current car market?

B

Ballymagash

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Hi

We have an 03 Fiat which has been giving us some problems lately so we are going to change - hopefully to an 06 Focus/Civic/Corolla. I am like everyone, wanting to get the best deal and just wondered what the market is like at the moment.

Firstly - selling a car. I was thinking of advertising privately and seeing how that goes. Are cars shifting that way lately? My experience a few years ago (height of the the boom) was that we didn't even get one call. Now we were selling a car worth about 10k at that time and I found that people paying that much wanted the reassurance of a garage (understandably). This time this car is worth far less which should in theory improve our chances? Anyone any experience/opinions/thoughts on this? I would love to be able to negotiate with a garage for a new car without needing to trade in (but then again wouldn't everyone!!)

Secondly, buying a used car. Its helpful when bargaining if you know what the markets like. Are the garages doing well at the moment (cos then I'm less likely to be able to bargain them down much) or are cars not shifting from the forecourts?

Again any observations or opinions greatly appreciated.
 
Ballymagash said:
Hi

We have an 03 Fiat which has been giving us some problems lately so we are going to change -
...
Again any observations or opinions greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

You're screwed. You'll be VERY lucky to sell it.
What model is it, and what problems have you been having ?
 
You would want to take a look at the market value for what model you're selling and try to undercut it by a bit (not too much or people will think its fishy). If there is something wrong with it you should get it sorted before selling or else advise prospective buyers of the issue(s).

Apparently no car is selling anywhere (if you believe the media). I am considering buying at the moment (no not an 03 Fiat!!) and am hoping to get a dealer down from 13K to 11K. He's not budging at the moment and is offering me 4K for my 02 corolla that I paid 9K for less than two years ago.

I would think an 03 Fiat would be hard to sell though, except maybe to someone as a first car, depending on what type it is.....
 
Thanks for the replies guys. I should have said - we got it fixed this week so I wouldn't be selling it with problems. Its just that we spent a lot of money on it in March to get it through the nct and this week had to spend another 360 euros. Obviously having had this work done it would probably make more sense to now hold on it it but we have lost confidence in it. I'm worried if something else goes then it will be harder to sell/trade in and I definitely don't want to spend any more money getting it fixed again. Our mechanic was of the opinion that if it was a ford/toyota or whatever it would be worth putting the money into....

Anyway, if cars are supposedly not selling due to the recession etc you would imagine there would be bigger lists of them when you do a search on the car sites but I didn't find that to be the case so it makes you wonder whats happening out there at the moment. There were a few ford focuses we spotted on the net which were sold when we rang about them.
My instinct also is that I wont manage to sell it privately and thats why I was wondering if anyone here has tried recently to sell privately and what sort of response they got?
 
Ballymagash we recently sold a 00 Focus privately (we undercut the dealer price by about 20%) and I was very surprised at the level of interest - we could have sold it 20 times over! So it would seem to me that older second hand cars are very much in demand right now. That said I'd imagine people are being choosy about which older cars they look at - the Focus has a very good reputation whereas Fiats in general have a very bad reputation.
 
Ceist Beag - thanks for the feedback. Will probably give the advertising a go - nothing to lose. I hate going in to a dealers with a fiat - they delight in telling you how little its worth!!!!

On the car purchasing, does anyone know if they have much leeway on the price? The cars we are looking at are advertised at around 9k - realistically how much can you get them down? I note one poster here trying to get them from 13k to 11k, which in this climate you would imagine is not unreasonable and obviously they have built in some room for negotiation.
 
There were several " we buy your car for cash ads " in the Classifieds section of today's Independent if you want to check them out.
 
Aware of someone who wanted to sell an 03 Fiat and they could not give it away.

The second hand car market here is actually okish, I sold my 07 Yaris in June of this year (to a dealer) as they had no second hand car stock, as no one was trading in against new. Garages do need second hand cars, but only if it is popular model (spec, etc) and does not have any reliability problems, which unfortunately Fiat do. Only problem with selling privately is, prices are "realigning" so you will get a lot less than you think.
 
Well the car I was trying to get for 11K has been sold, appears the car market not in too bad of a way after all!
 
The car was probably worth 11k, thats why it sold at that level. Prices are being readjusted downwards, but the 11k was probably the bottom line. So the dealer knew it was worth that.

I had the same when I tried to sell my car. Got my bottom line and did not budge from that despite people phoning up with ridiculous offers. One man actually said he hoped I was stuck for money and thats why I was selling the car and could give me "cash today". People think the same with dealers. It is not the case.

Best of luck getting something else.

Second hand car market is not too bad at all, new is terrible.
 
That would seem to bear out what the media are saying i.e. people don't have the money or can't get the bank loans to buy new so are going for used which is pushing up demand for that sector.
 
I recently was looking at a 06 Opel Astra 1.4Sxi - nice looking car.

Dealer looking for €12,500 for it. Said he couldn't take a cent less than €12,250 for it, so obviously didn't need the sale that badly.

He said that the 2nd hand car market was really holding its prices as there was a real shortage of good quality used cars out there (as no-one was buying new), and that good ones really were at a premium.

If you are selling, all I can say is good luck. People will use the recession to offer you silly money for your car.
 
Yeah it was a low mileage 04 RX-8 231BHP, was worth 12K definitely. Was hoping to wait it out for a while to get it down a bit but that didnt work out!
 
Just thought I'd give an update. We bought a used car this morning from a main dealer. He wanted 7500 but I haggled (7k was my limit). However, the best I could get him to (and I generally pride myself on being good at this haggling lark so it was disappointing) was 7250. At that point I left, saying that I wasn't prepared to pay that. I think the fact that he let me go shows that he knows he would shift the car easily to someone else. Anyway, after some discussion we decided to buy it anyway at that price because it was a very good car. He said that they are low on used car stock. I guess if no on is buying new cars then they are not trading in ones that are a few years old (this is an 06).
 
Although I'd love one, I'd be more worried about the costs of maintaining that rotary engine and the quality of mechanic carrying out any work, should anything go wrong. They are complex.
 
Yeah that is my main niggle about buying one at the moment as well, part of me is saying maybe get something you want a bit less but isnt as complex, the rest of me is saying "***k it, just buy it!"
 
Well, the obvious alternative is the MX-5.

But maybe you are one of the "they are girly" brigade :p
 
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