Sell my car to Carwow: review and tips for getting the best price
Plan to sell your car to Carwow? Here's how the car sales process works, how to get the best price, and what you need to consider before selling.
Is Carwow the best place to sell your car?
A quick glance at the Carwow site shows it promises to pay the best price when selling your car with no hidden fees or charges.
But the reality is there are many car-buying sites out there making the same promise, and there isn’t a single one that can guarantee the best price on every motor.
So if you are looking to offload your motor, take the time to understand how each site works in terms of fees, time to get you money, home collection and so on.
In this guide, we’ll run through everything you need to know about selling your car to Carwow including how to get the best price.
But as we’ll outline in more detail later on, Sell My Car Guide strongly recommends you take the time to get quotes from a few car-buying sites first before committing to any one of them.
Sell my car to Carwow: how it works
When you head to the Carwow website, you’ll be asked to enter your vehicle’s registration plate.
You then need to share a few details about your motor, like its current mileage, while you’ll also be asked to confirm some of the features your car has.
These include things like whether your car has:
- Two sets of keys
- A sunroof
- Satnav
- Leather interior
- Seven seats
Other information you’ll be asked for includes whether the car has a full service history, whether that service history comes from a main dealer or an independent one, when it was last serviced, whether there are any driving or mechanical faults, whether there is any damage to the windscreen, bonnet or alloys.
Once that is all covered, you’ll be asked how quickly you want to sell your car, with options ranging from as soon as possible to within three months.
Car sellers can then share their email, so that you can receive offers from your motor from the many dealers who work with Carwow.
There’s no shortage of potentially interested parties either, with the platform claiming that a whopping 3,000 dealers use Carwow.
The final stage of getting an offer is to take some photos of your car.
Carwow says that it only needs one photo in order to help you sell your car, though obviously the more you share with potential buyers, the better the chances of getting a good price.
At this point, your car listing is sent out to those dealerships, who are invited to make an offer.
It’s up to you to select an offer to proceed with, and that dealership will then arrange payment and when they can pick up the car.
How accurate is the Carwow valuation?
The price you’re offered by the dealers on Carwow is affected by a host of different factors, like its age, mileage and general condition.
Ultimately a lot of this comes down to the information that you share about your car when building the initial profile, including those pictures.
The better the impression the dealers have of your vehicle, the better the offer is likely to be.
It’s important to bear in mind that when you sell your car through Carwow, you’re selling to a car dealership.
They aren’t offering to buy your car out of the goodness of their hearts ‒ they think they can make some money by selling it on at a higher price.
As a result, even the most generous offers from a dealer will not necessarily be the most accurate valuation of what the car is actually worth.
Instead, they are hoping that you are happy to accept a price that is lower than what you could get by selling directly, in exchange for a more straightforward sales process.
The word ‘could’ is important there.
In theory, you could get a better price by selling your car directly to another motorist, but it’s up to you to raise interest in the car, handle viewings and test drives and negotiate a price.
There’s no guarantee that you will actually manage to sell the motor for any price, despite your best efforts, if you go down this route.
However, Carwow stresses that sellers should not have to worry about the price they receive for their car being haggled down.
It argues that because the vehicle is fully appraised online by dealers, they won’t then try to negotiate down the price when the time comes to collect your car.
This isn’t always the case with car-buying platforms, where you will typically agree an initial price before a representative from the dealership casts a closer eye over the vehicle and then makes a final offer.
It’s not uncommon for them to attempt to cut the agreed price, for example, because of apparent issues with damage to the car.
Not sure who to sell your car through? Our exclusive analysis compared dozens of quotes at all the main players to see which UK car-buying site will pay the best price overall.
How can I get the best price when I sell my car to Carwow?
While you only need to take one photo in order to shift your car with Carwow, you greatly improve your chances not just of selling the car, but of getting a good price, if you take more.
In fact, Carwow reckons that you are twice as likely to sell your car if you share seven photos of your motor rather than just one.
Of course, it’s not just down to the number of photos but what they detail which will boost your sales chances.
Carwow suggests taking photos that cover all four sides of the car, the alloys and tyre treads, the interior, the dashboard with the engine running, any damage, and the service book.
A camera sat next to a laptop (Image: Daniel Friesenecker – Pixabay)
Carwow fees: how much will I have to pay?
One of the big selling points of selling your old motor through Carwow is that it won’t actually cost you anything to do so.
Motorists selling through the platform pay no fees at all.
Instead, the dealers who purchase cars through Carwow pay a fee for having the opportunity to bid on your motor, which is how Carwow makes its money.
Carwow alternatives and competitors: who will pay me the best price?
The dealers who use Carwow plan to sell your car on for a profit, so you won’t get the absolute best possible price for your vehicle if you use the Carwow platform.
If that’s your priority, then you could look into selling it directly to another motorist yourself.
This may involve listing the car on one of the following sites, and handling the sales process yourself:
However, the selling point of a platform like Carwow is that you don’t have to go through that work and can instead sell your car quickly and relatively stress-free.
Carwow isn’t the only car-buying site around, though, so you may want to get at least a couple of quotes from rivals in order to have a better idea of what you could possibly get for your motor.
These include:
Will Carwow collect my car?
You don’t have to worry about heading off to a dealership if you’re selling your car through Carwow.
Instead, the dealer purchasing your vehicle will arrange a time and date to come and inspect the car and collect it.
Getting paid when selling to Carwow
The dealership that is buying your car through Carwow is responsible for handling payments, so there aren’t any middlemen to worry about.
They will pay you directly for the vehicle, with payment generally made on the same day.
Need your cash fast? See which car-buying site pays out fastest
What documents will I need if I sell my car to Carwow?
According to Carwow, you only need your V5C logbook in order to sell your car through the platform.
Because you know that with Carwow you’re selling to a UK-based buyer, you simply need to hand over the green ‘new keeper’ slip from inside the logbook.
You will then need to inform the DVLA of the sale, as well as the details of the buyer, so that you can claim a refund on the car tax you’ve already paid for the vehicle.
Carwow Trustpilot rating: excellent
Can you trust Carwow to do you right when selling your old car?
Doing your homework on what to expect service-wise is a good idea, and that can involve checking out its reviews on a site like Trustpilot.
Trustpilot allows ordinary people to review their experiences online with businesses from all sorts of different industries.
And Carwow have a very respectable rating of 4.5 from Trustpilot users.
Any business with a rating above 4.3 is classed as ‘excellent’, so clearly Carwow customers are more than content with their experience.
We went through the reviews that mention the price received when selling the car, and it’s notable that almost every single one emphasises how happy they were with the money they received for their old motor.
Let’s be clear, that’s no guarantee that you will have the same experience if you opt to use Carwow.
However, it’s a decent indication that you’ll be left satisfied.
Should I sell my car to Carwow? Verdict
If you’re looking for a relatively stress-free experience, then Carwow will appeal.
Putting together a profile for your vehicle is very straightforward and only takes a few minutes.
You can then sit back and wait for the offers to come in, knowing that your vehicle has been fully appraised by the dealers making an offer.
You don’t have to worry about them trying to knock down the price when they come to pick up your vehicle, either.
However, while you don’t have to pay a fee for selling through Carwow, you will inevitably accept a smaller price than could potentially be gained by selling the car directly yourself.
In the end, it comes down to how comfortable you would be doing that, or whether you’re happy to take a smaller price in exchange for a guaranteed quick sale.