Where is the best place to sell your used sim racing gear? In this guide, I'll show you the best options for both buying second hand sim racing gear and selling your old racing wheels, pedals and more.
Disclaimer: Some of the links on this page may be affiliate links. We earn a commission from any sale after clicking an affiliate link. Find out more.
Sim racing is a hobby that certainly requires a fair amount of gear. While you can enjoy most racing games using just a controller. You can also add items such as a racing wheel, pedals, gear shifters, a full cockpit and more while chasing increased immersion.
Over time, you may want to upgrade your equipment, maybe for a better racing wheel or a new gear shifter for example. But when you do upgrade, what do you do with your old gear? You could store it in your garage to never be seen again. Or you could sell it online.
In this guide, I’ll look at the best places to sell second-hand sim racing gear, as well as great places to buy already used gear. This second item can save you a lot of money compared to buying everything brand new!
Like selling any second-hand products, you can opt for tried and tested methods such as Facebook marketplace, or eBay. You could also try using forums on sim racing websites, or places like the sim racing Reddit. An alternative option is to use a dedicated platform that is designed entirely around second-hand sim racing gear.
Below is a quick overview of the best places to both buy and sell used sim racing gear. I’ve included a couple of main pros and cons for each service, which I’ll explore more in this guide.
| Options | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| eBay | Large audience | High sales fees |
| Facebook Marketplace | Free listings | Not targetted |
| Sim Trader | Targetted at sim racers Free listings | Not many listings |
| Forums | Large sim racing audience | Hard to navigate |
Both eBay and Facebook Marketplace are two tried and tested platforms to both buy and sell anything. However, neither of these platforms are targeted towards sim racers. This can make it hard to find products close to you and make it tricky to find buyers for your second-hand gear.
Choosing to sell on either of these platforms can result in long listing times or results in items simply not selling. Of course, this isn’t always the case.
As an example of this, at the time of writing, there is a nearly new Gomez Sim Industries GXL Pro Tony Kanaan Edition Sim Racing Wheel listed on eBay at £500 + £9.50. This is a great deal taking into consideration that this is a wheel that costs over £800 brand new.
However, while this is a great deal representing around a £300 discount, the listing has been live for 6 days and doesn’t have a single bid on it.
The reason that this racing wheel may not be selling on eBay is due to it being a very niche product. Also, being high value may make it trickier to sell on a generalised platform such as eBay.
As someone who has purchased and sold second-hand sim racing gear in the past, I can agree with how hard it is to find a buyer or seller on a general marketplace platform. Thankfully, in the past 12 months (at the time of writing) a couple of new dedicated sim racing marketplaces have been launched.
These platforms provide a place for only sim racing gear to be purchased and sold. This means that everyone visiting the website should be looking to buy or sell sim racing gear.
A platform that has just sim racers using it makes it much easier to find potential buyers for your used equipment. But just how good and how popular are these platforms? After all, if there is very little to buy or very few users, they may not be worth using.
To find out whether a dedicated sim racing marketplace is the best place to buy or sell used equipment, we need to take a look at the best options. Currently, there are two viable sim racing marketplaces that are competing to be the best used sim racing platform.
There is TheSimTrader.com which is run by pro-racing driver David Perel who also has websites such as SimGrid in his portfolio. Alternatively, there is SimplaceMarketplace.com which is a part of SimPlace.co, a large reseller of various sim racing equipment. Update – Simplace is no longer live and cannot be used to sell sim racing gear.
Both platforms launched within a month of each other around March-April 2023. Coincidence? Below is a quick comparison of both of these sim racing marketplaces.
| The Sim Trader |
|---|
| Free listings |
| Only 11 listings (at time of writing) |
| More United States listings |
| Higher web traffic* |
The Sim Trader has some pretty big credentials. It is owned by racing driver and sim racing enthusiast David Perel. Yes, he’s raced at Le Mans and won the Spa 24 Hour race, twice. He also has a range of other sim racing websites in his portfolio including The Sim Grid and Coach Dave Academy.
You can instantly see from visiting the website that the design is as professional as both of those websites. This makes using The Sim Trader incredibly easy to do.
While shopping for used sim racing gear, you can do so with relative ease on The Sim Trader. All listings are displayed nicely in a grid format, with filters allowing you to search by region or product category.
Finding an advert is easy due to the great layout. Once you do find an item you wish to purchase, buying is done via a contact form with the seller. You contact the seller and then arrange payment and shipping from there. This is a little unorthodox, as no payments are taken on site.
If you wish to list your sim racing gear for sale, you can do so completely free. There are no fees to creating a listing, and you won’t pay anything once you sell your gear. This is one of the major positives to selling on The Sim Trader.
You can pay for premium services such as promoting your listing which allows it to appear first in the listings. These aren’t essential, but can increase discoverability.
Ultimately, when it comes down to choosing which platform to sell your sim racing gear on, or where to look when trying to find a second hand bargain, the best place comes down to a few factors.
Both eBay and Facebook get much higher traffic than either dedicated sim racing marketplace, but that traffic isn’t targeted. Selling gear on these sites can cause your listing to get lost among thousands of other listings.
The Sim Trader is much more focused on US and UK traffic currently, although there are some European listings. The free listings are a real plus point for The Sim Trader, and lack of other listings can help yours be found easily.
Finding sim racing gear at lower prices can be done on any of the sites mentioned above. Both eBay and Facebook Marketplace have a much higher number of used gear. But narrowing down and finding the right gear in your country, can be tricky due to lack of filters.
Currently, I would say The Sim Trader has a slightly nicer UI across the site, with better filters and a nicer design. Despite the lack of items for sale, this site is easier to use, giving it the edge in this department over other marektplaces.
You can use the links below to shop for your favourite sim racing products, or for any products that we may have recommended. These links are affiliate links, and will earn us a small commission, with no additional cost for you.
Rich is the founder, F1 car setup creator and content writer for SimRacingSetups. With over a decade of experience as a graphic designer, marketing director, competitive sim racer and avid motorsport fan, Rich founded SimRacingSetup.com to share his passion and knowledge of sim racing and Formula 1 with other sim racers. Regularly writes for sim racing website SimRaceReviews.com
View all articles written by Rich
View Best F1 24 Racing Wheels
Best PS5 Racing Wheels
The season finale of the 2024 Formula 1 season is Abu Dhabi, and this is a… Read More »F1 24 How To Be Faster At Abu Dhabi (Track Guide)
Simucube has released its second ActivePedal, this time called the Pro. The ActivePedal Pro is a… Read More »Watch our Simucube ActivePedal Pro Review
Every sim racing brand that is running a Black Friday sale event, has now started their… Read More »Which Sim Racing Brand Has The Best Black Friday Deals?
