A walk around your Model Y misses the whole back of it.
Nearly everything that moves the value of a Model Y happened behind the front seats, and it happened in both directions at once.
So that is where we start, with what has been carried in it and what has been bolted to it.
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The back of the car
This one is valued at the boot, not the bonnet
A Model Y usually replaced something with a big boot and has spent its life being loaded, which shows up as wear and as accessories in roughly equal measure.
A generic buyer walks around the outside, looks at the paint and the wheels, reads the odometer and puts a price on it. That walk goes nowhere near the part of the car that has actually been used. The seat backs, the boot floor, the sill a pram has been lifted over, the pressure marks a child seat leaves once it has been tightened down and left there. None of it is dramatic and all of it is real, and a price built without looking is a price that assumes the worst of it.
The same walk misses everything that was added. Bars on the roof, a tow bar on the back, a liner in the boot, a second set of mats laid over the first, a dash cam wired in by somebody who did it properly. Those cost real money when they were bought and they are worth money when the car changes hands. A buyer who never asks about them is a buyer who takes them home for nothing.
We would rather look at both halves. Wear that came from a family is priced as wear, which is a deduction and never a reason to stop. The accessories run the other way and lift the number, but only where somebody knows they are there and knows they are staying. That is why almost every question below is about the back of the car, and why we ask them before an inspector is standing in your driveway rather than after.
What we go looking for
What we ask about a Model Y
Five questions about the half of the car a walkaround never reaches, and each of them is worth money in one direction or the other.
- Are the roof bars on the car, or on a shelf in the garage?
- If they came with it and they are going with it, they belong in the offer. If they came off at some point and are sitting in the garage, dig them out before the inspector arrives. Bars that appear on handover day are usually bars nobody paid you for.
- Is there a tow bar, and who fitted it?
- Fitted before delivery or added afterwards, both are perfectly ordinary. We ask because it tells the inspector what to check and where. If there is paperwork for the work, keep it with the car, and if the tow bar has actually pulled something, say what.
- Is the boot liner still with the car, and are the original mats?
- The good ones often end up in a garage while a cheap set does the work, and then they stay behind by accident. All of it is part of what we are buying, including the cover over the boot if the car came with one.
- Has anything been wired into it, a dash cam or otherwise?
- Tell us what, and tell us whether it is staying. Anything wired in is something the inspector finds anyway, and a thing you mentioned is worth more to you than the same thing discovered. If it is coming out before handover, say that too.
- Have the back seats carried a child seat?
- It is an ordinary thing to have done and it is not a mark against the car. We ask because it tells us where to look, at the seat back, the belt and the anchor points, and because family wear that was declared is priced as wear rather than found late and treated as damage.
Whatever the back looks like
Three things a car full of family does not lose
- Lived in is not damaged. Scuffed seat backs and a boot floor that has carried everything are what this car is for. They come off the number as ordinary wear, and they have never been a reason for us to stop halfway through.
- What is fitted to it only counts if we know. Bars, a tow bar, a liner, a cover. Say what is staying with the car and it lands inside the offer instead of travelling away with it for free.
- The battery still gets read at your door. None of the above changes the main event. State of health is measured at your home or your work on the day, because on an electric car it moves the value more than kilometres do.
Before the inspector comes
Three questions families ask us
The boot and the back seats have had a hard life. Is that a problem?
No. It is what the car was bought to do. The inspector prices what is actually there, and honest family wear in the back of a car is not a reason for us to walk away from it.
Should I take the roof bars and the tow bar off before you come?
Only if you are keeping them. If they are staying with the car, leave them on and mention them on the call so they sit inside the number. If they are yours to keep, take them off first, because the offer should describe the car we actually drive away.
Do I need to get it detailed first?
No, and we would rather you did not spend the money on our account. What we are looking at is what has been fitted to the car and what condition the back of it is in, and neither of those changes with a wash.
Show us the back of the car and get paid for what is in it.
Or call us on 03 9000 0075 and talk it through first.