I wanted to sell my car, my lovely BMW Z4 Roadster. I used to sell my car the hard way: I would contact the local newspapers with my car details and traipse around the local newsagents putting a car advert in their shop window, and then wait for the telephone to ring.

The last car I sold, a BMW Z4 coupe, people contacted me night and day, wanting to know all about my car. Don’t get me wrong, I love to talk about my car, but not at 2am! When they had finished quizzing me about my car, they would inevitably book an appointment to see my BMW. And then they wouldn’t turn up – seriously annoying – or they would turn up 3 hours early: just as I had stepped out of the shower, and with fuzzy vision because I hadn’t put in my contact lenses, and they would stand on the doorstep demanding to see my car!

I don’t know about you, but I have found potential car buyers fall into certain categories, for example – ‘Kick-the-Wheel’ type: they don’t know much about cars but they want to give the impression they do – usually blokes who want to impress their new girlfriend. ‘Do-you-have-this-in-pink?’ type: are normally females who are not interested in the engine, the bodywork, the service history etc, but just the interior décor and the music system! Occasionally I would run into a buyer who knows a good car when he sees it and we finalise the deal there and then, but more often than not, after the buyers have inspected my car to the best of their ability, they would want to take it on a test run. Then they would come back and ask for time to think about the car purchase so they could consult their pet budgie, or great aunt in the Outer Hebrides, or whoever, and expect me to hold the car for them while they made their mind up. It was all very tedious.

As you can tell, the thought of selling another car filled me with dread, but that was until a mate of mine told me about the time he sold his Alfa 159. He contacted a company that bought used cars directly from the seller. He told them all about his car: the make and model, date of registration, mileage, service history, number of past owners etc. Then they gave him a valuation price for his car. He accepted the valuation and the deal was done over the phone. They arranged to meet him at his home at a time convenient to him, and they paid him while they were in his home: via an electronic payment from their bank account into his bank account. If he had preferred he could have been paid with a banker’s draft. It didn’t even matter that he still owed some finance on his car, as they sorted it out. Now that is what I call a good deal. I decided to contact the company via the internet and I filled in an on-line form, answering all the questions about the car’s history, which included telling them about a scratch on the driver’s side from when I had a small argument with a tree! They contacted me by telephone and gave me a valuation price. I agreed to their price, we met at my office as that was convenient for me, and the deal was completed.

For the first time I sold a car without any hassle. From now on, whenever I have to sell my car, I will be selling it the easy way.