I am looking to buy a second-hand car, but will want to re-sell it in around 8 months. With this in mind what kind of price range car has then best re-sale value. For instance I know if I get a very cheap car, I will lose a lot on the re-sell. But should I look at mid-range or higher-end to get the most back when I re-sell.

In general, you usually get the most for your money if you buy a 2-year old car (they depreciate more in the first couple of years) and sell when it is around 6 years old (depreciation will increase after this). That's the theory, I guess, but it certainly would vary according to the type of car and location/country.

After I sell my car, I may just look for an old diesel pickup to get me by until hybrids are affordable and practical to own. Wish I could get a Golf, but they don't sell them in Thailand.

You will loose the least amount of money on an old car, something less then 300,000baht. You should be able to sell it for the same price unless its a relatively new >2000 cheap car, then it may depreciate slightly more.

Buy whatever is VERY common.

Like an Isuzu space cab truck or Honda Civic/City or Toyota Corolla/Vios.

It's the easiest to sell, and price/value is pretty much clear to anyone.

Don't buy weird guys, don't buy overly OLD cars (why bother with the risk of something serious breaking), also don't buy overly NEW cars that actually depreciate over 8 months.

Buy a 10 to 15 year old car in good condition, no Toyota or Honda, they are expensive and overpriced. Buy, let's say a 96' Mitsubishi Lancer, or a Nisan Sunny, arround 180'k and you still get 150'k after 8 months. Tose cars are not so famous in Thailand, but service and repairs are cheap and they are economical as well. They still 100'k cheaper in the marked as Hondas or Toyotas.

Speaking of selling, I have run into a nightmare with online car sale web sites here in Thailand.

First, I used www.thaicar.com, which has an English menu. You can actually place an ad in English, but not all the data you enter (such as location) may actually get into the database. When I tried to edit, I got only a Thai interface. I finally called them, and got some help. But I also got an explanation for why my car does not show up when I try to search for it:

The standard search only shows cars from dealers!

I tried other methods of finding it after it disappeared off the recent additions menu, and it can't be found. So Thaicar.com is only for dealers.

To advertise on other sites, I needed the help of a Thai reader. It is hard enough to do it that way, but these other sites have their own strange peculiarities which ring of a half-a$$ed, non-user-friendly attitude. In one case (one2car), we have to call to place the ad. In the case of taladrod.com the process of signing up for an account (again in Thai) ended up in a loop that frustrated us into giving up.

I'm getting the feeling, in any case, that advertising a car as a private seller is not well supported. If anyone has suggestions, I'm listening.

Forgot to ad that we could set up an account and place an ad via www.rotbarn.com.

Here's a summary:

www.thaicar.com - can place an add, but can't search for private cars

www.taladrod.com - tricky to set up account, password problems, gave up for now

www.one2car.com - have to call to set up an ad

www.rotbarn.com - add placed, in Thai. Not sure how to search, except by make.