put it this way, I sold there and then... came away with £1052 on a car I paid £5200 8yrs earlier. The engine had a 'knocking sound' .. they said it could be exhaust rattle. I'm no mechanic so said, yeah it could be ;)

on a private sale I'd of wanted about £1400 (without a knocking sound!) and I could have been weeks selling it, having time wasters say they want to come view. not turn up.. be haggled down etc.

so it works for some.

I do see your point. It's a convenient way of selling your car perhaps for slightly less ( in your case anyway) than market value. I agree if the car's not worth much it's a ball ache going through the rigmarole of selling. Tyre kickers, time wasters and p!ss takers avoided for the sake of a few hundred quid.

for the last two-three years of having, it I thought it was only worth about £1k anyway lol
losing just over £4k in in 8yrs!! how many Scooby drivers can say that lol

Yep agreed, but I suspect you are more clued up than most and went in with your eyes open

Under the same circumstance I would prob do the same

Mine has prob lost 3k in 7 years.

from nearly new?

mine was 18month old with 8k miles in 2004. sold it with 45k miles in 2012. 52plate.

lol no not even close. It's 14 years old now.

They offered me £50 for my x reg focus, which I sold to a scrap man for £170. Then last year they offered me £1600 for my 54 plate Audi A3 3.2, which I sold privately for £4400. No wonder they make a profit on 75% of their cars! And to add to the insult they then email you everyday to remind you of their crap offer.

I thought that there was some kind of clause in the contract which can prevent this.
Supposedly they can inspect the car at a later date, and come get you should something serious be wrong.
I don't know this 100%, but I'm sure I read it somewhere

I sold my M3 to them a few years ago, they offered me less than the market price, and knocked more money off when I took the car in for the official valuation.

At the time they told me the car would be sent to their mechanics first to check over and that only after they had given it the OK would they transfer the money to my account.

The car had some SMG issues but they didn't pick up on them, and it had missed its first service, which is a big deal for an e46 apparently, so I was very happy to get rid of it without the hassle of a private sale.

I sold my X-Trail to them a while back. I paid £12,500 ran it for a couple of years, it got keyed all the way down the side and I sold it to them for £10,500. Not bad really, saved me the hassle of selling. It was very low mileage and in perfect condition barring the scratch though.