Man 'nearly fainted' after discovering how much WeBuyAnyCar offered for his £74,000 Audi - but is the price fair?

Daily Mail​

11-07-2025

A man says he 'nearly fainted' when he took his Audi supercar to WeBuyAnyCar for a valuation and was quoted a price far lower than what he'd paid a year earlier.
Harley Perkins, who bought the R8 V10 Plus, at the age of just 23, for around £74,000 last year, filmed his shocked reaction when the WeBuyAnyCar staff member named his best offer.
Perkins is a prolific YouTuber and TikToker, who has offered insurance tips to younger motorists and encouraged sports car drivers to take up two parking spaces at supermarkets.
He also owns a Tesla and has since replaced the Audi with another supercar, a Lamborghini Huracan Performante.
But before selling the Audi R8 to a specialist luxury vehicle showroom, he took it to one of the car buying company's valuation stations.
The video captures the moment the WeBuyAnyCar staff member offers him a best price of £58,000 for the performance motor - triggering his stunned reaction.
But is the valuation fair? Here's what WeBuyAnyCar had to say in response...
Perkins states in the video that he was 'literally just driving past' the WeBuyAnyCar valuation station when he decided to pull in to get an on-the-spot quote for his premium motor.
Unfortunately, he didn't seem to like the price offered, describing it as 'absolutely ridiculous'.
The YouTuber introduces the video by stating: 'You won't believe how much WeBuyAnyCar offered me for my Audi R8 V10 Plus...'
It then shows him chatting to the staff member and asking for a quick estimate.
In the clip, he gives his 1,680 YouTube subscribers a very basic description of how WeBuyAnyCar prices vehicles when it makes an offer.
'All they do is type in your reg, type in the mileage, have a look around, so they'll put it's in very good condition or s**t condition, and then just give you a rough price.
'If you do go ahead with it, they'll knock two or three grand off the price, you know what they're like...'
When quoted £58,000 for his Audi, Perkins - in a voiceover recording at a later time - Perkins says angrily: '58 grand, are you taking the mick out of me?'
Perkins car appears to be a 2016 Audi R8 V10 Plus, a high-performance and relatively rare German supercar - and not the typical vehicle WeBuyAnyCar tends to deal with (stock photo)
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A quick check of Auto Trader - the nation's biggest used car seller - shows just two similar R8 models for sale, priced between £80,000 and £88,000.
However, both are extremely low mileage models - and at no point does Perkins reveal the mileage of his motor during the valuation process.
'It's absolutely ridiculous, oh my God, I was about to faint when he said the price. I'm never coming back to this place ever again,' he says in short video.
However, Mr Perkins hasn't made good on that promise.
After the video went viral, triggering hundreds of responses on his social media platforms, Harley returned to the WeBuyAnyCar location in his Audi R8, only to be refused a quote by the same member of staff following the backlash in replies towards the company from the TikToker's original clip.
He's since taken his Tesla back to WeBuyAnyCar for another video to get a quote - and most recently visited again in a repeat stunt in his new £210,000 Lamborghini Huracan Performante purchased only three days earlier.
On the latter occasion, WeBuyAnyCar offered £156,995.
As well as his visits to the car buying company, Perkins' videos regularly discuss saving money on insurance and also encouraging drivers to park over two spaces in supermarkets, to prevent their expensive vehicles sustaining damage.
How does WeBuyAnyCar calculate its pricing? And should the social media filmer have been shocked by the valuation for his Audi supercar?
Was the valuation fair?
The major benefit of car buying services like WeBuyAnyCar, Motorway.co.uk and CarWow is that they provide a quick and easy solution to sell vehicles.
These businesses are designed to take the hassle out of selling a car privately, which typically includes posting an advert, dealing with phone calls from interested parties, and often having to endure tyre kickers wanting test drives and money slashed off the asking price.
But the services' offers of rapid fuss-free transactions typically result in a quote below what an owner would typically get if they sold directly to a retailer or to a private buyer.
That said, This is Money has found that prices offered by some of these services in recent years have been competitive, when compared to part exchange values from dealerships.
In fact, at the height of booming used car prices triggered by reduced vehicle production linked to the pandemic, these car buying platforms were paying around the same - if not more - than second-hand dealers to get their hands on quality pre-owned motors.
Motorway and CarWow's car buying platforms operate slightly differently to WeBuyAnyCar.
While the latter bases its price on a number of valuation factors, Motorway and CarWow involves dealers across the country competing to offer the best price for your car.
WeBuyAnyCar was the first of its type. It was founded in 2006 by Noel and Darren McKee as an 'alternative to part-exchange and traditional private car selling'.
In 2013, it was bought by British Car Auctions – and in 2015, BCA was floated on the UK stock market. Seven years later in November 2019, private equity group TDR Capital completed the purchase of BCA.
By 2024, it claims to have purchased four million cars and is buying around 15,000 vehicles per week at its 500 pop-up branches across the UK. To say it's popular would be an understatement.
A spokesperson for WeBuyAnyCar says Perkins' response to the quote for his Audi isn't uncommon, given that depreciation can be more severe for cars than some drivers think.
'Once a car leaves the showroom, it begins to lose value of up to 35 per cent in the first year for petrol or diesel vehicles,' they explained.
'Factors like age, mileage, service history, condition, and even the number of previous owners all influence its resale value.
'Our pricing analysts consider all these elements, plus any shifts or patterns in the market, in order to determine the valuations offered at WeBuyAnyCar branches.
'Depreciation can be a shock for some car owners, so it's important to always be aware of what to expect when you make that purchase.'
The company also told us that the YouTuber had not given his viewers comparable values he had received from elsewhere, or said what he believes the supercar would have been worth at the time.
The firm added: 'It's worth noting that selling any car privately often results in a higher price, which is deserving given the extra time, effort and expense the owner has to part with in order to secure a sale.
'Many motorists value their time and want a convenient, secure and safe sale, which is where WeBuyAnyCar comes in.'
How does selling a car via WeBuyAnyCar work?
Customers can drive directly to one of WeBuyAnyCar's sites to receive an instant valuation.
These are typically located in busy retail and supermarket car parks with lots of footfall.
Alternatively, owners can use the website to get an initial rough quote - though this is often adjusted down for damage or other issues identified when the car is scrutinised at a local branch by a member of staff giving the final offer price.
On its website, it says it takes eight factors into account when calculating prices.
This includes using 'live market data' to determine its current market values based on the mileage, number of previous owners and the vehicle's current condition. Any existing warranty cover, optional extras, and the motor's service history is added to the calculation.
If the seller agrees to the price, the car is then 'sold back into the trade and may eventually be purchased by a trade or individual buyer,' it says.
However, given the service is tuned for buying and selling mainstream models - think Audi A3s more than R8s - Mr Perkins was always likely to receive a far lower valuation at WeBuyAnyCar rather than selling through a specialist performance car dealership, which is especially recommended when genuinely attempting to sell a supercar.