Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 10:23
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - ChrisGT

Hi,

I am looking to buy a friend's VW Polo and trying to establish a fair price. There seems to be a lot of variation in pricing sites and adverts etc. and would welcome any views.

It is a 1.4 model.

Year 2003.

23k miles (only).

Excellent condition.

Colour black.

Recently serviced.

MOT due next month (no issues expected).

Thanks in advance!

Chris

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 10:50
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - skidpan

How much does your friend want?

How much do you want to pay?

A fair price is normally between the two.

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 11:09
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - Leif

That is an old car. Low mileage means possibly low rust (due to little driving on salty roads) but low miles are bad for the engine, and brake disks (don't get rust cleaned off). WeBuyAnycar will give a low price, so I would use that as the low value. You can see sold prices for a similar spec and age on ebay easily enough.

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 11:09
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - Leif

Oh, and if you really are sure it is in good nick, and your friend has looked after it, then that is worth paying for.

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 13:12
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - ChrisGT

Thanks for the responses.

Our friend doesn't know what the price should be and we don't know either.

Webuyanycar.com offered £1,620 back in May and WhatCar valuation has recently come up with £2,730 for a private sale, which is a big variation..

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 13:37
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - SteVee

I think this would be a very easy car to sell - especially if your friend has full service invoices for it. The only caveat is that if your usage is going to be very different to your friend's then you could have some minor problems with the car as a result of changing use.

I'd suggest putting the car through the MoT and then offering £2500 - that gives you around 10percent discount as a friend and a reasonable deal for your friend. The WeBuyAnyCar price reflects that a dealer could make some profit when the resell the car.

I'm assuming that the exterior and interior of the car reflect the very low mileage.

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 13:48
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - focussed

Get a price from here - www.wisebuyers.co.uk/

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 13:45
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - HandCart

Heck - £2730 sounds an awful lot for 'just' a 2003 1.4 Polo, even if it does only have 23k miles on it.

I'd check in the Car-By-Car Breakdown section too - if I remember correctly, the VW 1.4 engine has some weaknesses (though not as bad as the 1.2 3-cylinder).

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 14:16
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - ChrisGT

I think £2.5k makes sense and is midway between What Car valuation and wisebuyers.com who state £2,338.

I agree Whatcar seems on high side and will not include webuyanycar.com as this is trade price.

Thanks everyone.
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Tue 8 Sep 2015 13:51
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - skidpan

When I sold our 2007 Micra back in June I went on WBAC and similar sites and got a feel for what they were offering (but I knew when they saw the car they would deduct some money for blemishes and admin fees). I then looked on Autotrader at similar cars to ours within a 25 mile radius.

I then advertised it at the lower end of the range which was about £500 to £600 more than I would have got from WBAC and a little more than I was pepared to accept. It sold within 18 hours of placing the advert for £200 less than the advert, exactly what I wanted.

Using the same principles and the fact the WBAC valuation for the Polo is several months old I would be looking at paying about £1700 max. Similar aged cars (but with more miles) on Autotrader in our area are about £1400 for a private sale.

The What Car valuation is just plain daft. For that money you should get a considerably newer car with a dealer warranty and years MOT.

If they don't accept your offer let them go to WBAC and get less.

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Tue 8 Sep 2015 16:03
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - ChrisGT

Thanks for your feedback and given all of the data WhatCar has access to, it does make you wonder how they can arrive at such a high figure!

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Wed 9 Sep 2015 11:16
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - FoxyJukebox

I would not be inclined to spend more than £1500 tops. It's not the mileage and it's not really the condition.It's the RISK of buying a car that's 12 years old. Three points

1)Reduce your risk by asking your friend to put it through the MOT, which it would probably pass, but look carefully at the "advisables" before making a final offer., ...new brakes, tyres all round and an exhaust that's not going to get through the next winter will quickly add up to over £1k.

2)Another approach would be to offer a goodwill immediate £1500-but privately accept that you are probably going to have to spend an immediate further £1k --but but--that will/should give you a good couple of years trouble free motoring.

3) Thus-assuming your motoring needs are moderate-£2500 for a well maintained car, without rust, that is not going to depreciate much more is a seriously good deal. And you've kept your friend!

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Thu 10 Sep 2015 00:33
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - Big John

Despite its poor reputation this engine (1.4 16v )is pretty good when well cared for. Regular cam belts/water pump (4 years or 40k - whichever sooner NB there are two belts), regular oil change and run on higher octane fuel - without this it can pink (you don't always hear this on a car with a lot of soundproofing) - this rattles the light weight piston and ultimately takes out the bores.

The oil breather can block especially with low mileages which is either the pipe within the air filter (fills with oil mayo) or the breather module bolted to back of engine - both cheap fixes - can manifest itself as high oil consumption because oil is blown past valve seals.

EGR valve can fail (easyish fix) that put EML on but doesn't put engine into limp home

I have the same engine with about 120k on it in an Octavia 1.4 16v. Still drives well , doesn't burn oil and still does 43+ mpg on a run

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Thu 10 Sep 2015 13:04
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - slkfanboy

Car with little/no MOT is worth nothing. A car of this age is all about condition and £1500-2000 sounds about on the money for a good one

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Thu 10 Sep 2015 15:26
Volkswagen Polo - VW Polo - secondhand valuation - Andrew-T

Car with little/no MOT is worth nothing. A car of this age is all about condition and £1500-2000 sounds about on the money for a good one

As Skidpan has suggested, check prices in your region, as my personal experience (daughter's Golf) suggests that some parts of the country ask higher prices than others for a private sale - and possibly dealer sales too.

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