Selling a car back to Caterham - what's the deal?

[ghibbett]

Hi All,

I've been watching prices of various Caterhams both on PH and on the Caterham pre-owned and it's brought up a question. It's clear to see that cars from Caterham are a fair bit more expensive (10%-15% at least).

Now I don't want to get into the 'is it worth buying from Caterham' discussion, however what experiences has anybody had of selling a car back to Caterham? Is it a case of once you drive your (used) Caterham off site they'll offer you £2k less to buy it back?

[BertBert]

ghibbett said:

Hi All,
Is it a case of once you drive your (used) Caterham off site they'll offer you £2k less to buy it back?

Well that's a given. That's what dealers do, buy lower than they sell.

The question is how much the bid/offer spread is. I'd think that selling a car to them at 13 that they could re-sell at 15 is probably not going to happen. No specific experience doing it but I'd guess at maybe 12 for a car they'll sell at 15?

[Dave J]

or working example of 19 for 23 sticker , 22.5 realy went at.

nothing unusual as I dotn think they are charity registered

[sjmmarsh]

My experience is that if you are buying a new car off them and your own car is 'standard' then the deal they offer is not that bad. I had mine on sale through blatchat for 4 weeks before I p/x'd it with Caterham. I was offering it at £500 more than I was getting from Caterham. I had a bit of interest, but nobody made a serious offer, so went with Caterham's deal.

Steve

[tony wright]

In 2003 they offered me 25 grand for my 1 year old R500 with sixteen hundred miles on the clock, I had bought it brand new from them 12 months earlier for 38 and a half.

[S47]

Avoid the Dealers BS - buy privately and save yourself a big wedge of £'s, plenty of cars for sale especially at this time of the year

[sjmmarsh]

I should have added, that the offer was only £5k below what I had paid for it 4 years and 20k miles earlier - and that allowed for repairing the sideskin and a resprayed that Caterham needed to do before reselling it(don't ask!)

Steve

[ghibbett]

Interesting. Thanks to all who took the time to reply. Food for thought indeed, although I can't stop looking at this everyday: http://www.caterham.co.uk/assets/html/preowned/pre...

[downsman]

That does look a nice car

I found it hard to get my head around how much Caterham ask you to pay for an eleven year old car.
Having said that their pricing policy probably helps keep up the price of privately advertised cars.

As with all businesses, they will want to make a profit, and if they don't think a particular car will sell, they will offer a derisory amount rather than say no.

If you don't want a lot of expensive options, buying new can make sense, and building the car can be very enjoyable.

[BertBert]

OP, just out of interest, why do you want to guage a buy-back price from Caterham?
Bert

[Yellow 7]

also, any (non standard to them) mods like changing to Throttle bodies over DCOE carbs for example and they are not interested.
This means that you won't see the wealth of interesting, and upgraded for the better, cars are Caterham cars 2nd hand.

Dealers, Caterham included offer an easy solution but it of course costs (and sometimes a lot) for that ease.