The quote was £4,200. The van turned up with £3,100.

An instant online quote is generated from the reg and a few clicks, before anyone has seen the vehicle. It is marked subject to inspection, and that small print carries the whole weight of the deal: the real valuation happens later, on your driveway, after you have cleared your diary and emptied the glovebox.

At that point every scuff, advisory and service gap becomes a deduction from a number you had already started spending. Drivers commonly report the final figure landing hundreds below the quote that got the appointment booked. None of it is an accident of bad luck. A quote produced without questions has to leave room to move, and the moving happens at the kerb, when walking away feels hardest.

The doorstep revision is not the only place the headline figure shrinks. Some buyers charge a transaction fee that comes off your money, up to £99.99 depending on the car's value. And the free way to get paid is often a transfer that takes days, with same-day or next-day payment sold as a paid upgrade, at around £30, to receive your own money.

Here the stack is short: £0 fees, free collection anywhere in the UK, and same-day Faster Payment as standard. The offer you accept is the amount that lands in your account.

A revised doorstep price is an offer, not an obligation. Until you sign, nothing binds you, and refusing costs nothing but the afternoon already gone. Keep the keys, let the van leave, and get a second number before you settle for the first one that shrank.

If the car has taxi or private hire history, the lowball has an extra cause worth understanding, covered on our ex-taxi buying page. If it was a dealer part-exchange figure that moved, see why a direct buyer beats a part-exchange price.