I’ve always felt sorry for any car my brother has owned. Regardless of the age or condition, they are always condemned to end their motoring days on the back of a low loader, heading for the nearest scrap yard. It’s not that he ill treats or neglects them. The trouble, when he buys a car, is that he expects it to last, in sickness and in health, richer and poorer, until MOT failure and huge repair bills do they part.

He expects a lifetimes motoring out of his car, and the concept of residuals values and part exchange are completely foreign to him. He buys a car; he uses it - a lot - and then when it’s finished, off to the breakers’ yard. His proudest claim is that he has never ever had to sell one.

Ignoring the usual junk that we have all tended to buy when we were teenagers, Steve has owned just four ‘proper’ cars in over 25 years of motoring. By proper cars, I mean ones that could be used in normal day-to-day work and leisure without causing embarrassment to the occupants. The rusting Cortina, the Skoda 120 with smoking seized brake discs, the Austin Maestro with detachable interior roof lining like a Bedouin tent – all pretty much comedy cars that don’t really count, and all went to the Scrapyard in the sky

Like a lot of people, Steve views the whole process of selling a car privately as too much hassle. A recent online poll found that over a third of us viewed ‘spending time and money on advertising’ as the number one reason not to sell our car privately. Second was ‘waiting ages and getting no response to advertising’, while a very close third was the worry of ‘fraud and non-payment’.

I must admit this surprised me, as I love scouring ads and websites for cars, whether for myself or on behalf of family and friends. There is nothing I like more than setting aside a morning to view a selection of cars and try to secure a bargain. For me, the whole process couldn’t be simpler, but then I’m looking at it from a genuine buyer’s perspective.

Selling can be a completely different story, with the risk of cancelled appointments, dubious callers and time wasters. Part exchange seems a comparatively attractive option, but the price will never match what you could achieve privately. Online auctions can be good, but even then people still have an inherent mistrust of transactions that are, to all intents and purpose, fairly anonymous.

In the present economic climate there has been an increase in the number of companies who offer to buy your used car from you with a minimum of fuss. It can look attractive but it is likely you will be offered a price below anything you would find in the books. Convenience can be a temptation, but is it worth potentially losing out on thousands of pounds just because you are unsure about how to sell a car?

There are web sites packed with advice on selling your car privately, DVLA and Sky Motoring are just two, with all the major motoring sites carrying advice about the benefits and pitfalls, along with some excellent safety advice for female sellers.

If you have a car to sell, just follow the advice and give it a try yourself first – far better to pocket the profit from a private sale than lose out just because you think it’s too much trouble. And who knows, it might just be easier than you think.

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