Hi Catherine,

You will always get more selling privately than you will on a trade-in, that’s just the nature of the deal – have a read of this piece https://www.carzone.ie/motoring-advice/car-valuations-all-you-need-to-know/2443 to see why, but in essence the reason a trade-in value is less than market is because you’re paying for the convenience; you get rid of your old car the instant you buy a new (or newer) one, without all the hassle of having to sell it privately and/or having ownership of two cars at once on an overlap.

In reality, from a €7,000 trade-in valuation, you’ll be looking at around €10,000 as a maximum if you sell it privately. As an example, V70s are not common on the second-hand market any more and a 2014 car (three years newer) with around 125,000km (much lower mileage) would likely be in the ballpark of €16,000.