This conclusion can be drawn from a note recently published by autoblog.nl. In particular, the Dutch colleagues noticed a BMW that was for sale twice within a short period of time. Moreover, if the first time they asked 5,200 euros for it, the second time it was twice as much – 10,940 euros!
There was no doubt that it was the same car: the ads featured a blue BMW 5-Series station wagon of the E34 generation, produced in 1995 (in a simple trim, with a 150-horsepower engine), which by now has covered over 160,000 km. And most importantly – in both the first and second ads, the car had the same license plates. The only "inconsistency" – if in the earlier ad the mileage was indicated as 161,600 km, then in the later one – 164,000 km. However, this can be explained by the fact that the BMW was put up for sale but continued to be used.
Dealer markup on cars
So what's the catch? The thing is that the first time the "E-class" was sold by the owner, and the second time – by a dealer-intermediary. For Europe and the Netherlands in particular, dealer-intermediaries are a common thing; private individuals often resort to their help. However, in this case, as autoblog.nl rightly noted, the dealer clearly overdid the markup. Usually it is 5-10%, but by no means 100% or more.
How much can you earn on reselling a car (comment by Autoportal)
In principle, it's no secret that selling used cars often brings "profit". The main source of this is mileage rollback – such manipulation allows selling a car for more than it actually costs. Often this is done by resellers and the same dealer-intermediaries. According to German experts, in Europe odometer rollback allows dealers to earn on average 3,000 euros extra (with an average market value of a used car of 20,000 euros). Moreover, this trend is not new: we wrote about the fact that "even the Germans themselves" roll back mileage on cars eight years ago!
Things are similar in Ukraine: as a recent study showed, for every rolled back 100,000 km of mileage, resellers can earn from 800 to 1,400 dollars when selling popular models of budget and near-budget segments (Hyundai Sonata 2015-2016, Renault Trafic (2011-2012), Mercedes E-Class 2011-2012, etc.).
