Plenty of people want or need to sell their car quickly. It may be that they urgently need some extra cash, or it may be that they can’t stand the idea of a long and drawn-out process of haggling with strangers over a few hundred quid to reach a deal.
We have good news. Like pretty much everything else in today’s online and connected world – reserving tickets, booking a restaurant, arranging travel – selling your car can be done quickly and easily, without hassle or haggle.
Car selling of the past would offer you two or three unappealing choices: take your pride and joy to a local car dealer, who would try to get you to use it as a ‘part exchange’ (also known as a ‘trade in’) against another vehicle or offer you a derisory, low price for it.
You could alternatively advertise the car yourself and go through all the hassle of placing a classified ad, waiting for it to be printed and published (probably a week later) and then endure a queue of people coming to your house, expecting a test drive and then haggling you down from your asking price.
You could also make up a ‘For Sale’ sign, stick it in the rear windscreen of your car and hope that someone would see it and contact you. And that could take weeks.
All of that is no good to you if you are looking for cash quickly and easily. Today, there are solutions available. Many websites will have the whole selling process done and dusted in 24-48 hours, with the cash reaching your bank account within a couple of days.
And even if you don’t need the money quite that quickly, but you also don’t want the grief of actually selling your vehicle, there are websites that will do that work for you too.
Things have moved forward in massive leaps and bounds. Selling your car online in one or two days is perfectly possible and quite easy. Specialist agencies have been launched to do all the work for you, and at double quick time. It really couldn’t be easier.
The level of assistance given varies and so do the various offerings, but the end result – the sale of your vehicle – is well within grasp. So, who is out there and ready to do the selling for you? How do they differ? And what does it cost?
Some sites effectively buy the car from you and sell it on, making their profit in that way. You will be offered a price, but it might be slightly less than you would expect if you sold the vehicle yourself. But what you lose in the final figure, you gain in speed and convenience. In many cases. the money is paid to you direct – you don’t have to deal with chancers and hagglers.
Other sites help you to set up an advertisement to move your car on. You might still have to deal with the end buyer, but your advert is getting a broad showing across the UK. These sites have a wide audience, so you are putting your car out in front of a lot of potential buyers. And that’s far more preferable than sticking a ‘For Sale’ sign in the window and parking it on the street.
Here The Car Expert looks at the big players in the world of internet selling. This is a list not a ranking, as the offerings do differ. It often depends on the level of input you want, as well as cost.
Motorway*
URL: motorway.co.uk
This is a hugely popular and well-reviewed way to sell your car quickly and easily – it has become a serious rival to the successful WeBuyAnyCar set up.
Step 1 is to request a valuation of your car. This takes just a few minutes – you simply enter your car’s registration number plus a few personal details such as email address, and Motorway does the rest, checking valuations of vehicles like yours using live data for up to the minute valuations.
If you are happy with the valuation, you’ll be asked to profile your car using your phone to take photos of the vehicle. Step-by-step instructions are given to help you get shots that buyers want to see. Those buyers are made up of the 75,000 dealers in Motorway’s network who might be interested in adding your car to their stock inventory.
The company also has an army of scrap metal dealers and recyclers who might also take the car, so it doesn’t matter if you have a sought-after beauty or an old banger worth just a few hundred pounds. Whichever trader you choose to sell to, Motorway will transfer the money to your account within 24 hours and collect the car free of charge.
Carwow*
Carwow was – and possibly still is – known for its ability to find you a great car to buy from a dealer and at a discount. And the know-how and expertise it had to do that task has now been applied to helping you sell a car too.
The company has assisted 10 million people to either find or sell a car and in terms of selling, it claims to have handled 230,000 such transactions.
The set-up is similar to Motorway’s in that you enter your registration number and personal details, and ask Carwow to circulate that information to its network of more than 5,500 trusted used car dealers who bid in an online auction. All you have to do is pick the offer that appeals to you, likely the highest one.
It’s important that you enter truthful and honest details about the car (and that goes for any similar site) because these will all be carefully checked anyway, before any cash is handed over.
The site is packed full of car reviews, tips, advice and other useful information.
Autotrader*
URL: autotrader.co.uk
In the days when everything was printed on paper, Auto Trader was the go-to for anyone thinking of buying a used car. Today (except ‘Autotrader’ is now all one word, apparently), it offers a similar service which is very popular with potential buyers – except that today it’s all online.
You can still advertise your vehicle which puts you in control, allowing you to set the price and maximise your selling price while putting the car in front of a potential ten million people. But this is a longer process, and you have to pay for it – £18 for a two-week slot rising to £45 for the ‘Ultimate’ service, advertising the vehicle until it sells.
To speed things up – and get your hands on some cash quicker – Autotrader also offers the auction route. The site says a car can be sold in as little as 48 hours.
It takes the traditional path – the car is put in front, virtually, of thousands of dealers, who compete with each other by bidding to offer the best price. Once the auction is over, you will be notified of the best price and can then decide whether to proceed or not. There’s free collection of the vehicle offered and same-day payment made.
Exchange My Car*
URL: exchangemycar.co.uk
It’s a similar story with Exchange My Car – and you can get paid in quick time too – but this system involves a few more checks.
To get started, you type in your car’s registration number, along with current mileage and your personal details. The site uses information from its car-buying partners to come up with an initial valuation for you.
If you’re going ahead, you then need to give more detailed information about the car and images of it so that the valuers can come up with a more accurate estimate. Here the further checks begin: you book an appointment for a specialist visit and gather all the car’s relevant documentation and paperwork.
On the day of the appointment, the car buying partner arrives to check over the car and confirm it’s all as described, before completing the sale paperwork and closing the deal. It’s at this point, of course, that the valuation can change as the vehicle’s condition is assessed. However, if everyone’s happy, money is transferred immediately, and arrangements are made to collect the car.
We Buy Any Car*
URL: webuyanycar.com
Thaks to a series of high profile advertising slots, including some catchy tunes, We Buy Any Car is the UK’s best-known online car buying site. It’s been going the longest, too, and really set the pace in terms of this method of car sales.
It also gained a reputation for reducing the expected price for minor cosmetic damage, sometimes knocking hundreds of pounds off what people thought they would receive. As rivals have emerged, We Buy Any Car has had to adjust its offer-making process to stay competitive.
One big difference here is that there is no free car collection service in the deal, so it’s not as ’relaxing’ as some offerings. You have to take your car to one of We Buy Any Car’s 500 depots across the country. They claim the nearest is no more than 15 minutes away, but that’s worth checking before you get in too deep with the sale.
The initial valuation is held for four days, so you can have a think about it and make an appointment. There is a charge to sell with We Buy Any Car – £50 for cars up to £4,000, £75 for up to £7,000, with other increments rising to £125 for up to £20,000. But it’s a fairly quick service and you can even get your money in 15 minutes – as long as you pay £30 for their ‘Immediate Payment’ service.
eBay Motors
URL: ebay.co.uk/motors
The term ‘eBay’ is a buzzword for online auctions and it you haven’t heard of this American giant, there’s something seriously amiss. The company is a leader in online selling and covers almost anything you can think of, including cars.
You fill in a detailed but easy-to-use online form, including details of your car with photos, and can then sign up for a length of time for an auction to be held – a week is a good benchmark. There’s the option to set a starting price and a reserve price for protection, plus the choice to have a ‘Buy it Now’ price, which can speed everything up.
There is a fee to sell in an eBay auction. It starts at £15 to list the vehicle, but the add-ons, such as £6 for ‘Buy it Now’ and £10 for a reserve to be set, can bump up the fee. And there’s more: a 1% cut of the final sale price fee (minimum £25, maximum £45) to pay.
For that though, you get financial peace of mind because eBay handles all the payment transactions for you. You don’t hand over the car until you have been paid, and you can check the useful feedback ratings on your potential buyer to see if they are trustworthy and quick.
Gumtree
URL: gumtree.com
Gumtree is another great site worth a look when it comes to finding yourself a new-to-you used car – they have 230,000 of them all waiting to be sold. But this expertise has also been put to good use when it comes to buying from you too.
And there’s one big bonus with this car advertising site – if you’re a private seller, there’s no fee. You are basically creating a classified advert for Gumtree’s readers to see. Start with the registration number to set the ball rolling and the site fills in many of the car’s details for you.
There is the option to add other information if you wish, and there are tips and advice to help you fill in the greater detail that will help you attract more buyers. Photos are important in this process and Gumtree allows you to upload several showing all angles of the car.
Every car advertised gets a free, basic HPI history check to prove it hasn’t been written off, stolen or been in an accident. The system can prove speedy, however there is no payment assistance. Gumtree brings sellers and buyers together to find a deal – but arranging to get the money from them is down to you.
Facebook Marketplace
URL: facebook.com/marketplace/vehicles
Like eBay, Facebook is a name that’s become almost part of modern life. Millions of people use it as a form of communication through social media, but few know that it can be used to sell a vehicle. Launched in 2016, its Marketplace section is slowly gathering supporters.
This is a service for private buyers and sellers and consequently, cars at the cheaper end of the scale are more likely to be listed. It’s a cheap and convenient way to advertise your car – indeed listings are free. It’s a classified ad set-up again.
Click on the Marketplace section and open the ‘selling’ subdivision. There you enter details of your car and can include photos at this point.
There’s potentially a wide audience here as your advert can be seen by any Facebook user who goes to the Marketplace. Buyers can narrow down their search to your make, model or mileage so the right people could be driven towards your advert. Again, the negotiations and cash collection are down to you. Facebook merely puts you and a potential buyer together – but at least they’re another FB user.
Car Converter/Car TakeBack
URL: carconverter.co.uk / cartakeback.com
Got a car that you simply want to get rid of as quickly as possible in return for some small cash? These two sites could be your answer then. They take vehicles that other sites wouldn’t touch, such as badly damaged ones or older models that are ready for the scrappers.
Don’t expect a fortune from either of them but it’s likely to be a more competitive offer than from your local scrap dealer. Plus, there’s the added convenience that both these sites offer free collection, so you don’t even have to drive your car to the ‘breaker’s yard’.
Car Converter styles itself as ‘Cash for cars’ and says it’s the ‘damaged car buying specialist’. The simple site asks you to enter the car’s registration number, mileage and your postcode and with that they will send you a quote.
Car Take Back is the largest scrap car recycling network in the UK and has recycled nearly eight million vehicles. All Car Take Back needs is the registration number and your postcode to give you a quote. If you like what you see, you can arrange for a collection and once the vehicle is safely collected, the cash is sent to your bank.
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*The Car Expert has commercial partnerships with Autotrader, Carwow, eBay Motors, Exchange My Car, Motorway and We Buy Any Car. If you click through to their websites, we may receive a small commission. This does not affect the valuations you receive.