Used Cars For Sale | Second Hand Cars | AutoTrader UK (2024)

FAQs

What is the best site to buy a second-hand car UK? ›

If there's one company that dominates the used car space, it's Autotrader. With decades of reputation on its side and the UK's most extensive catalogue of used car classifieds, Autotrader's main USP is that it really is the largest and most visited vehicle buying site in the UK.

Cars.com, Carvana, Edmunds, CarMax and TrueCar are our top recommendations for used car websites. Whether you want to find your ideal pre-owned vehicle or find the right buyer for a car you're selling, these sites are easy to use and offer excellent customer support.

What is the cheapest city to buy a car? Currently, the cheapest place in England to buy a used car is Nottingham, where the price can be up to 35% lower than the rest of the country. After Nottingham, Hull and Birmingham also tend to have significantly lower prices than the national average.

There's no absolute number of miles that is considered too high for a used car. But consider 200,000 as an upper limit, a threshold where even modern cars begin to succumb to the years of wear and tear.

High demand

If there weren't any, prices wouldn't be so high in the first place. Initially, 'pent-up demand' was the main driver — lifted pandemic restrictions made it possible for everyone whose interest in a second-hand car compounded over the course of 2020/early 2021 to actually go out and buy one.

Both Carvana and CarMax advertise no-haggle pricing, but Carvana offers a seamless selling process that helps it come out ahead in our rankings. We give Carvana the edge over CarMax as a car selling website. Our team rates CarMax just slightly ahead of Carvana for its car buying services.

Since 1926, Kelley Blue Book has been one of the most trusted names in the auto industry. You might say we literally "wrote the book on car values". And today there's no better place to find the value of your current car than KBB.com.

The US is the cheapest place to own a motor across the globe. the study revealed - and the UK squeezes into the top 10... Use the interactive globe below to compare costs - you can zoom in and click on the white dots to see the costs in dozens of different countries.

How much does a good second hand car cost in UK? ›

And by comparing average prices in October 2023 (£17,641) with previous years, it's evident just how strong used car prices remain and how fast they have increased; average values are up £3,627 on the same period in 2020, and a massive £4,308 on pre-pandemic 2019. Crucially, the used car market remains resilient.

Toyota Aygo Mk1

Toyota's tiny city car is a great bet if you're looking for inexpensive, reliable motoring and don't need much space. As with the mechanically similar Peugeot 107, average repair costs are impressively low, while it also benefits from cheap insurance and running costs.

In conclusion, while it's a good idea to consider both the age of a vehicle and the mileage on the odometer, how it was maintained is the key. A 10 year old car with 100,000 miles may have received more maintenance and upkeep then a 5 year-old car with 50,000 miles.

There's no rule to how many miles on a used car is too much, but by attempting to stick to the 12,000 miles per year rule is a great place to start. Find out how old the car is, multiple the number of years by 12,000, and if the number on the odometer is significantly higher than that, some concern might be warranted.

Depending on the car's value, repairing it might be worth the money to keep it going for a few more years. However, most modern gasoline-powered vehicles will start to struggle after the 200,000-mile mark. Electric cars can usually make it up to 300,000 miles before they're considered well used.

Autotrader is one of the best used car sites because it's one of the most recognized car buying and selling online auto marketplaces.

Best Car Brands to Buy Used

Some brands simply feature more reliability and safer vehicles than others. That's why you might want to consider a used Lexus, Toyota, Mazda, Subaru or Kia as these topped the Consumer Reports listing of the most reliable brands.

Edmunds data, while accurate, isn't infallible. There will be times when we don't have enough data to give accurate results or there is a trend that isn't being reflected in the numbers. In these cases, it's best to get your own "real-world" TMV. Talk to three dealerships to get price quotes.