Time for a change?

The best way to sell quickly is Ebay, write a decent advert with loads of pictures and interesting text to catch a buyer. Ebay allows HTML code and externally hosted pictures so you can have as many pictures (and in high resolution) as you want. I stuck my last E31 on Ebay and I had a buyer in two days. A good way to NOT sell it is to use blurry phone-pictures of a dirty car, and there are a few of those around - make yours more desirable by having pin-sharp pictures of a perfectly manicured E31.

There is no sense to be made of the prices of the E31 at the moment, some really nice ones are going for a few grand, some horrors are demanding really high prices. Some have been on the market for absolutely years (that Estoril Blue one in Wales for instance).

Do you mean to change to another e31, or just a different car?

So what would you have in mind? CSI?

You own a 850 right?
If you have done everything to it, why do you think you will do anything more to another car?

Zitat von Fatandre;92512

You own a 850 right?
If you have done everything to it, why do you think you will do anything more to another car?

Very good question.

What's the motive behind this quest for a change Lloyd?

A CSI I can understand.
A manual I can understand.
An 840
Different colour, lower mileage

Zitat von Fatandre;92512

You own a 850 right?
If you have done everything to it, why do you think you will do anything more to another car?

For some of us, its the playing with the car that is the most fun. Every car I have ever had has ended up being sold when I cannot do any more to it and then I start again.

Maybe its an engineer thing?

Lloyd?

My barbados green 97 840 ci sport is on piston heads if you're interested
It has a few little things that need sorting so I've priced it accordingly at £6350, maybe a good project car for you.

It's time for me to get back to a Z4 I think, I love the 8 but I'm looking for something different for an every day driver.

Well Lloyd, after 8 years with mine and having looked at the market I have no idea where to pitch it!!
6.5k would be nice for mine but who knows.....
I will compile my add this coming week and see how it goes on PH.... Not many V12's for sale so that could be good for us... Maybe...
Good luck though.

Alex

Zitat von Lloyd;92563

(like you it owes us far far more)

It does owe you a lot more and it is great condition. As Alex says, there isn't a lot of (nice) V12's around so if you have a nice one then make them pay for it. £6K is banger money these days; certainly cheap enough for many to buy who are not particularly enthusiastic about the Marque but just fancy 'smoking' it around for a few months and then selling it off again for really cheap money.

Having said that, the more that get sold off cheap, the quicker they get scrapped and the nice ones become even more desirable. Timm said earlier in this post that there was no logic to the pricing. I think this is true because they are all so different and few people are able to distinguish between the really good and the OK; unfortunately they will only ever compare with the cheapest available.

Only an enthusiast will know the difference when they see your advert against the £2-3K nudger and they will probably be happy to pay the extra.

Cheers
Graham

I'm the same as you Lloyd, but thankfully I bought one that needed so much work it will see me through to retirement

If I were you I'd find the cheapest CSi I could get hold of. Plenty of work to keep you off the streets and worth a few quid when you've finished.

I keep my eye on PistonHeads and there are very few V12s, but the ones that are there are cheap cheap. I doubt you'll get much more than £6k but you may as well try a big higher and hope for the best if you're not in a hurry.

Do you have any proper pictures of your car?

During the past season we saw virtual "value increases" all over the place. Late in the year/season always sees the lowest prices. The very same car that can be had for e.g. 6K in November will be back on the market for 10K in the spring to follow.
Hence I´d definitely wait with a sale until people are feeling their hormones again and rather buy the new project in secret and hide it for a while

Still, most of the movement here (Germany) is in the sub 10K EUR range and anything above that is very hard to get rid of, no matter what condition the car is in. The lowest prices here, likely for cars barely driveable, are around 5K EUR to put the aforementioned figures into a perspective. Anything below 5K definitely can be considered junk/parts only.

The number of 8-series enthusiasts to me does not seem to be on the rise. I see it rather the other way around which means that there are way too many cars in the market still. The few "new enthusiasts" are either of the kind Graham describes, joyriding a car for as long as the pocket money buys petrol and looking for the cheapest and (likely) riciest looking car or those that have taken a (too) long time to make up their mind and believe they´re looking for a keeper. For lack of in depth knowledge this´d preferrably be with very low mileage which generally seems to indicate "best possible condition" (only it does not necessarily, for a car close to or above 20 yrs of age). For the latter buyer 30K is not that much money considering that they just bought a new 3-series convertible for the lady amounting to what? Much more.

Prices for low mileage (+-20/30k mls) cars ex dealerships have developed beyond crazy here as cars like this have become extremely rare. Having seen some of those I´d rather take one with 100k mls on the clock off a person that I know has taken the time to keep things in order. A stamped service book to me is worth close to zilch, especially if you see three stamps in 16 yrs by virtue of the car never being used.

Most of the buyer´s are not experts though and this is why cars in excellent condition but with comparatively high mileage will just end up where Graham predicted. If making the additional "mistake" to truthfully describe the car one will lose even more, because most of the "professional" sellers are professional liars only.

I assembled a list of cars that were "sold" through Ebay.UK in this year. Those were either "No reserve" auctions or the reserve price was met. There is of course a number of cars that reappeared right away but at least it gives an impression what the Ebay 8er shopper expects to pay - not much. Next to nothing to tell the truth.

I´d definitely also recommend making the best possible effort for the description with as many HQ pictures as possible - Timm has been very passionate when selling his cars and left quite an impression

A long list of maintenance work performed to many certainly counts more than a respray to cover up rust holes...

Cheers
Reinhard

Excellent information as usual Reinhard - and really interesting. Ebay has a kind of regularity to it in the way of sales and prices. The high-price spikes come from elsewhere, the 'premier' league of sellers have their own websites and sometimes leak onto Pistonheads - James Paul for instance, who has an Alpina (no price shown) and a '97 840ci Sport for 10k currently for sale.

The biggest influence on price appears to be the mileage, in particular, sub 100k = good, 100k+ = v.bad. The second biggest influence is model, where the Sport demands higher prices.

The 100k mileage limit appears to be an historic tradition where older cars were seen to have reached the end of their useful life. Obviously, this is not true for the E31, which has many more miles in it. For the enthusiast, the 100K+ cars are a real bargain as the premier sellers just want to get rid of them!