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For Sale S54 2002 Z3M Roadster

Sorry to 'pish on anyone's bonfire' here but from the prices I have seen the car above is worth around £15k.
People need to be realistic in today's car market or they just won't sell.
 
That's what I meant with my post yesterday....
Some of the cars currently for sale have been available for a long time
Lets see what the auction one goes for.
 
I enquired with Mathewsons about selling our Z3M and they were prepared to squeeze it into their July auction. Their fees would have been approximately 9% of the hammer price and if we had it transported up there that would have been around £300. They recommended a reserve of £12000 with an estimate of 12 - 14000. If ours had sold at the reserve we would have been left with about £10500 after costs. This persuaded us to accept an offer of £12000 from a local dealer for a straightforward sale. Disappointing but he will have to give it a full service and some sort of limited warranty and make a profit so sometimes you just have to suck it up and move on. I hope this is helpful.
 
Although I might have put it on mathewsons but not necessarily rushed it into this month's auction. Also with a higher reserve so it doesn't actually sell for less than I'm happy with. Basically just to test the water for the cost of the entry fee.
 
Lovely, it's worth getting the OEM illuminated dear knob. GLWTS.
 
Try entering a car with Mathewsons. They have a pretty good handle on the market and on my initial enquiry I asked for a 14k reserve but they felt it needed to be lower to promote interest. It would not be just for the £48 entry fee though would it. Unless you live next door to the auction house there is the time and/or the expense of getting it there and then getting it back should it fail to sell which would be madness just to test the waters.
I feel I have done my testing by offering on here and Autotrader for what I felt was a very fair price but no response from anyone on here and only a couple off Autotrader with plenty of questions but no offers.
So time to be thankful for a good buyer and move on. 👍
 
I enquired with Mathewsons about selling our Z3M and they were prepared to squeeze it into their July auction. Their fees would have been approximately 9% of the hammer price and if we had it transported up there that would have been around £300. They recommended a reserve of £12000 with an estimate of 12 - 14000. If ours had sold at the reserve we would have been left with about £10500 after costs. This persuaded us to accept an offer of £12000 from a local dealer for a straightforward sale. Disappointing but he will have to give it a full service and some sort of limited warranty and make a profit so sometimes you just have to suck it up and move on. I hope this is helpful.
Thank you for that. I would have done the same in the circumstances. £15/16K from a dealer seems about right.
 
I enquired with Mathewsons about selling our Z3M and they were prepared to squeeze it into their July auction. Their fees would have been approximately 9% of the hammer price and if we had it transported up there that would have been around £300. They recommended a reserve of £12000 with an estimate of 12 - 14000. If ours had sold at the reserve we would have been left with about £10500 after costs. This persuaded us to accept an offer of £12000 from a local dealer for a straightforward sale. Disappointing but he will have to give it a full service and some sort of limited warranty and make a profit so sometimes you just have to suck it up and move on. I hope this is helpful.
Good info :thumbsup:
 
Disappointing but he will have to give it a full service
I wouldn't bet on that. Car dealers tend to do the minimum they can get away with to maximise their profit these days IME.
 
Johnwayne im tempted to say " get off your horse and drink your milk" but you're probably sick of that.
I hope you get a similarly good outcome that you're ok with. 👍
 
Well done on the sale but a shame it went to a dealer - I think you would have achieved a similar hassle free sale from a forum member for £12k.

Next time we see it i suspect it will be advertised at or around £20k.

Screenshot_20260717_194859_Chrome.webp
 
Lovely, it's worth getting the OEM illuminated dear knob.
 
Well done on the sale but a shame it went to a dealer - I think you would have achieved a similar hassle free sale from a forum member for £12k.

Next time we see it i suspect it will be advertised at or around £20k.

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Sadly these valuations are pie in the sky or mine would have been snapped up at 15k. The facts don't support your argument or you could be making a fortune buying them up and selling them on.
 
Sadly these valuations are pie in the sky or mine would have been snapped up at 15k. The facts don't support your argument or you could be making a fortune buying them up and selling them on.
Agreed. The 'trade' to 'retail' price differences of £1,500 or so are ludicrous these days. Especially with a 'niche market' car.
A trader will put £4-10k on the purchase price of a car, with no expectation of selling it quickly. If they happen to get the highest figure that will be a huge bonus to them. But they will be happy to drop the price continuously until they sell it; as long as they still have at least £3k profit.

Any car dealer will still tell you they make "£400 a car". That is nonsense. Maybe the salesman is making that but the company won't be.

So your Z3M will be retailed at first at around £18-20k. But they will expect to sell at £15-16k. Anything more than £15k is a plus.

I have seen very, very niche market cars (worth realistically £70k) offered at £125,000 by dealers. HUGE mark up. Purely because there WILL be decent profit in it at some time in the future but they can afford to wait and drop the price significantly.

Personally I think it is partly down to dealers having no real idea what markets are doing at present, so chance their arms and 'test' the market. When your living depends on profit, the 'testing the market' will always start at the highest figure possible.
 
Or they offer an inflated offer on your part.ex. at the higher sales price.
 
. . . . .A trader will put £4-10k on the purchase price of a car, with no expectation of selling it quickly. If
. . .
. . . . Any car dealer will still tell you they make "£400 a car". That is nonsense. Maybe the salesman is making that but the company won't be.
. . .

I've seen people get angry when they see the car they sold to a dealer out on the forecourt a few days later with a price tag 30 , 40% or more over what they got for it. They reckon they were ripped off.

Its not a rip off. The dealer has a lot of his cash out on the forecourt. He has to handle all the tyre kickers and complaints from buyers and eventually sell much lower. Every so often one of those complaints will wipe out all the profit and then some.

A while ago I bought a mercedes ML from the local ford dealer. He'd obviously taken it in p/x. I'd watched the price drop till I couldn't resist. I reckon he was glad to see the back of it. Little did he know he saw it again the next day when I told him about the faulty gearbox. A week later I get a call from the local mercedes dealer saying my gearbox was fixed and the bill was near £4K whereupon I directed them to the ford dealer who'd sent it up to mb to be looked at likely not expecting such a bill.

Or maybe they were expecting such a bill knowing that being a good honest used car dealer is an expensive business and you can't be good if you're earning just a grand on a car.
 
Dealer had a bargain there - especially considering it's S54 engined.
I fear we may have somewhat derailed @Johnwayne original for sale post so apologies for that but @Lazzzydog was referring to his S50 powered roadster when discussing the dealer sale for £12k.
 
I fear we may have somewhat derailed @Johnwayne original for sale post so apologies for that but @Lazzzydog was referring to his S50 powered roadster when discussing the dealer sale for £12k.
Ah yes - I read without paying attention to the username!

That's good then, I did have to lift my jaw from the table when I perceived an S54 had been sold for £12k.
 
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