Used car price expectations

[Drpellypo]

One of the things I like doing when contemplating buying a car is to view a load on the autotrader app and save them into my garage, then see how quick they disappear. Obviously some people run the ad for the allotted time and don't re-place, but generally speaking it's a good way to see what sells, and at what price. If a car goes up at 7k, and a similar one goes up at 9k, then the first one disappears from auto trader after a few days, but the other one stays for ages and ages, you've got a good idea of what sort of price the cars in question are actually worth. Or not worth. Which leads me on to an observation of X5's and in particular the E53's and the huge difference in prices. I'm looking at early facelift 4.4's with under 80k and the price that they seem to shift at is between 6 and 7k. But a fair few of them are up for 9 and 10k! There's even one with what looks like knackered valve seals which is up for 7.5k. As you can imagine this hasn't shifted. I've never come across a car with such hugely varying price brackets. I wonder if people think it must be worth more; can't possibly be worth so little cos it was £50k new etc etc.