One in five people think selling a car is more stressful than moving house – and more of Britain’s car-selling secrets

Do you find selling your car stressful? Yes? Well, you’re not alone – it seems most of us do.

Because in an exclusive survey for Cazoo, nearly seven in ten of us revealed we find it hard.

In fact, it’s so stressful that a quarter of all respondents said selling a car was worse than going for a job interview and over a third believed organising a family holiday was easier. One in five even said that moving house is less stressful!

Those most likely to dislike selling their car are in Belfast, Leicester and Bristol, where 78 per cent admitted to finding it a chore.

However, down on the south coast in Plymouth, it’s a different story with over half finding it a comparative breeze!

And it seems selling a car gets easier as you get older – just one in seven people in their teens or 20s don’t mind doing so, rising to nearly half of the over-60s.

So, why do people find it so stressful?

There are various reasons why we find selling our cars a tricky process to navigate. If you sell your car privately, you may have to cope with timewasters – also known as ‘tyre kickers’ – who seem to enjoy going around to people’s houses to find fault with their cars rather than buy them.

It’s a problem recognised by 28.5 per cent of our survey but appears to be concentrated in certain parts of the country. People in Belfast and Cardiff experience this a lot but not as much as those in Stoke-on-Trent where four in ten complain about it.

One in ten say selling their car has led to a row with their partner – a problem most prevalent in London where one in five have had a tiff over the issue.

Others cite difficulties with paperwork as the cause of their car-selling stress with over one in ten people in London, Birmingham, Leeds, Edinburgh, Bristol, Nottingham and Newcastle all saying it’s something they’ve experienced.

Finally, some sellers – around one in 20 – have had their car damaged during a test drive! This was most likely to happen in Liverpool and London, whereas in Oxford this only happened to fewer than 4% of people.

Sometimes, spark(plug)s fly!

However, when push comes to shove, selling a car isn’t all that bad, it seems. Just 15.9 per cent of us say we’ve had a ‘nightmare’ or bad experience when selling a car, although in London this figure rises to 25%.

And some have even found love. Because, as unlikely as it may sound, it seems romantic sparks can fly when we’re trying to flog our old motor.

Who knows whether it’s the lure of the test drive, the kicking of the tyres or the hastily cleaned interior that does it, but Cazoo’s survey found that ten per cent of us know someone who’s met a new boyfriend or girlfriend while selling their car.

And some of the relationships that developed were serious – one respondent knew a couple who met this way 13 years ago and now have a three-year-old child. Another revealed their friend sold his sports car to the woman he went on to marry.

Londoners seem to have the most luck with falling in love over a car bonnet, with 22 per cent of those in the capital knowing someone it had happened to!

But lonely hearts in Nottingham needn’t bother selling a motor in a bid to find love, with a paltry two per cent of residents having seen it happen there.

A funny thing happened on the way to the showroom…

It’s not just romance you can find when selling your car, but coincidences too. Several people admitted opening the door to a potential buyer only to discover a friend standing there, both unaware who they’d been talking to.

Others have cringed when cars have failed to start when someone’s arrived for a test drive or the handbrake has broken off in their hand. One even ran out of petrol 20 yards from the dealership.

But the prize for the best brainwave goes to the woman who visited a dealership simply because they were next door to Liverpool Football Club’s training academy – so she could see all the players turning up for training!

A change of heart when selling online

Anyone looking to sell their car can now do so entirely online, and this is a great way to avoid a lot of the hassle and inconvenience usually associated with it.

When asked whether they think they’d be more likely to buy or sell a car online than they would have been five or ten years ago, our respondents replied with a resounding ‘yes’.

67% said either ‘yes, definitely’ or ‘yes, probably’ to the idea and with a huge 87% of people aged between 18 and 29 saying they’d sell their wheels on the web, it looks like selling your car online really is the future.