How much is my car worth?

[Lurksalot]

Much respect greg BUT

You can't put a post looking for a free valuation of your car and then spit your dummy out if the answers are'nt what your looking for

[gregh]

no dummy spitting here mate, just trying understand market dynamics, before I decide wether to sell it or not!

[felters]

Greg

All very desirable and I'm sure it's a cracking car - but it's difficult to get more than £10k for any car as Matt has said.

[Nick M]

but it's difficult to get more than £10k for any car as Matt has said.

WARNING - THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL DIG !!    

Which is entirely the fault of the sellers and is largely a product of comments such as this on interweb forums....

People, new buyers in particular, have an expectation that no Westfield shall ever cost more than 10K, regardless of the spec.

This is obviously ridiculous but it's perpetuated by sellers who ask too little for the cars in the first place and by opinions expressed that 10K is the absolute ceiling for car valuations without having even seen the cars for sale.

I contemplated selling my car a couple of years ago but there was no way people would pay sensible money for it.  To build something similar from scratch would cost well in excess of 20K, but I would have been lucky to get 10K for it because of the myths and opinions I'm referring to above.

Each car should command its own value - since they're all different in their own way it's ridiculous to put a cap on the value simply because that's what has come to be accepted.

[Matt Seabrook]

I agree Nick but first you have to get someone to look at the car and if you are advertising a 4 pot at £12k you are on a hiding before you start. My Zetec car would cost about the same as your car to scratch build and in very good order but I bet if I was to try and sell for 12k I would not get a sniff.

[Nick M]

I know, and there's no real solution to it (other than for people to please desist your current communication on the matter because I'm intolerant of other people's opinions about cars never being worth more than 10K.... ).

I was simply commenting on how the situation came to be and why it annoys me.  Sadly I don't have any answers about how to fix it because unless you can influence *every* seller to bump the prices up to a less arbitrary level there's no way to control resale values.

[Mike-SEiW]

Regardless of what you "think" your car is worth, it's only market dynamics that matter, supply and demand. If the supply is larger than the demand, prices fall, it's really THAT simple, regardless of if the sum of the parts is double or thrice or whatever. If prices are falling, that means the demand for secondhand cars is less. The only way to assess what it might come to if you sell it is find what similar cars have gone for (not what they're advertised for).

In a market where there are few actual trades, value is more difficult to establish. And if you want to sell it quick, price usually is less, if you are prepared to wait longer for just the right buyer who values just exactly what you've got, you might get more.

At the moment in Sweden, there are two Westfields for sale, one is from 84 and advertised for about £10k (it's got a x-flow etc. etc) and another, fresh build with 2l Zetec is advertised as £25k (what a joke).

[Nick M]

In a market where there are few actual trades, value is more difficult to establish. And if you want to sell it quick, price usually is less, if you are prepared to wait longer for just the right buyer who values just exactly what you've got, you might get more.

Agree with that entirely.  I don't buy this "A car is only worth what someone will pay for it" BS.  That's only true if you *need* to sell today.  Otherwise the buyer decides what he's prepared to sell the car for, even though he may have to wait some time to find a realistic buyer.

[MAT1800]

Your not just competing with other westfield though, you've got other 7 type cars, as well as many other types of 2 seaters etc etc.

And the larger picture, ie. the plateau the housing market is in at the moment etc etc, all affect peoples disposable income, and couple of years ago, as people were watching their properties rise in vaule day after day, more people propbably would have paid more for what they wanted.

Everybody wants a bargain now, look how badly the retail trade is being hit recently.

[Mike H]

but it's difficult to get more than £10k for any car as Matt has said.

WARNING - THIS IS NOT A PERSONAL DIG !!    

Which is entirely the fault of the sellers and is largely a product of comments such as this on interweb forums....

People, new buyers in particular, have an expectation that no Westfield shall ever cost more than 10K, regardless of the spec.

I agree totally Nick.

Your car is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it - true - but if you're selling a decent car then you should hang on until the right buyer comes along.  There's no point selling for less than it's really worth just because you get 20 callers all of which want to spend less than 10k.

I know of a couple of cars that have gone for nearly 20k!!

When I sold my first car it took a while to get what I wanted for it but in the end the buyer was more than happy with what he paid and so was I.  The fact that I had endless viewers/callers all comparing apples with oranges was just annoying.

Apparently one tyre kicker could have bought a car "not much different to mine" for 6k a couple of hours before he saw mine which I was asking 12k for.  I just told him he should have bought it then and stop wasting my time.  My car was a modular build SpeedSport with plenty of extras and all new parts, the car "not much different to mine" turned out to have an engine straight out of an xr2 and with totally second hand parts and little or no reconditioning.  

cheers

Mike  

[Nick M]

Your not just competing with other westfield though, you've got other 7 type cars, as well as many other types of 2 seaters etc etc.

And the larger picture, ie. the plateau the housing market is in at the moment etc etc, all affect peoples disposable income, and couple of years ago, as people were watching their properties rise in vaule day after day, more people propbably would have paid more for what they wanted.

Everybody wants a bargain now, look how badly the retail trade is being hit recently.

True, but you don't see discussions on Blatchat saying "A Caterham is never worth more than 15K"....

And to make a comparison with the housing market, how do you think people would react if people looked at houses and said "A semi-detached house should never cost more than 150K", regardless of location, supply and demand, etc.

Everybody wants a bargain, but there comes a point where, if you can't afford something, you can't have it.  I can't afford a Ferrari but I'm not going to get very far if I complain to them that they should lower their prices so that I can have one....

[MAT1800]

Everybody wants a bargain, but there comes a point where, if you can't afford something, you can't have it.  I can't afford a Ferrari but I'm not going to get very far if I complain to them that they should lower their prices so that I can have one....

All quite true..

But if NOBODY bought a ferrari, then they would have to lower their prices!

I just think that the price of cars at the moment is more a reflection of the wider economic outlook at the moment rather than postings in this forum.  

There have been some good points made, and perhaps people should be wary of undervaluing their cars, however I (and I'm not a car priceing guru) imagine most westfield are sold on Ebay/autotrader/findit etc, not on this site. So I would think it unlikely that this forum has a massive effect on prices. I would have thought that discounts by the factory would have a far larger effect.

It's a buyers market at the moment, generally consumers are far more clued up about these things now, and if I was buying I'd play one person off against another, to get the lowest price I could. It's their choice to sell or not.

I guess in a nutshell, if you have to sell now, you might get stung. If you want to by now, you'll get a bargain. If you don't have to sell now, don't. The way I would see it is if anyone is selling in a depressed market, they 'need to' therfore I'd screw them down on price.

Sorry if this seems a bit harsh, I'm a nice guy really    , but when it comes to hard earned cash, and I consider how hard I have to work for it.  I'm going to try and get the most for it as will most other people.

And seller will always be willing to reduce their asking price to make that sale. A cartel would be a good idea, but hardly likely to happen. Besides wouldn't it be a little unfair to buyers, potential new club members paying more than they would have had to, because we've all got together to set prices?  

[Nick M]

A cartel would be a good idea, but hardly likely to happen. Besides wouldn't it be a little unfair to buyers, potential new club members paying more than they would have had to, because we've all got together to set prices?  

*points at Blatchat....*

In fairness, Caterham do a good job of keeping the residuals high.

[MAT1800]

 Nick..

Slightly off topic,

But it's that kind of thing that made me stay away form Cateringvans and pushed me towards westfileds.

Seems we care more about having fun and enjoying our cars than trying to keep up prices and appearances.

But I guess we have to pay for that in the end.  

[steve_m]

It's like anything, if it's really worth £12k then somebody will pay £12k, you might have to wait a bit to find them but presentation, documentation and attitude need to be in order.  

Ask any car dealer - how many times have you heard a mate say he got a real bargain, some old 3 series BMW (loads about) for what seems a high-ish price but the car is presented perfectly with documentation etc etc.  Maybe one of the car dealers on here can offer some advice ?

Maybe 7's aren't quite the same but I think the same principles apply.