WBAC Appreciation Depreciation

[coldel]

My neighbour is probably going to sell his Range Rover, stuck it on We Buy Any Car just to see what the value was and it came out at £13,500. He left it and a couple of weeks later got an email reminding him of his valuation and to go back and have a look. So he clicked it and WBAC had 'revalued' his car at £12,750. Thats a heck of a lot of depreciation over that time, anyway laughed it off. Got another email yesterday, again clicked it, its now up to £14,500!

[KyleR]

I had the sane with the M6, they valued it at £22k, then a few months later it was £16,750

 

All a load of rubbish anyway as they'll knock a quarter off straight away for a stonechip.

[GMballistic]

I was told that if you take your car to them to get evaluated you're looking at minus £40 for every scratch/mark/stone chip so the price they offer you at first can drop quite dramatically apparently.

 

Tbf when I checked there price against what I'd get for my CTR on a trade in at a garage they were close price wise but obviously that's without having their guy look over my car. Probably a lot less then.

[gangzoom]

I was told that if you take your car to them to get evaluated you're looking at minus £40 for every scratch/mark/stone chip so the price they offer you at first can drop quite dramatically apparently.

 

 

It depends on who is 'assessing' your car, and age/value. We took in my wifes old Civic - coming up to 100K on the clock, 8 years old, so as you would expect some stone chips, kerbed wheels and a couple of cosmetic reparis. I declared all the 'damage' on their website before taking the car in, and was given a value of £4000 (down from £4750 for 'perfect' condition) - which I thought was OK, so took the car in.

 

The boy who 'assessed' the car decided the car needed a whole respray, and all 4 wheels needed doing to get it to 'as new' condition. He didn't quite to seem to understand no one buying a Civic with 100K on the clock is looking for 'as new' condition. Anyways the final offer on the car was £3000, I did suggest that if they are really going to do a whole car respray it's going to cost more than £1000.

 

Anyways I ended selling the car via autotrader that afternoon for £4500 in the same condition as I took it to WBAC.

 

I get the feeling if you have a new-ish car that is in 100% show-room condition, and you don't get an arse of an assessor you will get close to the on-line price. But you can always walk away, like we did, so no harm done.

Edited April 29, 2016 by gangzoom

[coldel]

Just astonished that the price offer from them varies week to week, bearing in mind they never actually looked at the car at any point, just automated follow up emails that valued the car differently each time...

[Husky]

They likely drop the offer amount for a reason. By that time you've likely listed it on Autotrader and if you still have it, you have had no interest. They aren't going to offer you the original price,

 

reason 1, you are going to be more desperate now and less confident in it's value;

 

reason 2, by offering lower they force you to consider that the longer you wait the lower they will offer, prompting you to take it sooner rather than later.

 

They bump the price up again later because if by that time you still haven't got rid of it, you're likely only going to accept a more realistic offer, once they have you at the inspection they can knock money off for BS reasons and there is much more likelihood you'll take it just because you are already there.

 

What I'm saying is that it looks random but it's likely founded in some experience in the car buying industry.

[LRF4N]

They don't always low ball you. They (gladly) got it wrong with me once

 

Bought my wife's audi privately so took the yaris to wbac. They gave a decent value and a week later it was on a forecourt for less- they made a loss on it lol. I was quite chuffed but someone probably got sacked that week