Hi this may have been covered already but here goes. My friend had just been told his Meteor Grey Vrs petrol manual Octavia is only worth about 15 grand. ( we buy any car.com) - also confirmed by the dealer. He bought it for 27 grand in March of this year and the car has done 4000 miles approx. He bought it on a 0% pcp ad I have also done. Can it really have devalued that much in this short space of time?

Edited 20 December, 20169 yr by stubev156

WBAC want a profit buying and selling and the Dealership does, so that is not the value just what they would like to pay for it.

 

The thing is you need someplace or someone else that will pay more, if you find one then that is what you can get for it.

Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it......

Why don't you try a Cap valuation online to find out what the car is worth as a trade in it costs no more than £5 or try a parkers used car valuation as it is free but won't tell you what the dealer is actually seeing as cap does.

It makes not a difference what a book says, bottom book etc, if they do not want to give book price they will not.

if you take your car in Sir Arnolds or Parks, Ingrams or who ever will offer what they want to for a deal, and might move a bit.

Many lazy ones now just know that WBAC is a fall back option and chance their arm knowing they can still turn a car around quick.

 

Anyone taking the car in at £15,000 is likely to be advertising at £18,000 ish, but that is just an asking price, then they can get a customer taking finance and on it goes.

The manual petrol 220 VRs hatch lists around £24k and is usually discounted to about £20k, so £15k is not a bad offer if they would resell for maybe £18k.

Sounds like he loaded it with extras and didnt get any discount.

Unfortunately extras are rarely worth a lot used.

Yes, you are right I think. Thank for your advice all.

27k is a lot to pay. That's the downside of '0%' finance. It isn't. I bought a five month old model for cash with a couple of thousand miles, for over 8 thousand cheaper from a dealer. That's the price you pay for buying on dealer finance packages.

WBAC offer the lowest prices. They will send the car to private auction, where it will be snapped up by a Dealer for a grand or two more. The Dealer will add a few grand to the price before selling it to it's "second owner" for ~£20K.

 

Do not use WBAC unless your life depends upon instant cash. Sell the car privatel for best returns, or use it as a trade-in towards your next car if you are lazy.

 

Edit: I estimate ~£19K if sold privately. It is still a lot of money to lose, but ~30% is typical 1st year depreciation for a family car.

Edited 21 December, 20169 yr by Orville

Sounds like the guy paid list and bought extras...so he needs to keep it forever to get his money back. .

£27k is a lot for a VRs when you can get a standard VRS for £20k discounted new.

Dont do your research and rush into things and you get stitched up like this.

Dealer must have been laughing.

Edited 21 December, 20169 yr by glosrich

Not all car buying is ruled by the heart though. Was it an impulse purchase? I have bought a few cars over the years that were impulsive whereby I cared little for running costs and depreciation.

Granted though skodas must be one of the quickest depreciating brands due to their bottom rung image and mass availability, but surely when one is buying one of these they know all to well it won't be worth much second hand.

I recently went to a vw finance sale to buy a non running 100k vrs on a 63 plate it made book so there's still buyers out there wanting to give top money , car was in auction high miles and told it was a non runner due to a water problem the auctioner stated this it made no difference to its price it went for top Money

Can you remember how much that one went for?

WBAC offer the lowest prices. They will send the car to private auction, where it will be snapped up by a Dealer for a grand or two more. The Dealer will add a few grand to the price before selling it to it's "second owner" for ~£20K.

 

Do not use WBAC unless your life depends upon instant cash. Sell the car privatel for best returns, or use it as a trade-in towards your next car if you are lazy.

 

I got messed around by more than one tyre kicker who all promised to show up and look at one of my cars 3 years ago.

 

In the end I went to WBAC who offered me £700 less than I was asking.  Upon inspection, the offer dropped by another £300.

 

But I snapped their hand off; you get a guy turn up at the appointed time, no messing about and the money was in my account within 3 minutes of the offer being finalised.

 

Yes I probably could have got more but that was dependent on having to deal with messers........sometimes life's too short to be interacting with the "great" British public.

As mentioned, depreciation is going to be harsh in the first year, and levels out over subsequent years. They do depreciate pretty hard though it seems. I bought mine at just under 3 years old with 15k on it for less than half of it's original 30k list (with options). This was main dealer approved used, so minus the few k of their profit margin and I doubt the original owner got more than 11/12k trade in; that's around £1 per mile, or £400 a month depreciation.

I got messed around by more than one tyre kicker who all promised to show up and look at one of my cars 3 years ago.

 

In the end I went to WBAC who offered me £700 less than I was asking.  Upon inspection, the offer dropped by another £300.

 

But I snapped their hand off; you get a guy turn up at the appointed time, no messing about and the money was in my account within 3 minutes of the offer being finalised.

 

Yes I probably could have got more but that was dependent on having to deal with messers........sometimes life's too short to be interacting with the "great" British public.

My previous two cars have been sold via Auto-Trader. The last cost £50 to advertise and I obtained significantly more than WBAC offered online. The only problem with Auto-Trader is that you get the occasional spam caller trying to help sell your car for you (WBAC wannabies). The positive side of Auto-Trader is that you receive lots of calls from interested buyers, so long as the asking price is realistic. I sold both of my cars to the first viewer. My 3-Series sold for asking price (I would have accepted less), and the Missus' Megane went for a small discount. I personally prefer to suffer a little manual work and aggravation, than be left with the feeling of being ripped-off. For the price of two adverts, answering a few dozen calls, and meeting two buyers I saved £3K to £4K.

 

...and I still receive spam mails from WBAC listing current valuations for the above cars sold several years ago.

 

I used WBAC for selling my Octavia mk2fl. Got the same as the offers privately with zero hassle or having to chuck in an extra set of wheels or a service or a full tank of fuel.

Also zero come back and zero time being wasted and a zero loss of money.

I'm not saying it works for every one but WBAC has it's place and uses.

(Oh and that includes time wasters from this site).

Anyway on the fact of depreciation, it's fairly rubbish on all now cars at the moment due to the way they are being sold. Unless I get an amazing deal on a car in the future, this will be my last new car, and probably for sure will see me to the end if my petrol/diesel driving days.

Can you remember how much that one went for?

yes it made 5850 and then on top they would of been the auction buyers fee and indemnity,car was sold at bca nottingham in vw less than perfect sale, ive been to these sales before and got some cracking bargains but new vrs mk3 are never cheap.

Yes but they are not selling new ones,

they are selling used ones obviously, often used and abused, hence where they are being offered for sale!

Yep you have to be careful at auction or you can end up with a pup.

Apart from quick disposal, being unable to retail i.e. faults damage is the main reason for dealers auctioning cars.

WBAC is a car buying service - you pay for the easy and convenient transaction. 

Private sale will always get the best amount but you have to advertise widely, negotiate well, and take a risk with buyers and potentially large wads of £20's. 

New cars depreciate fast. 

Wbac is BCA. It's the same company.

The manual petrol 220 VRs hatch lists around £24k and is usually discounted to about £20k, so £15k is not a bad offer if they would resell for maybe £18k.

Sounds like he loaded it with extras and didnt get any discount.

Unfortunately extras are rarely worth a lot used.

The comment on extras is very true and purchasers should not expect to recoup money spent on them but rather to improve the driving experience. From other posts prospective buyers want well-specced 2nd hand cars so it might be easier to sell. I was offered £16K at 12 months with 10K miles by a dealer when I saw a good deal on a 230. The deal was too good to be true but the dealer agreed to honour it and then revised the P/X offer to £14K to account for the projected delivery date. I think maybe I was given absolute bottom book to dissuade me. I only considered the 230 for the diff, the extras on my car are pretty decent. The one saving grace is that even with extras I paid nothing like £24K. I will see what it's worth at the 3 year point and decide whether to change.

These days I just don't see one private individual handing over £10K plus to another one private individual. Those days are gone in favour of PCP / PCH / dealer finance.

 

Would you buy privately for a 5 figure sum?  Take a 5 figure bank loan?

 

Those of us who bought a car the old fashioned way are finding that they're almost worthless a few years later.

 

I bought a new car for cash and the same dealer made a derisory trade in offer a few years later. Still got it.

 

Trying PCP and PCH nowadays.

These days I just don't see one private individual handing over £10K plus to another one private individual. Those days are gone in favour of PCP / PCH / dealer finance.

 

Would you buy privately for a 5 figure sum?  Take a 5 figure bank loan?

 

Those of us who bought a car the old fashioned way are finding that they're almost worthless a few years later.

 

I bought a new car for cash and the same dealer made a derisory trade in offer a few years later. Still got it.

 

Trying PCP and PCH nowadays.

 

Understandable but people still do this. I sold my BMW 330D privately last year for 13k. Buyer transferred 10k to my account and met me outside the bank with the remainder in an envelope. Was actually quite an easy and pleasant transaction.