So I’ve finally bought another car and now I need to get rid of my 13 year Old Ford Focus Estate. It’s been a decent car but it’s always had an intermittent problem that meant it would sometimes stall when idling. Happily it always started straight away but it was annoying and potentially dangerous when it happened. It wasn’t really related to the engine being cold or properly warmed up and several mechanics looked at it but couldn’t find a cause and nothing showed up on the diagnostics.
Anyway, despite having a newish clutch and exhaust and under 90000 miles and running fine, we don’t want to sell it privately when we know there’s a fault. It’s also had some paint scrapes and there’s some moisture in one of the headlights that could also need replacing (although it got through a recent MOT).
The usual suspects like We Buy Any Car would probably offer us less than the scrap/salvage companies so we think we might just go that route, despite it being a decent car that someone might get a year or two out of it they were a bit handy (or desperate for an estate car). So, any advice? What would you do? Is there anything we need to know before scrapping it or do you just drive up there and ask for money?
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Cheers. Will maybe give that a go.
A few years ago my wife's old Fiesta packed up, gearbox decided to throw a wobbler. I told her we'd repair it but she insisted on replacing it. We listed it on eBay as spares/repair and got about £500 for it, and it had quite a few other faults as well.
Some chap came and collected it on a low loader, I'm convinced he was a breaker and wanted it for parts. He was happy, we were happy and got rid of the car.
I also sold a crappy old Citroen Picasso thing as spares/repair on eBay. Got £750 for it!
There is no 'H' in Aych, you know that don't you? ~ Wife
Turns out there is an H in Haych! ~ Sporky
Bit of trading feedback here.
The stalling thing could easily be fixed by someone with a bit of know how and some time, paying a garage probably wouldnt be economical.
With this in mind you have two options, sell it with the fault listed, ask for offers, facebook market place or any groups associated with your neighbourhood.
Put it on EBay with a reasonable reserve or starting price again listing the fault.
Get the scrap value to guide your pricing.
*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
just because you do, doesn't mean you should.
Rather than go through the potential troubles of selling an MOT failure we gave it to one of the charities who recycle and scrap old cars.
The charity took the car away, solving a problem for us and we later got an email stating the amount raised for charity.
I can't remember which one we used but there a number coming up with a Google search.
Generally anything with a year's MoT on it is worth money to someone.
And seconded on the suggestion that the fault is a fuel delivery issue. Not sure of the details of your car but that can be a symptom of bubbles getting into the fuel lines. I'd be surprised if there wasn't some kind of diagnostic error stored somewhere. Not like we're talking a Capri here.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein