When to Sell

[first5]

I have an Autotrail Motorhome which will be three years old in April and therefore under warranty until that date. My question is, will it make much difference if I part exchange with a dealer now with some warranty left or not.

[peacock312]

Hi, From my experience,absolutely NOT,they seem to look into glasses guide equivelant and thats it!!

condition doesnt seem to make much difference either, unless its extremely bad or they can find damp.

[Guest JudgeMental]

best time to sell privately is when the sun starts shinning...

 

presumably your damp/water ingress warranty longer then 3 years? This is the important consideration when buying second hand. call a few dealers and ask for a price, as like peacock says all they do is look in the book. you will then have some comparisons to consider. I would then try and sell privately at probably a much better price..if not do the deal. just need to do some home work, take some nice pics and put it on ebay :-D

[ips]

From my experience there is not a lot you can do to increase or retain value on any vehicle. Age and mileage is about it. Service history, condition etc is of no relevence to a dealer he just looks in his book. Therefore if age and mileage are the only thing that count, and IMO they are then everyday and every mile you put on the vehicle it will decrease in value. There may come a time when it levels out or does not decrease quite as quick but thats about it. So if you want a change then get shut soon as, it wont be worth anymore in 6 months.

[kelly58]

We did a  deal on a new motorhome at the NEC in October by using our old one as a trade in . At the time I asked what if I was able to sell it before we took delivery of the new one no problem was the answer , so we put it on e-bay and sold it within a month which has given us a considerable bonus to what they offered me as a p-ex. Its well worth a try if you can sell private it will possibly give you more of a bargaining tool when buying a new one .

Whilst doing the deal all the dealer was interested in was Make / Model / age / Milage / Service History / Extra's then looked in his black book and said its worth XYZ lookily enough I had two major dealers wanting to sell me the same model so it was " who can offer the best deal ?? "

[Wooie]

If you are going to do it then do it now.

 

One thing is for sure, that the price of your present van will only go down and the one you are

thinking of buying will go up as the " Nicer Weather " draws closer i.e. Easter Time.....ish.

[Clive]

The more years you keep a motorhome that you enjoy then the less it will cost you overall. We tend to change about every 8 - 13 years when the fancy takes us. Its a lot of dosh so don,t change on a whim.

Motorhomers seldom wear out the base vehicle so look after it.

 

Changing every 3 years keeps you away from MOT testing but the cost of doing this is very large compared to the alternatives.

 

Just save that cash that you would have spent on regular renewals and you will have more then enough to change when you really want to re-size.

 

C.

 

 

 

[747]

A typical motorhome warranty is good for the first 12 months and then virtually useless for the rest of it. There are so many exclusions.

 

The base vehicle possibly only has a 2 year warranty anyway.

[Guest JudgeMental]

Well...... my Euramobil 6 year water ingress warranty certainly helped when part exchanging it at 4.5 years old. Deal would not have gone through if the damp discovered at exchange was not covered by EuraMobil. I would not touch a used van without cover, it is the single most important issues with CB's *-)

[Guest pelmetman]

If it all works, doesn't leak, and is the ideal layout why change it?............ campers will keep going if well looked after ;-)

 

If you think about it most people buy a camper when they are near or at retirement, then with luck have 10 to 15 years before they get to the hang up the keys stage 8-).............change every 3 years at 5k cost = £25k at least 8-)............that's a lot of beer tokens :D

 

Lots of old campers still doing good service out here in Spain B-)