A Haval H6 Hybrid sold early is not a car with a problem.
Move a car on this soon after buying it and people quietly start wondering what went wrong with it, usually well before anybody asks you.
We ask, once, and the answer is almost always something that happened in your life rather than something that happened to the car.
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The short ownership
Selling early is a household story, not a fault report
Most people in this position open the call by explaining themselves. It is worth knowing that the explanation is the ordinary part of it.
The shape of it is familiar. The car was bought new, the delivery folder is still in the glovebox with the plastic on it, and then something moved. A job went to the other side of town, or stopped needing a car at all. A household gained somebody, or lost somebody. A second car turned out to be one car too many. A repayment that sat comfortably in the week you signed for it stopped sitting comfortably. Nobody buys a car planning to sell it this soon, which is why by the time you are reading this you have probably rehearsed your reasons a couple of times.
That rehearsal exists because early sellers get looked at sideways. The assumption is that a car being moved on this quickly must have something the owner is not saying, and it is a lazy assumption that lands on you as caution you never earned. So the question gets asked here once, plainly, and then we get on with the car. In these calls the answer usually has nothing to do with the vehicle at all.
What is genuinely different about a car this young is how little there is to read on it. An older one tells you about itself through a stack of invoices and a book with a few different names stamped in it. Yours has almost none of that yet, so the small amount that does exist carries more weight than it will later on. The delivery documents. The first stamp, if it has come around. Both keys. Whatever was fitted before you drove it out. Have that in one place on the day and the person looking at the car is working with everything there is to work with, which is all anybody can ask.
On the call
What we ask about a car this young
Six questions, and every one of them is about the beginning of a car rather than the end of one.
- How long has it been yours?
- A rough answer is plenty and it sets up everything after it. It tells us whether the first service has come around yet, whether it is still wearing the tyres it was delivered on, and how much of what you are about to describe is still exactly as it left the dealership.
- What has changed since you bought it?
- Ask a dozen sellers and you get a dozen household answers. A move, a new job, a baby, a car that turned out to be surplus. We ask because being told stops anybody guessing, and a guess about why a young car is being sold is never a generous one.
- Are both keys still with the books?
- On a car this age the spare is usually still in the pouch it arrived in, with the manual and the service book beside it. That is exactly where it wants to be on the day. If something has gone astray it is not a drama, it just comes out openly rather than being discovered by somebody kneeling in your driveway.
- What was fitted at delivery, and is any of it on the invoice?
- Tow bar, roof bars, tint, paint protection, floor mats, a dash cam. On a car sold this early those things are usually still on it and usually still itemised on the original paperwork, which is the easiest way there is to have them counted rather than argued about.
- Is it still on the finance you signed at delivery?
- Say so at the start. Whatever is owing is settled directly with the financier, a novated lease included, and if the payout comes to more than the car is worth you get that shortfall in writing before you sign anything. Early in a loan is exactly where that turns up, and nobody here is going to be startled by it.
- Are the plates going with the car?
- Personalised plates ordered at the same time as the car often outlast the car itself, and plenty of people want to keep theirs for the next one. Either answer is completely fine. What matters is knowing which it is before the transfer is filled in rather than on the morning it gets signed.
Whatever the reason
Three things a short ownership does not change
- Nobody here reads an early sale as a warning. You say what changed, we hear it, and that is the end of that subject. The offer is built on the car standing in the driveway and not on a theory about why it is for sale.
- The inspector comes to your home or your work. A car that still looks new gets the same going over as one that does not, and it happens where the car already is rather than costing you a day driving it somewhere to be assessed.
- What was added at delivery is part of what you are selling. The tow bar, the roof bars, the tint, the mats, the cover that has lived in the boot since the first week. Have the invoice out with the car and those things get counted instead of quietly leaving with it.
Before you send it through
Three questions we hear from owners selling this early
It has barely been used. Do you still need to look at it?
Yes, and it is the same visit every other car gets. There is simply less to find on a young one, so it tends to be shorter. Nothing is being skipped, and the figure we talked about on the phone is the figure that has to hold up in front of the car.
Will you want to know why I am selling it so soon?
We will ask, once. Nearly every answer we hear is a change at home or at work, and none of them make a car harder to buy. The thing that makes a call awkward is a seller who has decided in advance that the question is an accusation.
There is more owing on it than I think it is worth. Where does that leave me?
In a very ordinary position, and one we deal with in the open. The payout goes to the financier directly, and if it comes to more than the car, that shortfall is written down and agreed with you before anything is signed.
Tell us what changed and let somebody look at the Haval H6 properly.
Or call us on 03 9000 0075 and talk it through first.