A mate of mine is selling his '66 Pontiac Grand Prix Lowrider and was thinking of chucking it on ebay.

 

Can anyone tell me the deal on this? How much it costs? Its more if you set a reserve isn't it? Do they take a precentage or is it a flat rate?

 

Thanks.

I've sold two bike on ebay a Ducati 916 and a GSXR1100 cost about £7 for the advert ran a week both sold no bother. Very good as they where in the local rag for about 3 weeks with no phone calls

 

Craig

Hi mate,

 

 

I sold my old car (a Renault Clio) on eBay a couple of months ago (mid April). I think the listing ended up costing me about £20 or something like that (I went for the full bifter with 9 photos, super-size photos, slideshow, featured listing and all that other stuff). I did NOT set a reserve.

 

Just to give you an idea I'll give you a few more details on the car:

 

- 1998 ® Renault Clio RXE (Mk III - so the new shape)

- Metallic grey paint (a few scratches and stonechips, and a couple of minor dents: (i) where some yob kicked it in the rear door, pretty much sorted out, (ii) where somebody opened it into a car park pillar or something on the passenger side (I actually think this was done by a garage I took it to).

- 82000 miles

- Manual

- 1.6 8 valve engine

- 5 door

- Alloy wheels with some scoring round the edges (I take MUCH better care of my zed though ;-) )

- A/C

- PAS

- ABS

- Front electric windows

- Electric sunroof (not working - common fault, and you try getting a used replacement; new they're about £400 so I never bothered)

-

-

 

In the end I got £1650 for it which I was quite happy with, given the condition and mileage. TBH I was just glad to get shot of the thing because although it was a nice car to drive I'd spent about £2000 on it during the preceding 12 months (so probably nothing'll go wrong with it for ages now, but you never can tell). This is MUCH more than I would have got from a dealer, but probably a bit less than I could have got if I'd sold via autotrader or the local paper.

 

However the advantage is of course is convenience because you know that at X date and time the car *will* be sold, which is what I needed because the longer I kept it the more money it was costing me with insurance, and the tax and MOT both coming up for renewal. I figured that whatever extra I might make in the sale I'd lose in these things.

 

However, I would not list my zed on eBay because I know how much I'd want for it and I know it would never fetch that on eBay: there's no way I'd take less than 6k for it but I'd be surprised to get 4.5k on there. As an example somebody (one of Chunk's mates I think from looking at his website) listed a *gorgeous* pearl yellow manual TT with 42k on the clock and an Aston Martin interior and loads of mods on there wanting £9.5k for it and at the close of auction the top bid was £5.5k, which was just ridiculous. Now I don't think I would have handed over what he wanted for it, but with hindsight I wish I'd put in an offer and might have gone to £8.5 - £9k because the thing was mint (or at least looked it).

 

Depends what you want to do really. If he knows what the car's worth and doesn't mind waiting around a bit before shifting it I'd say don't go with eBay, but if he needs a quick sale and doesn't mind waiting a bit then go for it.

 

A few other quick pieces of advice (I'm at work):

 

- Don't let anybody bid with negative feedback or no feedback.

- If anybody puts in an offer ignore them (or reply politely but firmly in the negative) no matter how tempting it is. I had a number of people offer me sums that looked like they might be quite good (one even asked if I'd tax and MOT the car) but the final price the car fetched was MORE than any of the offers made. So let the auction run its course.

- Put down as much information about the car as you can, and definitely put down basics like mileage, LHD / RHD, transmission type, engine capacity etc. Not putting down this information is a real turn-off for buyers (speaking from looking at zeds).

- Make sure you use correct spelling and grammar, and don't use massive fonts or put things like (NOT Skyline, Supra) etc in the title of your listing because this is really annoying. If you have problems with spelling etc get a friend to check it over before you list. Essentially try to go for a clean, professional look, which is far more impressive than using every colour / font created by the mind of man in an attempt to grab attention. Black on white is fine.

- Be completely honest about the car - if you don't the buyer is well within their rights to renage on the deal because the item is not "as described".

- Publish replies to any questions you answer and ALWAYS be polite, even if the person on the other end is clearly a muppet: if you're polite but firm it will discourage timewasters and show everyone else that you're serious about the auction.

- Take your time with the listing and make sure you get it right before you list.

- Make sure the photos you post are large and of high quality (no blurring etc).

 

That's about it really. I'm sure there are loads of others on here with experience of this. Sorry if I sound a bit intolerant about some things, it's only because, well basically because I am intolerant about them after spending so long searching for a zed and having to phone / email and ask for details that should have been available in the first place. ;-)

 

Anyway, whatever your mate decides to do I hope it works out OK and he gets the price he wants for the car.

 

 

Cheers,

Bart

 

 

P.S. I think I ended up paying somewhere between 3 and 5% of the final price in commission at the end - think it was something like £70 but can't remember TBH.

If you didn't have time to reply properly - you should've just said!

 

Blimey!! Thanks for that, appreciate it!