Selling privately usually brings in more money. Trading in usually costs you less time and carries less risk. Which is right for you comes down to three things: how much more the private route would really net, how many hours you can give it, and how you feel about handing your keys to strangers. On an everyday car with a modest gap between the two figures, the trade-in wins more often than sellers expect. On a premium car with a strong private following, the sums can go the other way.
What does a private sale actually cost you?
Start with the hours. Photographs in good light, a written description, replies to messages at all hours, and calls from people who never turn up. Then the viewings. Each one takes an hour or two of your day, and some of the people who come have no intention of buying and want a free drive in your car.
Then the test drive itself. A stranger drives your car, on your insurance or theirs, and you sit in the passenger seat hoping. Most are fine. You only need one who is not.
Then the haggling. The private buyer who arrives with the money usually arrives with a lower number too, and the advertised price is where the conversation starts, not where it ends.
After the sale come the comebacks. Someone who buys privately has fewer legal protections than someone who buys from a dealer, as Citizens Information explains, but that does not stop the phone ringing a fortnight later about a noise.
Add up the hours and the risk, then put a price on them. That price is what the trade-in gap has to beat.
What does a trade-in give you instead?
One visit. The dealer looks at the car, gives a figure, and the figure comes off the car you are buying. You are not without a car for a week between selling one and collecting the next. Paperwork on both cars is done at the same desk. Nobody drives your car away on a promise to send the money.
The figure will be lower than the best private price. That is the trade. Dealers have to prepare the car, stand over it when it is sold on, and make a margin, and Cartell's FAQ on trade-in values explains that gap in plain terms. What you are buying with the gap is time and certainty.
There is one more thing a trade-in gives you: a single number to negotiate. Push on the cost to change rather than on the allowance alone, because an allowance can be moved up while the price of the other car moves up beside it.
If you want the speed without buying anything, there is a middle route. A dealer can buy the car outright, with no other car in the deal. RS Motors buys cars outright as well as taking trade-ins, and the sell my car page explains what to send to get a figure.
When is a private sale still the right call?
Three cases.
You have the time and you enjoy it. Some people like the process. If that is you, and the car is one private buyers look for, the extra money is real.
The car is worth very little. On a car a dealer would only take as a favour, a private buyer who wants exactly that car may pay more than any allowance, and the risk on an inexpensive car is small.
The car is unusual. A rare spec, a colour with a following, a low-mileage example of a model that enthusiasts hunt for. Those cars find their own buyers, and a dealer's figure has to allow for the chance that they will not.
Outside those three, the private route is often more work than the money justifies. MotorCheck's advice on getting the best trade-in is a good read on closing the gap from the other side.
How does the change of ownership work either way?
Every sale ends with the same step. In a private sale, you and the buyer complete the change of ownership section on the Vehicle Registration Certificate and it goes to the Department of Transport, or the transfer is done through the online service. When a dealer takes the car, the dealer's part of the paperwork is completed and the car is recorded as having gone into the trade. Citizens Information's page on change of vehicle ownership walks through both routes.
Never hand over a car and leave the paperwork for another day. Until the record changes, the car is still yours as far as the State is concerned, and so is anything it picks up on the road.
How do you decide?
Write down the best figure you honestly expect from a private sale. Take off the cost of the advert, a valet if the car needs one to be presentable, and a fair sum for your hours. Set what is left beside the dealer's figure. If the private number is still clearly ahead and you have the time, sell privately. If the two are close, trade in and get on with your life.
Questions sellers ask
What is the best way to sell a car in Ireland?
The best way depends on what you want out of it. Selling privately usually pays the most but takes the most time and carries the most risk. Trading in, or selling outright to a dealer, is quicker and simpler, and the difference in money is often smaller than sellers assume once the hours are counted.
Why is trade-in price higher?
Trade-in figures are not usually higher than private sale prices. What can look higher is an allowance that has been pushed up while the price of the car you are buying has been pushed up beside it. Judge any trade-in on the cost to change, which is the only number that leaves your account.
Who pays the most to sell my car?
Usually the private buyer who wants that exact car pays the most, because there is no dealer margin in between. That buyer has to be found, met, driven around and dealt with, and the money has to be safely received before the car goes. Dealers pay less on paper but take all of that off your hands on the same day.
Weigh up your own car
Send the reg and a few photos to RS Motors on WhatsApp, or ring 086 800 0001, Monday to Saturday 9am to 8pm, and you will have a real figure to set against the private route. If the plan is to trade up, the premium used cars page shows the everyday cars.
