[i74js]

The low balling gets further pronounced when cash discounts / festive discounts are going on as the dealer tries to present overall value preposition instead of considering old car sale as a separate activity.

When I bought Punto, the value of my Indica (115K Odo / 10 years) by dealer was 45K. I was able to sell it within my society @ 65K in 3 days.

It depends upon finding a buyer and the price at which you can let it go. I was expecting 75K

[sanj947]

Hi,
In fact I went through a reverse experience of sorts when I sold my Ninja 650.

I had not posted any ads but had casually mentioned to a friend that I was looking to sell my bike. He posted this on a discussion on a FB group - KNOGs (Kawasaki Ninja Owners Group) about this.
He immediately got a response from a member who asked him for my contact details.
After confirming with me that it was fine, he shared my details and I was surprised to receive a call within minutes from a buyer (a friend of the KNOGs member)

He was calling from a town in south/east Maharastra - Jalna - i think, and said he would leave immediately for Mumbai to come and see the bike.
I was taken aback with the urgency but agreed more out of curiosity than believing that he was a genuine buyer.

True to his word, he landed up the next morning and immediately made an offer after inspecting the bike.
I had already padded my original asking price a bit expecting some negotiation but was pleasantly surprised that his offer was well above my actual expectation.
I had never had such a smooth and favorable negotiation for any vehicle before and was a bit apprehensive at this point.
His next request deepened by doubts even further. He asked for immediate delivery there and then.
I said there's no way i can handover the bike without completion of payment and documentation formalities to which he assured me that he will take care of it.
He arranged the funds transfer and entire set of RTO documents within the next 2 hours.

It was then he explained the reason behind his big hurry.
he was getting married in a few days and had planned a grand baraat entrance with his friends on bikes. As the bridegroom he had to have the biggest bike in town and a pre-owned Ninja 650 was the best bet for him then.

So I think the biggest factor is - who's in a bigger hurry? the buyer or the seller?

[grkonweb]

Originally Posted by sanj947

Hi,
In fact I went through a reverse experience of sorts when I sold my Ninja 650.

So I think the biggest factor is - who's in a bigger hurry? the buyer or the seller?

You had a reverse experience because you had an aspirational bike and not a common every day bike! High-end bikes have niche market and it takes aficionados to appreciate the bike especially when the word is out in closed groups! Plus the used bike is cheaper than a new one with all the wait time cut out and in your case the it suited the buyer best given his urgency.

[PrideRed]

On a contrary I met this energetic SA from Nandi Toyota. I wanted to exchange my 2013 Ecosport and as usual he started with 5.3lacs and he knew I wasn't going to budge. The SA did not give up, he worked with Toyota Trust and manged to get a quote of 5.5 . Since he knew I was looking for 6.5-7 he tried all possible ways- asked his friends,known dealers and finally came up with quote of 6.2 . Given the hassle free transfer, I had finalized the deal but just a day before selling, an individual buyer offered me 6.6lacs with immediate transfer of funds. I broke the agreement with dealer(since no money was transferred yet) and sold the car to individual buyer. The SA was more than happy and did not complain.
The dealer prices are always low because they have establishment costs, holding costs and no guarantee if they will be able to sell at a good margin at a reasonable time.

[vigsom]

Originally Posted by PrasannaDhana

I was shocked by the low-balling game the car dealers play on unsuspecting owners.

Kindly share such incidents here.

Sharing two instances here :

1. Friend A trades in his well kept 2010 sx4 zxi AT for a BR-V CVT and is offered 2.2lacs. He finally managed to get 2.45lacs plus an exchange bonus of 20k. The same car is listed for sale at 3.8 lacs.

2. Friend B trades in his 96k done third owner 2006 Corolla H6 (limited edition) for a WagonR AGS and is offered 1.35lacs. An outside financier seals the deal for 1.7lacs and then lists the same car at 2.9lacs.

In both cases, the sellers took the hit of trade-in because they didn't want to live with the uncertainty of the car ownership not being transferred.

[vigvr]

Having been associated with new car sales (across manufacturers, moedls) for quite a bit, here's what I understand from working with multiple car buyers, new car dealers and used car dealers.

1. The first step that any car buyer looking to exchange cars does is get an estimate of their cars using OBV or the other algorithmic tools. And what I observe is that all those tools over-quote to get themselves leads/business. A 6 year old, 1 owner VW Jetta Highline Diesel DSG having done 1.2L Kms just cannot retail at 8.5 Lakhs, sorry.

It's not just an on-paper depreciation that gets into the picture.

2. With dealers, they have their own challenges about evaluation. And GST isn't helping them or you in anyway, at this juncture. Very often, you'll find dealers giving you shady combinations of part cash + part RTGS/Cheque. It's completely upto you.
Apart from GST, there's the re-work (because which car is spot-less?), stocking time till they find a buyer. Also, there is very higher finders fees in the used car business (close to 2.5% sometimes).

Very few cars in the A-segment sell pretty well in the real world. The best example - Hyundai i10 MT/AT.

When you haggle with the dealer for a better price continuously, it's unlikely the dealer gets back to you with the RC update. Your car would be running under your name somewhere else but operated by someone else. These are very scary situations that sometimes prompt car buyers to just take the existing quote and close the deal. The exchange bonus on the new car comes in handy.

[arnieshwartz]

I sold my 10-year old Honda City ZX Gxi on OLX about 4 months ago. It had clocked a little over 1L kms on the odo and was maintained in excellent condition. I stopped taking it to Honda ASS about 3 years after purchasing the car, after I realised they were over-charging on several occasions. I used to follow the maintenance schedule myself with the assistance of a friendly neighborhood garage. Paint was in factory condition, with minor denting work done. The car was all stock, with the exception of fog lamps added when I got both sets of bumpers changed sometime in 2016. Tyres were changed in Feb 2016; I got the Yokohama Earth1.

Long story short, the "best" offer I could get was 1.6L, and my question here is - was that a fair evaluation?

[pduttaghy]

Interesting Thread!
Heres what I did when exchanging my mother's Alto for a new car. Quikr MSP showed a value of 1.8 L for a six year old excellent conditioned car. When I listed on OLX I was getting offers of 1.2 L which was not an acceptable figure for us, so we decided to negotiate with 3 car companies for an exchange price.
Finally received an exchange offer of 1.8L from one and agreed on the price and exchanged it.

[Turbo yoda]

Same thing happened to me back in 2013 went to exchange a lancer for a brand new Verna fluidic, I was given a low ball offer of 70000 I got so angry that I walked off sold it the next day for 130000 on olx

[pahwa]

Originally Posted by MCR

T
My advice is to not sell a 5 year old car if it is trouble free! hold it till reaches 7 years of life or until you can find a 'friend' who is interested in buying.

.

I agree to each word there.

Renault quoted me 4.5 lacs when I planned to exchange 4 yr old duster with a new duster. Reason they gave is - "Saar! Renault cars have low resale value" and there goes my reaction - "Heck! Why would I buy another Renault then?"

End of discussion. They kept calling me to haggle but I think this lowballing with a genuine customer is disrespectful to say the least.

[locusjag]

In general, I think it's an accepted fact in most countries that selling to a dealer entails monetary losses but peace of mind and vice versa when selling to individuals.

I am about to sell my used SUV here in the USA shortly before coming back to India. May the used car Gods smile on me!

Originally Posted by arnieshwartz

I sold my 10-year old Honda City ZX Gxi on OLX about 4 months ago. It had clocked a little over 1L kms on the odo and was maintained in excellent condition. I stopped taking it to Honda ASS about 3 years after purchasing the car, after I realised they were over-charging on several occasions. I used to follow the maintenance schedule myself with the assistance of a friendly neighborhood garage. Paint was in factory condition, with minor denting work done. The car was all stock, with the exception of fog lamps added when I got both sets of bumpers changed sometime in 2016. Tyres were changed in Feb 2016; I got the Yokohama Earth1.

Long story short, the "best" offer I could get was 1.6L, and my question here is - was that a fair evaluation?

The Orange Book Valuation (OBV) off of the home page of team-bhp gives a 'Fair' or 'good' condition value of around Rs.1.8 Lakhs onwards for your car's specs...assuming you're selling to a dealer. Try selling to an individual.

Edit - I wonder why the OBV tool doesn't ask nor take into account the garaging zip code, the title (whether clean or if under loan) and the number of owners. This is what all the used car valuation algorithms in the USA go by.
* Garaging zip code matters due to geographically variable factors such as corrosion, likelihood of damage to suspension and underbody due to road conditions etc. Also, it's important to be able to tell if the car could have been hit by floods, hail etc.
* Title matters to individual buyers a lot since there are delays and hassles involved if the seller is still under loan and the title is hypothecated to the financing company.
* Number of owners matters because...well, the fewer the better, ostensibly.

[drashkum]

After having sold my 3 cars, a santro, Fiat Linea, recently my swift ZDI, i can help with a few gyan i gained while selling.

1. Selling to a genuine individual is much better than selling to a dealer. Both used car dealership and the dealership where you are going to get a new car for exchange of old car always lowballs the price. The new car dealer quotes the price taking into account the exchange bonus you are liable to get from the deal and also the commission he has to pay to the dealership for giving him a client. The used car dealer quotes the price taking into account the small work he needs to do before he sells it off and also the profit margin he needs. I always prefer selling it to a individual than a dealer as i can keep track of name change and other formalities. There are reports before that a few dealers sell their cars without name change and people have ended up in trouble.

2. The way you can avoid a used car dealer approaching you is putting your add on quickr or olx with a hiked price of 1 lakh more than what you expect. I have done this recently when i sold my swift and barring a couple of dealers no other dealer even bothered to call. And believe me, people do call where you can ask if they are individual looking to purchase and in that case the deal is negotiable. First ask them to come and see the car and then negotiate the price. When i recently sold my swift this individual pursued me to renegotiate the price for a week since he was impressed by the car. So i was sure that he was genuinely interested and also knew that he would keep my car in good shape too after the deal. And you can always get a middle ground price with such a deal.

3. Before zeroing on the numbers get a fair value of your car from teambhp tool or quickr tool to know how much your car can fetch. Hike it by 25 to 30K and quote it. After all no deal goes without negotiations. And in that case you have a margin to negotiate. Another way is to use the IDV listed in insurance and quote a equal or marginally below the price. I make sure that IDV in each year insurance is not grossly depreciated.

3. Be calm and transparent and wait. Do not be in a hurry to finish off the deal. Once people sense that you are in a hurry they try to take advantage of the situation and tell you that they can pay immediately in their own price and take the car right away especially the used car dealers.

4. If the dealer or the prospective buyer says so and so unnecessary works need to be done in your car after buying, politely tell them they are better of buying a new car which does not need any work and can be driven to satisfaction rightaway. Any old car would need a few changes or tweaking here and there even if impeccably maintained. I have heard dealers telling me that white and silver cars fetch better price, i have right across their face told them that blue is what i like and i bought the car for me to enjoy and not to sell to taxi wallahs.

5. If the buyer lowballs the price politely tell him sternly across the face that you have a better deal elsewhere and he can look elsewhere and be stern and don't call back. There are many a times after a week time the same dealer comes back with a revised quote.

[Ramon]

Though not at the time of exchange I too had an interesting experience while trying to sell my sisters Indica Turbo in 2011.

The 2005 model Turbo DLG car had run only around 30000km and was in pristine condition for an Indica. All scratches etc were regularly attended to and the car was spotless both on the exterior and on the interior. We were looking to sell it as the running had come down considerably.

The car was give to the local Tata Service Center - Kulathunkal Motors at Trivandrum. In the evening dad and I went to pick it up. While waiting for it to be delivered we were walked into the second hand car area of the dealership beside the main service centre to check out how much was the rate for which the cars were being sold.

There we saw a similar vintage Indica Turbo DLG for sale. It was battered with a lot of battle scars, interiors were worn out and was showing all the wear and tear it had collected while running the over one lakh km shown as per the details of the car written on a card on the windshield.

On seeing us taking a close look at the car the sales guy came upto us. We asked him the price and he told 2.5 lakhs. I was kind of surprised as the I knew the market rate of well maintained Indica with lesser running was slightly less than that. Anyway got the car opened but it wouldn't even start.

By this time our car came out of the service. We showed out car to the sales guy and asked him how much we would get for it.

Without batting an eyelid he said -

"Maximum 1.25 lakhs"


We laughed aloud and left the place.

Around 3-4 months later we sold the car to a private buyer for 2.3 lakhs.

[octane_100]

Two years back I was looking to replace my Linea MJD with a compact SUV or a cross hatch. Mine was then 3 years old and had 55k on the odo. It was maintained extremely well with zero dents or scratches and mechanically too, well looked after.

The Ford dealer quoted me 2.5 Lakhs citing that it's a Fiat and hardly any buyer. I then started searching for a buyer on my own and eventually closed the deal for close to 6L

[jpm]

Recently sold my Vento TDi 2012 HL to a FCA dealer. Was low balled initially. I then pretended to cancel my new car if selling price was not satisfactory; after which was offered a decent enough price in exchange. As the GST cess date was nearing, I had to rush the whole thing off and it was nagging my mind that I had settled for less.

However, it so happened that a person within my organization had bought the car off the dealer and had managed to trace me as my old car still had the office security sticker on the windshield. I was pleasantly surprised and relieved when I heard that he had paid just 10K over my selling price!

Also prior to this, Honda had pre GST 60K offer on exchange for BR-V in July during which the dealer started with a lakh lower than my expected price. Backed out of the new car deal entirely.

BTW, I am not sure about the accuracy of OBV value at all in rural/second tier cities. The prices suggested by OBV seemed too optimistic for what was being offered in general.