Selling a car that failed the MFK, has engine or gearbox damage or no longer runs

The car has not moved in weeks. Perhaps the inspection report from the road traffic office lists more defects than the car is worth fixing, perhaps the engine gave up on the A1 near Wil, or the gearbox refuses third gear. The garage has quoted a repair that makes no sense, and the question is now simply how to get rid of the car without losing more money on it.

This article covers three things: why a car in this condition is almost impossible to sell to a private buyer, why a buyer who exports vehicles sees it differently, and the two mistakes a registered keeper must avoid before the car leaves the driveway.

What a private buyer will not touch

Private buyers on the Swiss listing platforms are looking for a car they can drive home. A test drive, a valid MFK inspection and a quick re-registration in their own name are the minimum, and a car with a failed inspection or a dead engine offers none of it.

• There is nothing to test. Nobody buys a used car they cannot drive around the block. Without a test drive the buyer is trusting a stranger's description, and most will not.
• The repair bill is a guess. Until an engine or gearbox is opened up, the cost is unknown. A private buyer has no way of pricing that risk and no appetite for it.
• It cannot simply be registered and driven. The defects listed by the road traffic office have to be fixed before the car passes, which means the buyer pays first and drives later.
• Someone has to move it. Trailer, tow truck, a friend with a van: in a private sale this is an argument before it is a plan.

Listings marked "for export or spare parts" tend to attract a particular type of caller: no appointment, cash in the pocket and an offer that assumes you are desperate. The serious buyers stay away.

Why an export buyer calculates differently

A buyer who purchases vehicles for export is not looking at the Swiss repair bill. In the markets where the car will end up, labour is cheaper, used engines and gearboxes are readily available, and a model year 2012 car with 180'000 km is a sought-after used car rather than something at the end of its life. A defect that counts as a write-off in St. Gallen is a routine job there. If a repair truly makes no sense, the car still has value as a donor vehicle: body panels, electronics, interior, axles.

That is the basis on which Autoankauf St. Gallen works. We buy what the Swiss market no longer wants, nearly all makes and in general from model year 2008 onwards, and give the vehicle a second life abroad. Whether the MFK was failed, the engine is damaged or the car has not started since spring does not decide whether we buy it. It decides the price.

What drives the offer for a damaged car

A non-binding offer is prepared from the details you send us. For a car with a defect, the free on-site inspection is the step that comes before the price goes into the contract. What the assessment looks at can be said in advance:

• The exact fault. A slipping clutch and an engine with coolant in the oil are different cases. A diagnosis from your garage or the inspection report from the road traffic office is worth more than any description, so send it along.
• Everything that is not broken. Bodywork, interior, tyres, electronics. A well-kept car with one major fault is worth more than a car that is tired all over.
• Make, model, model year and mileage. The usual factors, weighed against demand for that model in the export markets.
• Completeness. Registration document, both keys, service booklet, code cards. Anything missing costs time and lowers the value.
• Whether it rolls and steers. A car that can be pushed and winched onto a trailer is easier to collect than one with seized wheels.

Two things the keeper must not do

Do not drive it. Not to the garage, not to a viewing, not "just once around the block" to show that it starts. With a known engine or gearbox fault, every kilometre can turn a repairable defect into a total loss. A car that failed its inspection has defects the road traffic office may have classed as safety-relevant, and if it breaks down or something happens on the way, the risk is yours. Leave it where it is. Collection is free and the transporter comes to the car, whether that is an underground garage in Rorschach or a farmyard in Appenzell.

Do not hand it over before deregistration is settled. In Switzerland, the person entered as keeper in the registration document remains responsible for the vehicle until it is deregistered or re-registered to someone else at the road traffic office. With an export vehicle this matters more than usual: the car leaves the country, and if the registration still carries your name, road tax, insurance and any claims connected with the car continue to point at you.

Responsibility follows the name in the registration document, not the keys.

There are two clean ways to do it. You return the number plates and the registration document to the road traffic office yourself and receive the deregistration confirmation, or the buyer handles the deregistration and the purchase contract says so. In the second case, ask for the confirmation as soon as it exists and inform your insurer. A buyer who becomes vague on this point is not the right buyer.

Three smaller points

• Stop spending. Money put into a partial repair before the sale rarely comes back in the price. Get an offer for the car as it stands, then decide.
• Describe the fault honestly. The inspection will find it anyway, and an offer built on a wrong description does not survive the handover.
• Documents and keys change hands when the money does. Both signatures on the purchase contract first, then payment. In our case that means payment at handover, in cash against a receipt.

How it works with Autoankauf St. Gallen

1. Send the basics through the form: make, model, first registration, mileage, fuel, transmission, and in the remarks field what is wrong and where the car is parked. Photos of the car and of the inspection report or garage diagnosis speed everything up.
2. You receive a non-binding offer and a proposed date for the free inspection on site, anywhere in St. Gallen, Thurgau, both Appenzell cantons, Graubünden or elsewhere in German-speaking Switzerland.
3. If we agree, the price goes into the purchase contract. It becomes binding with both signatures, not before.
4. Payment at handover, cash against receipt. We load the car, and how the deregistration at the road traffic office is handled is fixed before the handover and written into the contract.

Questions beforehand: 079 368 95 26 by phone or WhatsApp, kontakt@autoankaufsg.ch, or in person at Erikastrasse 2, 9000 St. Gallen.