Describe the car you want and let dealers offer

The search shows what is listed right now. For a common model that is enough. For a rare model, a particular engine and gearbox combination or a specification hardly anyone ordered, the list stays short or empty — and checking every day becomes a pastime.

Dealers often have more cars than they show online: cars being reconditioned, returns from lease contracts, trade-ins arriving next week, cars at partner businesses. No search reaches these; only saying what you are looking for does.

On Carvexia this is called a wanted request. You find it in the search under “Let dealers make me an offer”, as a button and, when a search has only a few results, as a note below the list. Unlike a saved search, which tells you about new listings, it goes to the dealers themselves. It comes with an honest caveat that is also stated in the form: only a few dealers are active on Carvexia so far, and whether and when anyone replies is up to the dealers. A wanted request is an extra chance, not a promise.

Dealers see the car you describe, your budget, the countries you would buy from, your timeframe and whether you want to trade in a car. They see neither your name nor your e-mail address. A dealer only learns your address when you reply to their offer — your reply then goes straight to them.

Two things decide which dealers see the request: the business must be based in one of the countries you accept, and the make must match the makes it lists in its profile. A business without a list of makes sees requests for all makes. The details of your request come from the same selection lists as the search filters, so a dealer reads them in the language they use Carvexia in.

Before any dealer sees anything, you release the request through a link you receive by e-mail. If you are signed in and use your account's confirmed address, it is active immediately. From release, it runs for 30 days.

Only the make is required; the model is optional. Then come fuel, gearbox, body type, year from and a mileage limit. If you come from a search, the form takes over its filters — drivetrain, colour, power, seats, range, accident-free, service history, warranty or reclaimable VAT, for example. Each carried-over filter can be removed with a tap.

There is no free description field, and the model field only takes the model name, without links, addresses or phone numbers. That is deliberate: the request goes to many businesses and should consist of details everyone reads the same way. What you mean by “well equipped” you settle in conversation with the dealer who gets in touch.

The skill lies in the selection. What is essential goes into the fields; what would be nice stays out. A request with make, model, gearbox and mileage limit leaves dealers room to offer something suitable. A request that also fixes colour, year, power and number of seats may describe a car that exists nowhere — and a dealer who does not have exactly that may not reply at all, rather than with an alternative.

A simple test: would you reject a car that differs on this point? If not, the point does not belong in the request.

The budget is optional, and dealers see it. If you state one, offers tend to land near it rather than well below it. So give the figure you actually want to spend, not the one you could just about stretch to. If you leave the field empty, offers far above may arrive and you will have more to sort out.

The countries decide who sees the request at all. You must choose at least one; there are shortcuts for Switzerland, Germany and Austria and for all countries. Each additional country widens the circle of dealers — and the work afterwards. A purchase abroad can bring import, registration and taxes with it, and an offer from abroad is a price there, without transport and import charges. Only tick countries you would really buy from, and read the import guide for your country first. If you buy across a border, set the budget in the field correspondingly lower than the total you can spend.

The timeframe — as soon as possible, in the coming weeks, in the coming months or no fixed timeframe — tells a dealer whether they need to offer a car from stock or can source one.

If you want to trade in a car, tick the box. Dealers then only see that a trade-in is involved — not which car, not its condition. You give details of your car only in conversation with the dealer whose offer interests you.

An announced trade-in makes a request more interesting for many dealers, because they see two deals. It has a side effect: in the later conversation, money can be shifted freely between the purchase price and the trade-in price. So negotiate in two steps — first the price of the offered car, as if there were no trade-in, then the price for your old one.

Until then, no photos, number plate or VIN of your old car go to dealers you do not yet know. They do not need them for a first offer.

An offer arrives by e-mail and, if you created the request while signed in, also appears in your account. It consists of the dealer's message and, if they provide them, a price, a validity date and a linked listing. All of it is the dealer's statements, not checked by Carvexia. Each dealer can reply once and change their offer while the request runs.

Carvexia does not handle any purchase; there is neither escrow nor reservation. An offer that asks for payment before you have seen the car or the papers is not one you compare; you discard it — and if one does not seem genuine, you can flag it with “Report offer”.

The remaining offers only become comparable once they are on the same footing. Ask every dealer the same points and write the answers side by side:

The request ends by itself 30 days after release. You can close it at any time: in your account if you created it while signed in, otherwise through the link in the release e-mail. After that, no further dealers see it and no new offers arrive. Dealers who have already replied still see it with their offer, marked as closed. Existing offers stay in your account.

Close it as soon as you have bought, wherever that was. It is a courtesy to dealers who would otherwise put time into an offer, and it keeps your inbox quiet.

If nothing came in 30 days, that says something about the request or about the market. Check whether it was too tight — one more country, one nice-to-have fewer, a more realistic budget — and post it again. Meanwhile it pays to watch the market itself: a saved search tells you about new listings that match your filters.