Choosing an offer
How to compare dealer offers
When several dealers have priced your car, the temptation is to sort by dollars and take the top one. Sometimes that's right. Often the second-highest offer is the better deal once you account for how you actually get paid and what you have to do to collect.
The five things worth comparing
1. The number
Obviously. But compare it to the other offers rather than to what you hoped for. The offers in front of you are what the market is actually prepared to pay for your car this week — that spread is real information, and it’s worth more than any online estimate.
If every offer clusters tightly, you’ve found the market and there is not much more to extract. If one is well clear of the rest, that dealer probably has a specific reason to want your car.
2. How the inspection happens
Some dealers will come to you. Some need the car brought to them. A mobile inspection at your house on a Saturday morning is worth real money in saved time, and an offer $200 higher that costs you a two-hour round trip on a weekday is not actually higher.
3. Distance
Related but separate. Even with a mobile inspection, a dealer a long way away can mean a longer wait for a slot. If you need the car gone this week, a closer dealer who can attend tomorrow may beat a better number that’s ten days out.
4. How and when you get paid
Ask directly: when does the money land, and how? A licensed dealer paying by bank transfer on collection is the normal, sensible answer. Anything involving a delay after they take the car deserves a hard question — you should not be handing over a vehicle before funds have cleared into your account.
5. Whether they can settle your finance
If there’s money owing on the car, the dealer needs to pay your financier directly and hand you the difference. Most do this routinely, but confirm it — and confirm they’ll do it on your specific lender. How selling with finance owing works covers the process.
Signs an offer might not hold
A good offer is one that survives contact with the car. These are the things that tend to move on inspection day:
- Anything you didn’t disclose. This is the number one cause of a revised offer, and it’s entirely within your control. Damage, warning lights, missing service history, a second key you can’t find — declare all of it up front and the offer is priced with it already included.
- Kilometres that don’t match. If you estimated, go and read the odometer. A car listed at 90,000 that shows up at 112,000 is a different car commercially.
- An offer that seems far above the rest with no explanation. Sometimes a dealer genuinely wants your exact car. Sometimes a number is optimistic and gets trimmed on the day. If one offer is an outlier, it’s fair to ask what’s behind it.
- Vagueness about payment. A dealer who won’t give you a clear answer on when and how you get paid is telling you something.
The best protection against a revised offer is an accurate description and honest photos. Dealers price disclosed problems into the offer. Undisclosed ones get priced on the day, when you have less leverage and a car full of your stuff in the driveway.
How comparing works on DealerOffer
Your offers arrive on a private page we send by SMS, unlocked with a code so nobody else can open it. On that page you see every offer side by side, with the amount, how that dealer wants to inspect, and how long the offer stands.
Nothing happens until you pick one. Choosing an offer arranges a single inspection with that dealer — you don’t sit through four separate inspections, and the dealers you didn’t choose never get your contact details.
You are not obliged to accept any of them. If none of the numbers work for you, that’s a legitimate outcome, and you’ve learned where the market sits at no cost.
Questions worth asking before you choose
- Is this offer subject to anything other than the inspection?
- What would cause you to revise it?
- When can you inspect, and where?
- How soon after inspection do I get paid, and by what method?
- Do you handle the finance payout directly with my lender?
- Who handles the transfer paperwork?
A dealer who answers all six clearly is a dealer you can deal with.
Frequently asked questions
How many dealer offers should I get?
Enough to see a pattern. One number tells you nothing about where it sits in the range. Three or more lets you see whether the offers cluster — which means you've found the market — or spread widely, which means it's worth being choosy.
DealerOffer sends your vehicle to a limited number of dealers rather than blasting it out, so you get offers from buyers who genuinely want that kind of car instead of a long list of low ones.
Can I negotiate a dealer offer?
The offers you receive are the dealers' considered numbers rather than an opening position, so there's usually less room than in a face-to-face haggle. What genuinely does move an offer is new information — a full logbook you hadn't mentioned, a second key you've found, or recent major work with receipts.
If you think an offer has missed something about your car, say so before the inspection rather than after.
What happens to the offers I don't choose?
They simply lapse. The dealers you didn't select are told the vehicle has gone elsewhere and receive no further information about you — they never get your contact details in the first place.
If your chosen deal falls through, get in touch and we can look at whether the other dealers are still interested. They may need to re-price, since time will have passed.
Am I committed once I choose an offer?
Choosing an offer arranges an inspection with that dealer. It doesn't transfer the car and it doesn't take payment. You are still free to walk away at the inspection if you change your mind or if the dealer revises their number and you're not happy with it.
Equally, the dealer isn't locked in if the car turns out to be materially different from how it was described.
How long do I have to decide?
Offers are time-limited because used values move. Each offer on your page shows how long it stands, and the page itself stays accessible for 24 hours after you verify your number.
If everything has expired before you've decided, you can start again — but expect the numbers to have shifted.
Related reading
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