Disappointed with Delica Trader

[after oil]

Ive been feeling this frustration for a while, and now im ready to get it off my chest. To be honest i prefer to old way, with vehicles for sale right here on the forum. almost 250 views of the vehicle i have for sale with zero responses. now its buried. its the nicest one ive ever had for sale, and in 2 months ive had one phone call and zero people have come around to see it.
Dislike dealer and non dealer vehicles mixed in together. (i believe dealers have the unfair advantage of volume)

Is anybody selling Delicas these days? Is anybody buying them? Have we reached saturation?

http://www.delica.ca/trader/l300_starwa ... _119_000km

[after oil]

there!!! take that!!! now i got my ad back on delica.ca!!!

[Slimdog]

Yes I would say that saturation is one of the problems you are dealing with. Not to take any thing away from your Delica it's very new and clean with low km's but for that price most people are going to go with a L400 from a dealer with some kinda warranty. Also I believe with all the new L400's flooding the market its helping to push the price of the L300's down as well. Plus you live in a small town. I think most new people are going to look at Craigslist or elsewhere before they stumble across the Delica trader here. Do you have it on Craigslist in Vancouver and on the Island?

Good luck with the sale.

S

[after oil]

Yes I would say that saturation is one of the problems you are dealing with. Not to take any thing away from your Delica it's very new and clean with low km's but for that price most people are going to go with a L400 from a dealer with some kinda warranty. Also I believe with all the new L400's flooding the market its helping to push the price of the L300's down as well. Plus you live in a small town. I think most new people are going to look at Craigslist or elsewhere before they stumble across the Delica trader here. Do you have it on Craigslist in Vancouver and on the Island?

Good luck with the sale.

S

yeah, the price is a little high, with almost no room for me to lower it and still make a buck. I disagree that "most people" are going with L400s because one is not better than the other. They are different beasts, its a matter of personal preference. The work was done at Coombs, and so its guaranteed, but without discussion like the old days when the sales were still on the forum, its hard to get the point across. i did put my ad on craigslist and was immediately assaulted by a barrage of emails looking to scam me. thanks for your input

[CREGAN]

I hate the Craigslist scammers. I usually respond very sternly with an explitive filled phrase and then in parting I add that this email has been forwarded to the RCMP - they usually stop then, or at least slow down. Good luck on the sale, it looks like a great van.

Craig

[psilosin]

I think expecting to make a buck on a private import quick flip is unrealistic in this day and age with the high valuation of the yen and market saturation (plus the generally smaller market overall since the ICBC propaganda report was released). Be lucky to make it out even. Not like the good old days of 2004-05.

Not sure if Delica Trader is to blame (though I would prefer private sales still existed on delica.ca as well since commenting/drooling on vehicles was always fun, with delica trader 100% a dealer site). Location then price look to be your biggest obstacles to sell. Makes me think of the nice unit that was for sale for months and months up in Merville (sorry username slipped my mind) that ended up going for a give away price...in Vancouver it would have sold in days at that price. Good luck with the sale though, nice clean looking unit, hope you make out alright.

Craigslist is HELL. When selling my Hilux Surf #1 I had a dullard threaten to beat me up if I didn't compensate him for gas money for coming to look at it when he realized it was RHD. Luckily I had renovation waste in my front yard and the board with nails in it I responded with got the guy to leave with no further escalation. Then I was worried for days the guy would come back and break in, vandalize something or harm my pets. Had a number of other weird Craiglist selling incidents before and after as well (but none quite so scary!). Not worth the headache. I'd rather take my stuff to the dump now than deal with Craigslist.

[CREGAN]

I have been trying to sell a 12V boat-lift for a pickup truck on Craigslist/kijiji for months and I have been stood up so many times. When you do get a call, it makes you wish you didn't. I got one guy talking to me for 20 minutes about the world of conspiracys, and how we should teach about the cover-ups in the school system. I could not get off the phone with him. I am glad he stood me up.

Craig

[after oil]

well, truth be told, most of my delica sales have been to people i know, with people driving by and seeing it on the roadside as number 2. sold one with an ad in the local paper. my first for sale import was sold the day after i posted it on the forum, to somebody in the okanagon. this unit has been for sale for 7 weeks with almost no interest, whereas the longest i had one before was 6 weeks. the last one i sold was sold even before i got the temp plate on it to get to icbc to sight it(but he was hounding me for a year with questions and looked at a couple before that). so i guess i gotta go by the law of averages...
i guess what bothers me is the lack of conversation on the forum regarding the for sale vehicles. i suppose that was a problem for some people and thats why maybe the trader site was made.
but i feel better at least getting some conversation going about this.

[Big-Bird]

I am on the search for a Star Wagon, but do have a preference for 1997 model. A good friend of mine has beensaying I should consider Delicas from 1993-1996 so my choices own up to a wider selection. I have to admit that the 100+ kms of yours is a bit of a negative.

So now the question begs: What puts your 1996 Star Wagon ahead of others on the market with lower mileage coming over from Japan today?

[jessef]

I agree with Ari.

In the past, there have been some real kickass and unique rigs with great discussion, however this format does not allow the seller to promote the uniqueness of their rig for sale unless....

You can bet this entire site that if Falco's L300 were to come up on the market, that it would not be constrained to the delicatrader. People would talk and a discussion would come about it's sale on delica.ca .

That is one way where a Delica or related rig for sale in delicatrader can make it's way into delica.ca with good discussion. You can bet anything the 'sensitive' dealers will not like this, but let's get realistic.

How many members on this forum sell Delica's every month or every year? None.

If someone is selling their unique-to-them Delica, there should be no reason why the uniqueness of the rig cannot be showcased and/or discussed/drooled over on the forum by other members. If someone creates a thread about a cool Delica for sale that they saw, it's fair game and everyone can chat and drool over it. It may happen once a month or once every few months.

I am on the search for a Star Wagon, but do have a preference for 1997 model. A good friend of mine has beensaying I should consider Delicas from 1993-1996 so my choices own up to a wider selection. I have to admit that the 100+ kms of yours is a bit of a negative.

So now the question begs: What puts your 1996 Star Wagon ahead of others on the market with lower mileage coming over from Japan today?

'low mileage' is relative to each person.

If you search, you'll find that the majority of Delica owners agree that extremely low mileage Delica's can be problematic compared to one that has been driven and maintained between 1-200,000km's. This goes with other countries importing Delica's as well.

The myth that a 30-90,000k Delica is 'the' best one to get is just that. A myth.

It has been proven over and over again by past and current owners that mileage is a non-factor compared to the genuine condition and consistent maintenance it has received in it's life before coming to Canada.

If you've seen my delica's for sale in the past, you can understand that point. Most people that come to me asking about these rigs always ask the mileage question first and once I explain it to them, they all begin looking for Delica's with at the minimum 100-120,000km's on the clock that are in immaculate condition.

Of course you have exceptions (super low mileage) and beautiful one's at that, but for the most part, you'll find under 100,000k Delica's in Japan have sat for X number of years without moving a muscle or being turned on which leads to seals drying/internals coking in the engine compared to one that runs regularly and does not exhibit those issues.

There's your answer.

[konadog]

I liked the old sales adds too. Always kinda of imagined the day when I might have to post my own bus up for sale and how that post would look...

[thedjjack]

What is this Delica Trader . Ca??? The only site I have visited was DEALERTRADER.CA

I stopped visiting it about the week it started up....

[FalcoColumbarius]

Right, I'm moving this thread to Site Suggestions. Maybe it will get more attention there... smiles.

Falco.

[after oil]

im glad others share my sentiment.. this is not about ME so much as its about the community of non-dealer delica traders. ive also gained some perspective so thanks for that

[VanVonVan]

I totally understand, your sentiments. As I have been looking/drooling/obsessing over delis for over 2 years now I find with delica trader the format is more annoying to go through then it is really worth, so I end up looking just at dealer sites. I loved how before someone would post up their rig and a few people would chat about it and you could see and hear from others and the OP what a wonderful rig it was where as just a selling post will not give as many details other then km's, well maintained ect

Russell