[pappillon]

Mine's been up for sale for the past three weeks or so, and it's proving more difficult that I thought. Advertising it for a fair price has been tricky. I've done my research, taken advice, called numerous dealers but everyone tells me something different

I'm not in a particular hurry to sell (in fact, I'm having second thoughts about selling MAX and getting a new 'S'... might go back to owning classics ), and I know my 'S' has a good spec and is in great condition, but this is taking the shine off a little on what has been the near-perfect "experience" of owning and driving my beloved car

If you've sold/tried to sell your MINI recently, what's been your experience?

[pappillon]

Wow! It seems noone else on MINI2 has sold or is about to sell their MINI apart from me. I feel ashamed of myself for even considering it now

[wibbly]

Hi Papps try speaking to Melons a M2 member, she is having a nightmare selling hers! Seems she is looking down the barrels of an 'on the floor' part ex with her dealer

[KPKalle]

Yeah I'm surprised you've had no response Me, I've only had my MINI since last June so can't offer any advice

[Miniade]

It took me three months to sell my Cooper S, using the autotrader website, and I am in the trade. The availablity of the Cooper S is now high, so I think the price has to be right, and I have seen an awful lot of people trying to get too much for their cars. There is no doubt a price realignment is occurring so to sell you have to get the price spot on.

I had already bought a newer Works so I had to sell, and at one stage i was becoming quite worried. Got there in the end though.

Good luck with your sale.

[pappillon]

The dealers are offering stupid prices... really inexcusable profit margins, in my opinion

One dealer in North London I spoke with yesterday offered £12,200 While I was on the phone to him, I had a list of MINI2 Cherished 'S' up on my screen, one from his dealership. Virtually the same spec as mine, except mine's got a sunroof and HKs as extras, same milage,and they had it up for £15,995

I asked him to explain the difference in price. He came up with the usual things... wheel refurb (£200 max), cleaning, checkin over etc... nothing that would cost over £1000 (and more likely to cost £500 in reality) which would leave £3000+ in profit. He didn't know what to say and just ended the conversation at the earliest opportunity

[Rob.]

My experience last summer selling my cooper was similar.
02 Cooper just over 2 years old when I sold for about £800 more than the dealer was offering.
This is a slow time of year after christmas and there seems to be alot of stock on dealers forecourts.
Also people looking for used minis seem really clued up and quite rightly, like I would, want a bargain if they are buying privately.
Also the prices are so similar to new that I wouldn't advise anyone to buy used. Wait a few weeks and get exactly what you want for a couple of grand more.
Everything has its price and it's finding the right person

[wildchild jules]

I realy struggled with selling my Cooper last month too. I had it up for sale for about 3 weeks on autotrader without a single phone call - other than canvassers who would not leave me alone.

Eventually sold it too a dealer who offered me a good price - without seeing the car too and they came to pick it up.

Did not expect it to be this hard to sell a mini. I kind of figure that people see the used prices and think "I could get a brand new one for that price" so go to the garage to spec one and realise that what they want would be over their budget so end up buying used but from the dealer - not sure if this is the case, but it's what seems to be happening.

As a guide, my 2 year old low mileage MC sold for 75% of my purchase price and it turns out what I initially had the car up for on autotrader, was only what the dealer would look to sell it for - this was 85% of my purchase price.

Keep your fingers crossed though - you will get a buyer!

[LMB]

Dealers may advertise cars at a high price but I bet it doesn't sell for that. They also tend to be on the forecourts a long while. The fact of the matter is there are loads of second hand Mini's on the market now and prices are starting to reflect that. The biggest hit you will take is in the first year, I was lucky when I sold my first S in that I only lost £1400. But now a £3K loss would be more realistic, which still isn't bad when you compare it to other cars.

What you have to ask yourself is, it is change for the sake of change?

[Hat]

what's the spec of your car pappi? did you spend a lot on extras when you bought it? if so you won't recoup that cost second hand. the dealer will only offer you a pric based on the basic price of the car without any extras - including chilli/pepper packs.

like others have said there are a lot of second hand cars out there & now that lead times for new cars have come down the temptation to buy a nearly new car to avoid the long wait isn't there anymore. selling privately is always hard - you have to be patient. i was lucky in that the first person i showed the car to bought it - i hadn't even advertised it, it was a friend of a friend. they gave me £500 more than the dealer was prepared to & it was a price i was happy with.

might be worth doing what brushy has - get a dealer to put it on their forecourt & sell it for you for a commision?

[Mister]

I bought my '04 Cooper in Nov. '03 and traded it in just a couple of weeks ago for my new '05 S. Took a beating on the trade-in, though. We didn't want to go the private sale route because 1) there didn't seem to be much of a market for used Coopers in our area and 2) my husband and I are both too honest to be decent sales people.

There's no doubt in my mind that if we had tried to sell the little guy on our own, it would have taken months to even get a bite. We're in the land of 4 wheel drive trucks and SUVs.

Seems people interested in Minis would rather buy new than save a couple of grand to get a used one.

[vagt6]

Trading your car into the dealer is not the most cost-effective way to sell a car. It's logical: the dealer must resell the car at a profit, so he's not prone to pay retail price!

And as mentioned above, there's no requirement for dishonesty in order to be an effective "sales person". In fact, the more honest one is in sales efforts, the better for all involved. To assume that sales people are all dishonest is stereotyping, and inaccurate.

Regarding the market for used MINIs, there is a huge market for MINIs, maybe not in your local area, but on EBay and other automotive publications. If your car doesn't sell, you're in the wrong advertising venue. EBay is an excellent way to sell used cars, it reaches the largest possible market. It's really easy, if one takes just a little while to learn about the venue. I've sold two classic cars on EBay and couldn't be happier. These cars had an extremely small market, and none locally. Both sold in less than 3 days on EBay.

It only takes several hours' time to sell a used car. Even if it takes, for example, 8 hours total (I've overestimated the time for illusration purposes -- it normally takes less than half that time), it's extremely worthwhile. If we save $1,500 by selling a $15,000 car ourself (also conservative -- dealers usually aim for a 15% margin or greater on used sales) with 8 hours' work, you'd pay yourself about $188 per hour for the sales effort.

Not bad pay for a little honest work. But, it's only money . . .