CONSUMERS are increasingly focusing on second-hand vehicles with Gumtree Cars reporting a 19 per cent increase in searches in the second quarter of the year compared with the previous three months.

Gumtree said 155 million searches for vehicles were made in April-June this year, a significant increase on the 125 million searches made in January-March.

As a boost to consumers, Gumtree, which now claims it is the top-placed site for privately-listed cars, has launched an “instant car valuation” tool that gives a fair market value of sellers’ vehicles.

The tool is in response to the strength of the used-car market and has already been used for more than 133,000 price assessments.

The head of Motors at Gumtree Cars, Richard Dicello, said the pandemic had not slowed the search by Australians for used vehicles.

“Despite the disruption, 87 per cent of Gumtree Cars users are still intending to purchase their next vehicle within the next three months,” he said.

“So whether your car has sat gathering dust, or you simply want to know how much something’s worth, we want to arm Aussies with the best insight into how they can use the second-hand economy to their advantage.”

He said that knowing the value of items was the first step to confidently negotiating the best private sale.

Mr Dicello said certain brands were getting a lot of attention with searches for Isuzu Ute models up by 99 per cent in the second quarter compared with the first quarter.

Isuzu was followed by Kia (up 87 per cent), LDV (up 84 per cent), Skoda (up 75 per cent) and Hyundai (up 70 per cent).

But overall, the top five brands for searches in the second quarter were Toyota in first position, followed by Ford, Holden, Nissan and Mazda.

Mr Dicello said that of the more than 95,000 new and used cars listed on Gumtree, Toyota had 125,825 examples listed for sale in the past six months. It was closely followed by Holden (100,870) and Ford (70,769).

“However, drilling down to the detail, for the most frequently listed make and model, Aussie’s are handing out their Holdens, with the Commodore most common (39,820), followed by the Ford Falcon (26,018), and the Toyota Corolla (22,749),” he said.

Data from Gumtree’s Q2 Auto Barometer insight also suggests that there’s still a market for pre-owned premium vehicles.

In the second quarter, and compared with the first quarter, Gumtree found that searches for Lexus were up 54 per cent, followed by Mercedes (up 32 per cent), Audi (up 31 per cent), Land Rover (up 30 per cent) and BMW (up 25 per cent).

By Neil Dowling