green wheels

This post is the first of a series of three in which I’ll comment o nthe ever increasing trend of buying through ebay. Traditionally the home of the stamp collector, electronics buyer etc.. ebay is now selling more cars than ever before (including more than most specialist car classified sites) and a higher than ever number of lpg cars and other vehicles.

In this post we’ll have a look at security and how to buy easily and safely on ebay and then follow up with posts on what vehicles are available with regard to cars and finally commercial vehicles.

You may already use ebay to make purchases or even sell items yourself. However, chances are that those items are of a comparatively minimal value compared to a new car – something which is commonly cited directly behind homes as one of the biggest purchases people commonly make. For this reson it is importnant to apply different principles and be particularly vigilant when buying cars.

As a general principle you should ALWAYS aim to arrange to view the vehicle and test it, just as you would with a car advertised by any other means. The only difference with ebay is that (in addition to the traditional handshake) you will need to conclude the deal on ebay by winning the car at auction or using Buy-it-Now. If you’re particularly fussy about the car you’re after, or have a very strict budget you may need to view many cars and be prepared to take time to go to the end of each auction. In this instance you may wish to search ebay with your exact requirements and budget in mind and find a car that you can view and conclude on instantly.

To this end, ebay provide the very powerful Car Finder tool which I can’t emphasise enough as being the best way to go about finding your perfect car on ebay. Not only does it let you narrow down make, model, engine, spec and extras (such as lpg conversion) but most importantly it allows you to specify location. Using a similar postcode/distance finder as autotrader and other car-ad systems, this allows you to order search results by distance from your location.

Now, you’ve found the car and won the auction. What about money? Two schools of thought here I would say – either the traditional route of cash-in-hand (which I would personally favour) or stick with ebay protocol and use PayPal or similar. Now, how you do this is u pto you but always, always have a mind to where the car is, who has the keys etc at time of payment. I.e. just because you met a guy at a carpark yesterday and test drove the car does NOT mean he’ll necessarily turn up at the same carpark to hand over the car – once payment is in his account!

Common sense really, but you’d be surprised how often these simple rules are ignored.