Sell my Tesla Model 3: how to get the best price online
Time to sell? Here’s a look at all your options, including how to get the best price when selling your Tesla Model 3.
You’ll no doubt be wondering ‘how can I get the best price when I sell my Tesla Model 3?’
The short answer is that, if you want to get the absolute best price, then you’ll have to set the time aside to sell it yourself.
You can do this by doing your research on pricing, listing it on the likes of AutoTrader, sorting viewings and fielding offers from prospective buyers.
Conversely, if you want the easiest option (assuming you’re buying another car to replace your old one) then you can part-exchange your Tesla Model 3 at the car dealer and simply hand over the keys before you drive off in your new motor.
Sadly, this will also get you the worst price as car dealers are hoping you’ll accept a lower price for the sake of an easy life.
If you want a middle option – one that’s pretty straightforward but will still net a decent price for your Tesla – then you could consider selling to one of the various car-buying sites, which we’ll look at in more detail below.
But how much will you get paid when selling online?
And what can you do to get the best possible price for your Tesla Model 3 when selling to the likes of Webuyanycar or Motorway?
Sell My Car Guide has all the answers you need.
How much is my Tesla Model 3 worth?
How much your Tesla is worth obviously depends on things like its condition, the year it was made and the specific model.
However, you can get a rough idea of your Tesla’s value by checking out an online car valuation service.
We went to Parkers and found that second-hand Tesla Model 3’s have the following price ranges.
| Tesla 3 model | Minimum valuation | Maximum valuation |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Range Plus 4-door | £17,895 | £27,965 |
| Performance All-Wheel Drive 4-door | £22,150 | £37,765 |
Sell my Tesla Model 3: who will give me the best price?
This is obviously a very rough guide, little more than a starting point.
To try and give you a clearer picture of how much you can expect to get when selling your Tesla Model 3 specifically to a car-buying site, we conducted some research of our own.
We entered the details of five Model 3’s at five different car-buying sites: Motorway, Webuyanycar, Arnold Clark, Wewantanycar and Money4yourmotors.
You can see the quotes we received in the table below.
| Tesla Model 3 Standard Range + Saloon 2020 | Tesla Model 3 Standard Range + Saloon 2021 | Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD 2020 | Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD 2021 | Tesla Model 3 Long Range AWD 2020 | Average price for all models | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Motorway | £37,783 | £39,421 | £42,811 | £46,447 | £42,021 | £41,697 |
| Money4yourmotors | £36,183 | £37,750 | £40,758 | £44,312 | £39,838 | £39,768 |
| Arnold Clark | £36,505 | £37,261 | £40,855 | £43,503 | £40,051 | £39,635 |
| Wewantanycar | £35,796 | £37,346 | £40,323 | £43,840 | £39,412 | £39,343 |
| Webuyanycar | £35,555 | £37,410 | £38,500 | £41,780 | £37,735 | £38,196 |
The final column shows the average price quoted for the five cars to allow us to compare the sites.
So which car-buying site offered the best price for a Tesla Model 3?
Our research found that Motorway came out on top by some distance.
Motorway claim in their marketing that they’ll pay up to £1,000 more for cars than their rivals, but we found the difference was actually around £1,700.
Webuyanycar, probably the best-known car-buying site, actually offered the lowest price out of those who gave us a quote.
Now, obviously, our research doesn’t provide definitive proof of who will give every Tesla owner the best price when selling – we only rounded up 30 quotes, after all.
The specifics of your Model 3 – be it the age, condition, mileage, or other factor – could make it more appealing to one site over another.
No car-buying site can guarantee it’ll offer the best price for every car.
That’s why at Sell My Car Guide our golden rule is to make sure you get quotes from multiple places as part of your initial research.
It genuinely only takes a couple of minutes to get a quote.
This will help you quickly weed out the sites that haven’t made a serious offer – we found some were quoting almost £5,000 lower than the best offer, making it highly unlikely they’ll offer the best final price.
If you get one that is miles better than any of its rivals, you can be pretty confident you’re on to a winner as the quotes you get on sites are fairly accurate these days.
If there is no clear winner, you can just proceed with any offer that’s marginally better but be willing to go through the process all over again with the next best one if the first company tries to pull the rug from under you and offer far less at the point of sale.
So who should you get a quote from? Here’s a list of the main car-buying sites:
Read our Motorway review or get a quote
Read our Wewantanycar review or get a quote
Read our Webuyanycar review or get a quote
Read our Evans Halshaw review or get a quote
Read our Cazoo review or get a quote
Read our Mone4yourmotors review or get a quote
Read our Arnold Clark review or get a quote
Read our Carwow review or get a quote
Motorist holding the steering wheel of a Tesla (Image: Jenny Ueberberg – Unsplash)
Key considerations before selling: fees, collection services & more
When comparing prices from the different car-buying sites, be sure to factor in any fees that you will be charged.
The big ones to look out for are ‘administration fees’ – effectively charging you for the pleasure of selling your car to that company – and collection fees, assuming you want your car collected from your house rather than driving it to a centre.
There isn’t really any consistency across the car-buying market when it comes to how much you’ll be charged.
Some sites like Motorway are completely fee-free.
Others will charge admin fees: for example, Webuyanycar, charge up to £100 depending on the value of your car but don’t offer a collection service.
If the price you’re offered from rival sites is similar, make sure you factor in any fees you’ll have to pay to work out who is truly the cheapest.
If there’s still little to choose in terms of pricing after doing so, be sure to opt for the one that offers collection.
The whole point of selling online is that you’d like it to be a simple process, so save yourself the hassle of driving your Tesla to a depot and having to sort a ride home.
To save you some hassle, we’ve put together this table that outlines who charges what and who offers a vehicle collection service.
| Car-buying site | Admin fee | Home collection fee |
|---|---|---|
| Motorway | £0 | £0 |
| Webuyanycar | £0-£99.99 | N/A |
| Wewantanycar | £125 | £0 |
| Carwow | £0 | £0 |
| Arnold Clark | £0 | N/A |
| Evans Halshaw | £0 | N/A |
| Cazoo | £0 | £0 |
| Money4yourMotors | £125 | £0 |
| Webuyurcar | £0-75 | £0 |
| Exchange My Car | £0 | £0 |
| The Car Buying Group | £0 | £0 |
Sell my Tesla Model 3: what documents will I need?
Before you sell your Tesla, make sure you have all the documents you’ll need to transfer ownership.
It would be hugely annoying to discover a single missing sheet of paper is the reason you’re unable to sell when you want.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- MOT certificate;
- Logbook (also known as a V5C document);
- Service history (ideally stamped by the dealer;
- Receipts for any work done, parts purchased, recent repairs etc.
What to do after you sell your car
After you complete the sale of your car, you must inform the DVLA that you’re no longer the car’s owner.
You can do this by filling in the appropriate section of the log book and sending it to the DVLA by post or by completing a form online.
It’s also worth contacting your insurance company to cancel your existing policy.
If nothing else, you might get a partial refund on your policy.