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Motorway has become a very popular place to sell your car online recently. The business is fairly young but has grown massively to become a big hitter in the automobile industry.
With Motorway, you create a profile for your car and then wait for it to receive bids from dealerships all around the UK. This can help you get a better price than elsewhere, which is why Motorway has achieved so much success in its short lifetime.
With it getting a lot of recent hype, it is worth completing an objective review of the platform to ensure that it deserves all the accolades and praises it receives. Here at Car Adviser, we’ve compiled a detailed review to uncover more about the brand, exploring how the business works and how well it reviews online.
If you’d like to compare Motorway with other potential options, we have many other reviews here on Car Adviser. You can also find more general guides on Car Maintenance and topics on our website.
Motorway is a relatively new car-selling platform that has made major disruptions in the industry by doing things differently. Starting in 2017, the business focused on using the latest technology to provide a better and more valuable experience for everyone looking to buy and sell cars.
In just under five years, the business has already helped 2.5 million people value and sell their cars, which puts them in similar numbers with the market leader We Buy Any Car. The company has grown 300% year on year and looks like it will continue to emerge as the premium place to sell your car online for the best prices.
With Motorway, you sell your cars to some of the top dealerships in the UK. These buyers have all been vetted before being allowed on the platform. Motorway partners with over 5000 dealerships, meaning there’s no shortage of potential buyers for your vehicle.
Your sale is then made directly with the dealer; however, Motorway will still assist in facilitating this sale, ensuring that you have all the correct paperwork and that the process is simple and easy to follow.
Despite being entirely online, the business employs 350 members of staff globally to help them track the value of cars, support your sales, and oversee the website. Founded by Tom Leathes and Harry Jones, who still act as the CEO and CPO respectfully, the business prides itself on its excellent customer service and disruptive business model that has forever changed how people sell their cars online.
When you sell your car through Motorway, you’re not selling it directly to them. Instead, Motorway effectively put your vehicle on auction for multiple dealerships to bid on. Motorway partners with thousands of dealerships within the UK, and those dealerships are buying your car through the platform.
All the platform does is provide you with an accurate valuation of your car so that you know what you should expect from the bids. As Motorway get’s more than one party to bid on your vehicle, it does have the potential to raise the amount you can get, as your car is sold to the highest bidder. This means you can get pretty good prices for your vehicle when selling on Motorway.
To get started, all you need to do is enter your registration plate on the platform. The website will then use this to search its database to find out more details about your car, such as its model, make, age, and mileage. From this, the platform will offer you an instant valuation based on the current market value of similar cars.
Do be aware that this valuation is based on the assumption that your car is in perfect condition. If it’s not, you should expect a lower price than quoted.
Once you have your quote, you can make a profile for your car. This is an easy process and can be done on your phone, as all you need to do is take pictures of your vehicle, with the platform providing help to ensure your car looks great.
After you add pictures and details about your car on the website, you must agree to your reserve price. This is a minimum amount that the offers need to be for the sale to go through and is a price that Motorway is confident you’ll be able to command for your vehicle.
The 5,000+ network of dealers will then bid on the car. Once a winner is found, you can accept or decline the offer. If accepted, the winning dealer will contact you within two days to arrange collection.
All the dealers will come to your property to pick up the car for free. Here they may complete a final inspection to ensure the vehicle is in the same condition described on the website. If there are any issues, you may be offered a lower price. At this point in the process, you can still back out or accept the final quote and have your car sold, with payment taking mere minutes to get into your account.
The process with Motorway is speedy and much quicker than selling your car independently. However, as you’re dealing with third-party businesses, selling your car may take around a week, which is a bit longer than some other services.
Only verified dealers can bid and buy vehicles through Motorway, meaning that you won’t have to deal with private buyers or time wasters, just professionals who want to add good value cars to their stock.
There are no age or performance limitations to the types of cars you can sell on Motorway, as they accept a wide array of vehicles. However, be aware that damaged or compromised cars may not be as attractive to the dealerships on the platform, meaning that you may not get much interest and be offered low valuations.
At Car Adviser, one of the best ways to determine whether an online business is good is to look at past customer reviews for the brand. This is because these reviews provide a great insight into what past customers enjoyed or disliked about the brand and indicate whether you should trust the business.
Sometimes a business can look fantastic thanks to its sublime marketing or because of the reputation it’s built in the past. However, that perception can be misleading for some businesses, which is why reviews are so powerful. They ignore marketing speak and get first-hand opinions from people who have experienced the company.
Currently, the best review website online is Trustpilot. This is because it’s used by the most people and has the most robust vetting features to ensure that there’s only a minuscule amount of fake or spam reviews. This means that the website can be relied on to produce accurate reviews.
All reviews on Trustpilot for a single brand are aggregated to create a score out of 5; the higher the score, the better. Here’s a more detailed look at Motorway reviews on Trustpilot to see if it is one of the best websites to sell your car.
Motorway is a well-ranked website on Trustpilot, with an average score of 4.6 out of 5. This means that it’s an excellent-rated business and is actually considered the second-best online car auction site on the internet, according to Trustpilot. As someone interested in selling with Motorway, this score indicates that it is likely an excellent service to use.
What’s very impressive is that this high score for Motorway.co.uk reviews has been maintained despite having an increased number of reviews, with the business having just over 44,000 individual reviews on the site. Keeping a high score with many reviews shows that a lot of people have enjoyed the service and want to praise it. It adds more trust to the review score and indicates that it’s likely a fair reflection of the business.
When looking deeper at how each reviewer ranked the business, you’ll find that 82% of users gave the brand a full 5-star review. Plus, another 11% gave the company a favourable 4-star rating, meaning that around 93% of all people who have left a review for Motorway enjoyed the service and had a positive experience. For anyone thinking about using the website, this score bodes well.
Only 4% of people gave the business a single-star review, which is a tiny percentage and shows that issues and reasons to complain about the brand are few and far between.
Despite a low number of unfavourable Motorway car valuation reviews, it’s still a good idea to look at the reason for them, as they could provide insight into some areas of the business that may need to be performing better. Seeing what aspects of Motorway that has pet people down in the past can help you prepare for any pitfalls and better evaluate if the company is right for you.
When filtering to look at the one-star reviews, you’ll find that a common complaint that’s brought up often is that the dealer cancelled many sales at the last minute. Common reasons for this happening are that the car displayed a fault or didn’t match the advertised description.
Although incredibly frustrating, this is a common risk with all car-selling websites, as there’s no way to verify the quality of the car you’re trying to sell before it’s inspected at pick-up. If you’re honest about the car’s condition in the description, this issue should be limited.
Another common complaint is that some dealers have offered prices below what was quoted on the website. This typically happens because the car isn’t in excellent condition, which is what the online valuations are based on. This can be annoying, but it is an issue you’ll run into everywhere if your car isn’t in the condition the dealer expects it to be in.
As expected, there are far more positive messages about Motorway due to the high percentage of good reviews. Looking at these common praises allows you to see what the business excels at and gives you a good idea of what you can expect when using Motorway for yourself.
One of the most extensive praises you’ll find in many reviews is that the valuations people can get for their cars are a lot more than what can be found on other websites. This is because of the platform’s auction-like approach, which helps you secure the most you can from your car.
As well as this, many people praised how quick the whole process is when selling on Motorway, as many users managed to get the car sold within a week. When trying to sell privately, this can take a lot longer.
Finally, another point of celebration that features heavily in many people’s reviews is that getting your car loaded into the system was easy, with the instructions being clear and the process manageable.
Many people mentioned that there was a helpful team on hand to help with any issues, which is a nice touch when dealing with an online business, as it can make it easier to get all set up.
When deciding whether you should buy a car online, you need to weigh the pros and cons to determine whether the business is right for you.
At this point, Motorway is a fantastic online website to sell your car as it has many great positives that make it better than many competitors.
That said, it’s not perfect – no business is – so there are some drawbacks you need to think about when considering this online car-selling platform.
Pros
Cons
Once you input your car's data on the Motorway's website, such as your car's registration plate, the website will generate an instant valuation for you to see what you can expect from your vehicle.
The website gets this valuation by searching the live market data of recent car sales to provide an accurate estimation. Just be aware that because dealers are bidding for your car, you may get higher or lower offers than this valuation.
Selling on Motorway is free for its users, who will not have to pay a fee to use the service. This is because the dealership pays to buy and collect your car, helping you to get the most for your vehicle without parting with any cash.
Because you're not charged when you sell a car through the platform, Motorway makes money by charging the dealers buying your car a commission fee.
All the dealerships that Motorway connects with go through a detailed vetting process to ensure that they're legit, legal, and have an excellent reputation. This ensures that there are no issues for you. Motorway only works with good quality buyers with physical premises, existing stock, and enough capital to purchase.
All the dealerships are deemed to have the financial capacity to make these purchases and are VAT-registered. Only dealerships registered partners with Motorway can buy cars through the platform, meaning that you won't have to deal with any cowboy dealerships. If any current partners breach Motorway's rules, they'll be removed from the platform.
After you've confirmed your details and have accepted a sale, then the dealership that offered the price will be notified by Motorway. After a few days, the dealership will contact you to arrange a final inspection of the car before they pick it up.
If you want to contact the dealership at any point during the sale, Motorway will provide their details to enable you to do that.
When selling your car on Motorway, it's best to wait before making any changes until the car has been collected and paid for. This means you must ensure that your vehicle is insured and taxed until this point. Do not jump the gun early to try and save some money, as the deal could still fall through before it's collected.
After the car has been picked up and you've received your money, you'll be able to register a 'Change of Keeper' with the DVLA. Once you do this, you should automatically get a refund for any outstanding car tax. Be prepared for this refund to take around 4-6 weeks to process.
The time it takes to sell your car will depend on how much interest there is for your vehicle and how quickly you can organise payment and collection with the dealership buying your car.
From the time between the first enquiry and getting the money in your bank account, it can take between two to seven days on average. If things go smoothly, it can take under 24 hours.
Either way, selling on Motorway is fast and one of the key reasons why people use this platform to sell their cars.
Motorway can facilitate the sale of various types of vehicles, not just cars. In addition to cars, you can sell vans, campervans, and some trucks on the platform. You can't sell motorbikes, and there are some restrictions on what is eligible too.
For example, you can't sell an imported vehicle on Motorway because it can be difficult to trace the history of those types of cars. The platform will also not allow you to sell any classic cars because they don't have any dedicated dealers for that.
You can sell modified vehicles, though, but you find it more challenging to get a reasonable price, and most dealerships value cars that are close to their original form. It's also possible to sell scrap or non-runner vehicles through Motorway, although the process is a bit different.
Motorway works with a specialist scrap buyer who can offer a price for any broken-down car, and they'll be able to collect the vehicle from you free of charge.
If the car you're trying to sell doesn't have a valid MOT certificate, you'll be unable to sell it on Motorway as it won't be considered legal and safe to drive. This means that if you want to sell a car, you must ensure it's passed an MOT and has not expired.
When Motorway gives you a valuation for your car, they use a valuation tool that tracks the value of multiple car models in real time and use this tool to offer you an estimated price.
These valuations are based on basic details about your car that can be found when your number plate is searched through their database. These details include the car's make, model, age, and mileage.
As this valuation checker has no details about your car's condition, your valuation is based on the assumption that the vehicle is in excellent condition with minimal issues.
If your car isn't in excellent condition, you may get a lower offer from the dealership once the vehicle has been inspected. This is why your valuation should be considered a guide and not a final price, as things can change depending on your car's condition.
Once you've made a profile for your car on Motorway, the team at Motorway will review your profile and give you a reserve price. This is a price that the platform expects your vehicle to achieve and essentially means that your car will be sold if an offer is received that is more than this price.
This reserve price may be less than the initial estimated sale price as it's considered the minimum that you'll be able to get. When dealers bid on your car, they won't know the reserve price to stop them from offering low-value amounts.