How I Sold My Old Car

Last month I weighed up the pros and cons of keeping my car and decided that saving an extra £1000 a year is worth the hassle of public transport and ordering the groceries online.

Jools is a T reg (1999) Peugeot 306 (1.9L diesel) with 157,000 miles on the clock, so not exactly a stunner of a car. He had 7 months of MOT left but the tax was about to run out at the end of this month.

I did some research on the price of similar cars in Bristol and put him up for sale on Gumtree and he was sold the next day for £100 more than I was hoping for! Brilliant!

Of course, there are a lot of differences between selling a decent second hand car and selling a low value car like Jools. A lot of advice is geared towards cars selling for a few thousand pounds, but I've got a few tips for you if you want to sell your old car.

Preparation
First, get your car looking its best. We don't have any way of washing the car outside our flat so we took Jools to a £5 car wash and he came out sparkling. I tried to clean the inside of the car by hand, but I ended up splurging another £1 to use a car vacuum to get all the mud and leaves out of the carpets! Don't forget to clean the interior windows and the dashboard surfaces too!

The couple that bought my car remarked about how clean and tidy it was inside, so don't underestimate the power of a nice first impression! DON'T spend £100 on a valet service if you're looking for less than £1000 for your car! DIY can be just as good!

Once your car is looking spick and span, take lots of photos! People want to see the features of the car, so take a photo of the front, back and side of the car, as well as the interior, alloy wheels, snazzy CD player, etc.

Making an advertisement
Think about where you want to sell your car. If you're buying a new car you could part exchange your old car to save yourself the hassle of a private sale, but you'll usually get a better deal selling your car yourself. 

For a more valuable car it might be worth buying ad space on Auto Trader or in your local paper, but for a cheaper old car I would start by placing a free ad on Gumtree. (You can sell cars on eBay, but I've known a few people to have bad experiences with buyers not paying, which can leave you stuck with extra fees to pay).

You might also want to put a sign in your car's window stating its features, a price and your mobile number. Facebook is a good way of spreading the word to friends of friends who might be looking for a new car too! The less you spend on advertising, the better!

How much should you sell your car for? 
A good starting point is to look at the WiseBuyer's Guide, which will tell you a reasonable price for your car based on the make and model, the mileage and what condition it's in. You should also look for similar cars for sale in your area to see what the current market looks like. (Check out the above listed selling platforms!).

When you make the advert, be sure to set the price a little higher than you are hoping to get. People like to haggle and if you can lower the price, they'll feel that they are getting a better deal.

Dealing with buyers  
Be prepared to field a lot of phonecalls from people asking detailed questions, booking viewings and trying to get you to lower your price! Be honest about any problems with the car if asked. Be friendly and polite too - don't forget you are the salesperson!

Make sure you are free in the evenings for most of the week when you put the advert up because people will lose interest quickly if they can't see the car for a fortnight! Try and swing it so both you and your partner / a friend can be there at the viewing. Most people are nice but don't take chances.

Decide whether you will allow people to take the car for a test drive. If you are happy to let them, make sure that they show you a full driving licence and insurance that covers them to drive other cars. You and your partner/friend should go with them to make sure they come back again!

If you're selling an old car, chances are you won't be asking a very high price for it. Make sure that the buyer pays you in CASH. If they want the car, ask them to leave you a deposit until they can withdraw the full amount. This is pretty standard, so don't feel embarrassed!

Draw up a receipt for the buyer, stating the car make, model, registration number, mileage and price of the car. Make sure it says that the car is being bought "as seen", which means that you are not liable if it breaks down in the future.

Lastly, don't forget to fill in the V5C (log book) form with the new owner's details. You will both need to sign it, then you (the seller) post it to the DVLA. Don't forget or you could be the lucky owner of speeding tickets or road tax demands.

Don't forget to cancel your insurance policy! You should be able to claim money back for the days between the sale date and the end of the policy, less a cancellation fee. I'm getting £150 back! :) It feels like free money!



Bye Jools! You drove me crazy at times, but you're alright really!

Savings: £1000 a year!

Five Easy Car Maintenance Steps That Will Save You Money

Once again, Jools the golden Peugeot is trying to either kill me or bankrupt me! A simple Google of his symptoms led me to discover he was leaking brake fluid, so it was off to the garage AGAIN! It only cost £64 to repair, but since I've just used the last of my car fund to buy road tax, it came out of my dwindling emergency fund!

Cars are expensive! Fortunately there are a lot of checks that we can make to ensure the safety and longevity of our cars. Here is a checklist of basic car maintenance, simple enough that even I can do it! (In fact, I hereby challenge myself to complete this checklist this weekend!)

PLEASE remember to check the manual for your car before doing any of this maintenance to ensure you are using the correct materials and methods. I'M A BIOLOGIST, NOT A MECHANIC!

1. Checking Your Tyres

There are two easy checks you can do on tyres. Firstly, check they are properly inflated. This website gives you a good guide to what the proper pressure is for your vehicle, but if you have specialist tyres then you should check the manufacturer's instructions. If your tyres are too inflated, you run the risk that they will burst. If they are not inflated enough, your car will use more fuel and will be harder to steer. If the pressure gets really low you risk damaging your wheels.

Secondly, check the tread. Your car will fail its MOT if the tread is less than 1.6mm deep. It will not grip the road as well and might not stop when you want it to! An excellent tip for checking tyre tread depth, which I saw on Channel 4's Superscrimpers, is to slot a 20p piece into the tread. If the border of the coin is visible above the tread, the tyre needs replacing. Check this before you send your car for an MOT to avoid failing and having to re-test!

2. Checking and Topping Up Engine Oil

When your car is completely cool (several hours after driving) and parked on flat ground, open your bonnet and pull out your oil dipstick. It usually has a loop at the top to hook it out of the engine. Wipe off the excess oil from the end, reinsert it into the slot it came out of then pull it back out. The oil level should be between the minimum and maximum marks, usually denoted by a hatched region on the metal.

If your oil level is too low, find the picture of an oil canister (see this image). Remove this cover and you can pour oil in to top it up. You must check what kind of oil is required for your car, because different cars require different oils. You can find this information online or in your car's handbook. Check your oil level again afterwards to make sure it is now correct.

3. Radiator/Engine Coolant

Caution: do NOT do this when your car is hot, because the steam will scald you.

If your car is water-cooled (most cars are), then you will have a radiator filled with engine coolant. It is an essentially sealed system, with the coolant absorbing the heat from the engine then returning to the radiator to disperse the heat out of the car. However, the level will run down over time. You do NOT want to be driving your car with no engine coolant – it will overheat and could receive irreparable damage.

The cap for the radiator is usually marked as “ENGINE COOLANT”, so it's not hard to find the right tank and have a look. If it needs topping up, you'll need a 50/50 solution of water and antifreeze, which will either be ethylene glycol or propylene glycol. Check which one you need in your manual.

4. Cleaning and Changing Windscreen Wipers

As the video below shows, you can clean your windscreen wipers using alcohol to condition the rubber and extend the lifetime of the blade. If the rubber is cracked and the blades need replacing, the video shows you how to do it yourself easily. Don't pay a garage through the nose to do this simple job for you!

5. Keep Your Car Clean

If you live near the sea, the salt in the air will cause your car to rust prematurely and slowly fall to bits. My main problem is that there are dairy farms at either end of my lane. This means there's always a lot of mud (and worse!) on the road, splattering the underneath of the car and up the sides of the body! This promotes rust too.

It can be really disheartening to clean because you know it's just going to get muddy again the next time you use it, but I need to start keeping Jools cleaner to stop him rusting!

Over to you

Do you have any simple checks or maintenance tasks you perform to save you from costly garage fees? Also, does anyone use that premium fuel? How does it compare to regular?

Car = Fixed

You know my car was making a horrible strange noise? It was the wheel bearing that needed replacing (I actually guessed that - clearly a mechanical genius!). This set me back £122 to get repaired.

This came less than a month after Jools broke down in Bristol, which fortunately only cost me £14.50 to get fixed. Next week he's going back in to get the fan belt tension-thingy replaced, which will be another £160.

That's the problem with older cars; they're cheap to buy but expensive to run! Jools has now cost almost £300 SINCE SEPTEMBER! Rarrr! The garage says he should be fine after these repairs are done though. I'm glad I've started saving for things like this!

Evil Tripod Noise of Doom!

You know the sound the tripods make in The War of the Worlds?:

That's the noise my car has started making!

Dad has deemed it unsafe because he has no idea what's causing it. Of course what with all the bank holidays lately, the garages have been shut and are now fully booked up until next week! It is NOT easy to get to work at 5am in Cornwall when your car has stopped working! (Sorry that you had to get up so early, Dad...)

You think you're getting somewhere, then something always comes out of the blue to knock you back down to Earth! I'm really hoping it won't cost too much to fix because I've only just started putting money away for this sort of thing!!

My friend and I went to visit our friend in Bristol yesterday. We decided to take a trip to the Christmas markets, so I started up Jools, my trusty gold Peugeot. The big red radiator warning light came on. It means “fill the radiator tank up”, so we went back into my friend's flat for a bottle of water. I poured it in, up to the maximum line, then someone noticed that their feet were getting dripped on! All the water was running straight back out of the radiator! Eeeek! We tried again, til we'd probably filled it up about five times, but it was not looking good!

Luckily my parents have a family breakdown assistance account, so I rang them up and they soon had Mark the friendly AA man out to us. He jacked up the car and finally worked out that the water was pouring out of one joint, where the radiator meets the hose to the engine. To get a closer look, he took the wheel and half the wheel arch off!

Grubby old Jools!

I thought he said, “you need a new radiator” so my brain kicked into overdrive wondering where I could get the money to get that fixed from! Turns out it was the rubber seal on the lower radiator hose that had worn out and snapped, letting all the water leak out. He rang a few dealers but no-one had a hose in stock, so it was looking like we'd have to be towed to Exeter, then Plymouth, then home to Cornwall, by relay. Hours and hours of relay!

This is the blighter that caused all the trouble!

Then he asked them if they had just the rubber seal for sale. RESULT! 59p for the part! (Plus £14 for some new anti-freeze for the radiator).

Yesterday I was VERY glad I had breakdown cover. I had no idea where the water was coming from, or how to get to the nearest garage. It would have cost me an hour at least of labour to fit the part too; it took a long time to disassemble the car and put it all back again after bleeding the system.

Today I looked at the price of breakdown cover. Taking the AA as an example, roadside assistance with national recovery is £69 a year for an individual. I guess if you only drive in your local area and don't go on long journeys it would probably be a waste of money. Most people know garage in their local area and have friends that could tow them there. If you have a very new car it's probably not that likely that your car will break down.

If, on the other hand, you have an older car like Jools and you occasionally pootle up the motorway to far-flung places, I guess some sort of breakdown cover would be a worthwhile use of £6 a month. A lot of car insurance companies offer breakdown cover as an added bonus, so check the fine print to see if that would cover you to be relayed back home as well as roadside assistance.

The Boyfriend uses his breakdown cover about twice a year...

What do you think? Do you have breakdown cover and have you ever used it?