Share experience selling used car on Motorway and Webuyanycar

[subaruspirit]

I just want to share a recent experience that I had when selling my car in preparation for Tesla. I had my car for 7 years which was bought brand new, so I tried Motorway first as the quote was about 13k instead of 12k from webuyanycar. Then it took me quite a while to take all those pictures and completed Motorway process. The collection was finally booked nearly 2 weeks after I completed the process on Motorway.

Then on the collection date, a driver came up, inspected the car for 30 minutes, then listed 30+ defects (cosmetic) and while he was going through them with me, it just felt like he was scolding me for why I didn't include them when I posted it on Motorway. Sure, I did not notice that tiny little scratch which is under the car. The driver rang the dealer, the dealer pulled the offer.

Then I drove to one of the local office from webuyanycar. The whole process took about 10 minutes, without the agent nitpicking at all (just asked me if there are any significant scratches). The final quote was very similar to the online one I did, which came to 11.6k. Sold my car, done.

I would say unless you are certain that your car has nearly show-room condition, stay away from Motorway as that stress and time you spent is not worth that few hundreds you saved there. I'm sure it might depend on the collection company they used, but a 30 minute inspection vs 30 seconds inspections, which one would you choose?

 

[tonyj01]

I’d recommend AutoTrader.

I sold my 2016 MS last week privately. It took three weeks and I slowly lowered the price.

I feel I got a fair price which was less than the car would be from a dealer, but more that WEBAC or Mway.

The car wasn’t perfect, the buyers saw the odd blemish, I didn’t try to get it too perfect.

Met some nice new owners too!

Tony

 

[Doudeau]

I’ve used Motorway and WBAC and had great experiences with both. Motorway got me the best price for a 911 and a BMW 5GT and WBAC for my original Tesla M3.

No issues/negotiations on the pickup via motorway sale - cars weren’t immaculate but I’d provided photos of the small scratches.

I used the WBAC offer for setting the Motorway min sale price and nobody matched it so I took it straight over to WBAC as soon as the Motorway auction had finished. At the time it was a better offer than Tesla were providing for a part-ex.

 

[Drew57]

Quite an opportune thread for me. I pick up a Model YLR at the Trafford Centre in a couple of weeks and once that's complete I will set about selling my Model 3 sometime in December-January. It's been great and never let me down but we need the practicality of the Y.

I will be trying Motorway/WBAC first to get an idea but of course all the extras I added to the car including the 19" alloys & acceleration boost will probably be ignored so somebody down the line will benefit rather than me. Perhaps I will also give Autotrader a go.

 

[rincewind]

I sold my mates six series bmw about 2 years ago with WBAC in Chelmsford. They were really good, got a good price for it. They didn't nit pick either.

 

[subaruspirit]

I’ve used Motorway and WBAC and had great experiences with both. Motorway got me the best price for a 911 and a BMW 5GT and WBAC for my original Tesla M3.

No issues/negotiations on the pickup via motorway sale - cars weren’t immaculate but I’d provided photos of the small scratches.

I used the WBAC offer for setting the Motorway min sale price and nobody matched it so I took it straight over to WBAC as soon as the Motorway auction had finished. At the time it was a better offer than Tesla were providing for a part-ex.

I think it depends on who’s picking up your car, heard good experiences from friends who used Motorway, but in my case I was really surprised to see the chap checking every little thing of the car for 30 minutes while wbac agent just took a 30 seconds walk around… it also saves the owner time from checking the car thoroughly to take pictures of small scratches/dents.

 

[subaruspirit]

Quite an opportune thread for me. I pick up a Model YLR at the Trafford Centre in a couple of weeks and once that's complete I will set about selling my Model 3 sometime in December-January. It's been great and never let me down but we need the practicality of the Y.

I will be trying Motorway/WBAC first to get an idea but of course all the extras I added to the car including the 19" alloys & acceleration boost will probably be ignored so somebody down the line will benefit rather than me. Perhaps I will also give Autotrader a go.

Motorway requires you to upload pictures of your car including scratches and dents, which could take between 15-30 minutes to complete. Then the dealers will bid on your car (next day usually) and the highest bidder will send a collection (it took them 1.5 weeks to collect the car in my case) to inspect and collect your car.

WBAC has local offices that you can pop in, and they will give you a quote and buy your car straight away, just make sure you have the documentations.

 

[subaruspirit]

I sold my mates six series bmw about 2 years ago with WBAC in Chelmsford. They were really good, got a good price for it. They didn't nit pick either.

I think this is really key to me, no hassle, the car was sold immediately after I drove there, and no pressure for haggling prices. Very good experience for me as well.

 

[candida]

I went through the Motorway process but didn't sell in the end as offers were much lower than the "reserve" (which isn't a reserve).
But in terms of the experience, the people at Motorway were really helpful, straightforward and the offer I did get (from a local dealer) was £3k higher than WBAC were offering at the time and he was willing to move upwards - it's just that Truss had tanked used car prices along with everything else (this was mid-Sept and the new reg letter probably didnt help either) and prices were about £10k off what they'd been a month before when I did my back of the envelope sums, so I decided to stick.
Last used WBAC years ago and they really did cheese-pare against the website quote.

 

[linkinruss]

Used motorway to sell my car and actually got more than the initial quotation. Dealer actually waited for me as I was away for a week but when they did come, done a check over the car and noticed quite a few scratches - knocked off £100 and sold. No hassle really.

Guess it's a mixed bag but mine was a cheap city car.

 

[subaruspirit]

Used motorway to sell my car and actually got more than the initial quotation. Dealer actually waited for me as I was away for a week but when they did come, done a check over the car and noticed quite a few scratches - knocked off £100 and sold. No hassle really.

Guess it's a mixed bag but mine was a cheap city car.

Yes I suppose it varies depending on the car, on the dealer, and also on the one who’s collecting it.

 

[_MJF_]

Mostly positive experience with Motorway earlier this year, it's time consuming to photo the car from all the required angles, and any cosmetic damage, but found the collection guy gave it a quick once-over for a few minutes and that was that. I had specifically noted the odd minor dint/scratch. Like most things it might vary depending on the person that comes.

I'd use Motorway again and recommend them to others (they were recommended to me), only problem is that it took a week and a half to actually collect the car, and needed it gone for various reasons, had to chase them to get it collected.

Get the impression that We Buy Any Car's guide price is the maximum they'll pay, and use that as a starting point to knock it down based on any imperfection they can find, although that could be an outdated view. Of course it's much less hassle, though.

In my case Motorway's guide price was far higher than WBAC's and was pleasantly surprised by what it raised.

One thing I couldn't work out was how the Motorway guy got here, he seemed to appear out of thin air.

 

[Drew57]

One thing I couldn't work out was how the Motorway guy got here, he seemed to appear out of thin air.

Maybe he's from a Smart Motorway.

 

[TechnoWatch]

I think it depends on who’s picking up your car, heard good experiences from friends who used Motorway, but in my case I was really surprised to see the chap checking every little thing of the car for 30 minutes while wbac agent just took a 30 seconds walk around… it also saves the owner time from checking the car thoroughly to take pictures of small scratches/dents.

Another possibility is that the dealer’s bid was higher than they were willing to pay once they had time to think about it and was looking for a way to back out of the deal without getting a black mark with Motorway. You said motorway was £13k and you sold for £11.6k, that is a fairly large difference where the dealer is trying to make a profit

 

[Carts850]

I found Motorway awful. Lot of admin and photos to get the show started. Got what I thought was a good offer, but as above, turned out to be a “hoped for reserve”. Eventual auction was at least £2000 below.
Went to WBAC and actually got more than promised (car was 3 month old Mini - E). And the chap was polite. (Ayr). No nit picking but it was as new (just the range was so so bad).

 

[impingu1984]

WBAC initial valuation on the website was about £1.5k higher than anything else when I sold me car in Aug 2022... They looked around it and knocked off £800 for a few bits which I didn't declare so no complaints.. so it was still £700 above anyone elses initial valuation which probably would have been knocked down further...

It was quick and easy and the guy was very fair and transparent... He showed me that if he offered a penny more the system needed managers approval.. so he was giving me as much as he could..

 

[Mr Miserable]

I think it very much depends on location. I used WBAC and got a not totally unreasonable offer from them but when I turned up the guy started making all sorts of unreasonable deductions and then had the audacity to blame the computer and so it was a complete waste of time. Unless you are in a mad rush to offload the car I would stick to Autotrader. Two weeks later I sold the car via Autotrader to a dealer (who had a sharp eye) for 20% more than the final WBAC offer.

 

[atuk]

I tried WBAC and Motorway for my 21 M3 LR in October. WBAC was very low, I assume they wanted to chance it and hope someone is in a hurry. Motorway estimated 2k higher than WBAC but as many already said, it's a complete faff with the pictures and then they have to call you. On the call, when I said what I want my reserve price to be, they wouldn't even stick it into auction.

Ended up selling via R Symons who got a decent price from someone that doesn't want to make a quick buck but was looking for a nice looking, good car to keep.

And just to stick it in there, carwow was just as awful as Motorway.

 

[rowedav]

Good thread, and quite timely for me.

Accepted a trade in offer from Tesla of 11k for my C Class. This covers my deposit and charger install at home. So I’m good to go.

But was considering looking at Motorway & carwow to see if I could get any more, and then just call Tesla pay my deposit via bank transfer and pocket the rest.

Initial estimate on Motorway is 12.7k but if it’s a massive faff (as it sounds) I’ll probably just stick with Tesla.

 

[Chris CG]

Used both (once) and both have their positives and negatives IMHO. On neither occasion did I need a particularly quick sale, just wanted to avoid the potential hassle of Autotrader and the worry of being scammed by some unscrupulous git and have some reassurance of a well known company.

I sold my Audi S5 to WBAC in March ‘21. Offered £29.5k but when I turned up he knocked £500 off for some very minor marks on the bumper (that were no way out of spec for a 3yr old car that’d done 15k miles). From mine and others experience, WBAC seem to have wildly variable pricing - can change almost on a daily basis - so it’s worth trying every so often just to see what their prices are like at that moment. Plus, when you actually get there, the reps job is to knock as much off as possible (usually somewhere in the region of anything from a few hundred to about £1k depending on how honest you were in your description or how cheeky they think they can be). And tbh, I’d use WBAC again if the offer was at least £500 more than anywhere else, or I was happy in the knowledge that they’d probably try to knock me down a bit. The main advantage to me with WBAC is that if you’re happy to accept a few hundred less than the original offer and are after a quick sale and payment, WBAC works and is reassuringly safe.

I then used Motorway, this August, to sell my M3LR and had (personally) a very good experience. Loading all the photos on the app is a complete ball ache - and took me numerous calls to their offices to sort out, but once this was done, the rest of the process was quite easy. Motorway set the minimum acceptable offer and then you agree to sell the car at that price or higher (at this point I questioned the legalities of them forcing me to sell if I wasn’t happy and they admitted that until I hand over the car and get paid, they’d struggle to stop me backing out). Anyway, WBAC was fluctuating around the £45k - £48k mark, but Motorway set the minimum offers at £49k so I went ahead with them. The following day (Friday), just after 3pm when the auction ends, I got an email stating a dealer had offered £51.6k (which was a nice bonus as I’d set mind on getting £48k for it, so was more than happy). Over the following weekend I had numerous messages and calls from the dealer to arrange collection and payment etc. for the following Wednesday. I picked up the dealer from the local train station and we came back to my house - he checked the car over (very briefly) and within 30 minutes the money was in my account and the car was gone. He sorted out the DVLA and Tesla account side of things too. Tbh, I was really very pleasantly surprised that he didn’t try to knock something off, simply because the prices on Autotrader had dropped by £3k - £5k from my listing to him collecting and there can’t have been much profit in it for them, if at all any.

From my experience, the Motorway side of it was ok - uploading pictures was a lottery but everything else fine. The dealer bought the car was exceptional - which is where I’d say the big difference is between the 2 is. With WBAC they’re trained to knock you down for even the slightest thing, with Motorway you’re in the lap of the gods as to the integrity / honesty of the dealer wins your auction.

To me, as long as you go into it knowing the pitfalls both provide a service that makes it relatively easy to have cash in your bank within a week or so and the security or dealing with / through in the case of Motorway, a ‘reputable’ company.