Your ZS EV is worth more with the cable in the boot.
A buyer who never asks about the charging gear is counting on you forgetting it, and on this car the charging gear is usually one cable in the boot.
We ask what came with it, price what is coming with it, and take the battery reading rather than working backwards from how you charged it.
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Charging at home
The charging habit is not the valuation
If there was never a box on your garage wall, that changes what is in the boot. It does not change how the battery is assessed.
A household that plugs into an ordinary power point does not think of itself as owning charging equipment. The cable comes out at night, goes back in the boot in the morning, and nobody ever calls it a thing. Then somebody asks what comes with the car and the honest answer sounds like nothing much. It is not nothing much. On this car it is the charging gear, all of it, and it gets priced as part of what we are buying instead of travelling with the car for free.
That matters more if you are not the first owner. A cable that lives loose in a boot is the easiest thing in the world for a car to lose on the way between two people, and a car that changes hands does not always bring it along. If yours went missing before you got the car, say so at the start. It is a line on the offer rather than a problem with it, and discovering it in the driveway is worse for everybody standing there.
The other half of this is what we do not do. Nobody here prices the car off the way you charged it. State of health is a reading taken at your home or your work, in front of you, and on an electric car it moves the value further than the odometer does. Anyone willing to tell you what your battery must be like, from a charging habit and a kilometre reading, is guessing, and a guess about a battery always lands in favour of the person doing the guessing.
What we want to know
What we ask a ZS EV owner
None of them decides whether we are buying. Each one decides what goes into the number.
- How was it charged, and from what?
- A power point in the garage, a box on the wall, a public charger on the way home, or some mix of all three. It tells us which cable to ask about before we call you back, and it tells the inspector what is likely to be handed over on the day.
- Is the portable cable still with the car, and which one is it?
- The one that goes into a household power point, the one for a public charger, or both. Have a look in the boot rather than going from memory. This is the piece that carries the money on this car, and it is the piece with a habit of still being at the address you bought the car from.
- Are the wheels and their covers the ones it came with?
- A cracked cover or a swapped set is a line rather than a problem. Tell us where the originals are, because if they are coming with the car they are part of what we are buying, and if they are not, we would rather know that now than find out at handover.
- Who has serviced it, and can that be shown?
- A franchise workshop, an independent one, or a bit of both. What matters is less who did the work than whether it can be produced. Stamps in the book, a folder in the glovebox, or a search through your email. Any of the three is worth having ready.
- Did anything come with the car that is still in a cupboard?
- Adapters, a spare lead, the manual, a second key, the bag the cable came in. Anyone who bought this car used has probably inherited a box of that and never opened it. It is worth a look before the inspector arrives, because everything in it is part of what you are selling.
Whatever is in the boot
Three things that hold either way
- A missing cable is not a dead end. If it went before the car ever reached you, tell us early. It moves the number by a line rather than changing the answer, and we would far rather hear it than find it.
- The battery gets read, not assumed. State of health is taken on the day, at your home or your work, and the offer follows the capacity that is actually there rather than whatever somebody imagines a slowly charged car must be like.
- A loan on it is our paperwork. Say so on the first call and the payout is handled with your financier from this side, which is one fewer thing to work out before the inspector comes.
Still wondering
Three that come up on this car
There is no wall box at my place. Does that count against the car?
No. What gets priced is what is coming with the car, and on most of these that is the portable cable rather than anything bolted to a wall. If there is a wall box and it is coming too, tell us, because then it is in the number as well.
I bought it used and never got a charging cable. Will you still buy it?
Yes. Say it on the first call rather than on the day. A cable that is not there is priced as a cable that is not there, and nothing else about the sale changes because of it.
How can you judge the battery if it only ever charged slowly at home?
We do not judge it, we read it. The inspector takes the state of health at your place and the offer is built from that reading, so how the car was charged stays a conversation instead of turning into a deduction.
Get it priced with everything that came with it.
Or call us on 03 9000 0075 and talk it through first.