Buying and selling cars for novices

[puddle]

I'm a novice at this. Have only ever bought one car in my life and now want to get rid of our existing one and buy a second hand one. Any tips? Have more or less decided on a zafira. Currently have an escort estate. Is the best way to do it to trade in old car when buying new? Or should I try and sell it privately first?

Please help me experienced people!

Try and sell it privately. You will always get a better deal that way than trading it in. If you trade in then the person selling you your new car is, in effect, doing you a favour by cutting out the middle man and you always pay a penalty for that. Get a Glass' guide or Parkers Price guide from your local newsagent to give you an idea of a realistic selling price and whack it in the Autotrader

Of course NDP is correct financially, but I always do trade-ins because it's safer and easier - don't care if it costs more!

What do you mean by safer janh? To be honest my heart sinks at trying to sell privately....

I guess jan means that you won't have strangers coming round to view the car etc. TBH, if you are really worried about the hassle aspect then I'd probably trade it in. Especially given that Escort estates are not the highest value vehicle anyway, so you'd be unlikely to lose masses of cash by trading it in.

Yes, the viewing and the "how do they pay?" issue (unless it's cash of course).

Then there is the timing - if you have to sell current car to raise cash to buy new car, what do you do in between?

And with trade-in, esp if you're getting rid of an older car, although you can't negotiate much about the price of the one you're buying, the trade-in value can be more than the car's worth (not true of a newish one but I traded in a 10-yr-old Polo for a 5-yr-old Volvo estate in 1993 and they allowed £1000 for the Polo, which was really generous.)