If you decide to sell your car, how are you supposed to know whether or not you’re being offered a good price? There are many factors involved in the value of a car, so many in fact that it can make your head swim trying to make sense of it! However, there are also many tools available to you as a car owner for working out the value of your car. In this regard, the internet is your friend. So, before you hop online to sell your car, have a read of these tips.

Do your research

When trying to work out how much your car is worth, a great way to start is looking online at what similar models with similar mileage and similar age are going for. Cast your net wide here, don’t just look on one site but really look around. Of course, don’t overlook other sources of information here – magazines with car listings are also a valuable tool.

It is worth saying though that you should take some prices with a pinch of salt – cars will often go for quite cheap on auction sites like Ebay. And also no two cars are alike, each sale will in some sense be unique, so you should use these numbers as a ballpark figure, not a cast iron valuation.

Also, this method is fine if you are selling a fairly common car – you will find plenty of similar cases online off which you can construct your valuation. However, if what you are selling is a little rarer then you may struggle to find many similar sales. This may make valuation a little trickier. In such a case though it is worth remembering that any potential Buyer will have the same problem, they won’t be able to research prices either! This means that you may well be able to get a good price anyway!

It might be worth fixing the car up before you sell

Beyond age, milage, make and model, there are factors that will have a large impact on the amount a buyer is willing to fork out for your car. In particular, the condition of the car can really influence price. Obviously, if your car’s a wreck you’re not going to get much money for it, but beyond that you should be aware that even minor scuffs and scratches will still bring down the price. In fact, if you’re selling your car for a large sum of money, it may be worth getting certain things fixed as this will add more value than the cost of the repair; and if you have a few dents and scratches, you might even be able to fix it up yourself.

The point here is that the psychological effect of seeing dents and scratches on a buyer will lead them to think the car is in worse shape than it is. This will obviously have a detrimental effect on price.

Colour

It may seem really silly, but there’s no getting round it, the Colour of your car is going to affect how much people are willing to pay. While you can see trends in the colours of new cars,  there’s no easy way of working out how the colour of your car will affect its value. In general, neutral colours are less likely to put off a buyer, but equally more vibrant colours will make a car rarer and therefore more valuable – especially if it happens to be a buyers favourite colour.

The truth is, when it comes to colour and price, it’s really just luck of the draw.

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