[Advice] Selling used car online

I sold my 1993 Honda Accord on Cars.com back in 2004. Sold it to some family that wanted a car for their kid in college.

Literally was on the site for 2 days, found a buyer and got everything done in less than a week after they contacted us.

 

Clutch Sighting!!!

 

sold my car through craigslist last week. i received 5 responses in 2 days, solid it over the weekend. here's a tip, make sure you take good pictures. don't upload them directly to craigslist, otherwise it'll show up as 4 small thumbnails. instead, upload them to photobucket and copy the HTML tag directly on the ad. helps your ad stand out.

 

Take lots fo pictures, look at www.sewell.com to see what kind to take, you'll get more response. Autotrader, cars.com and ebay.

 

Before I moved out the country, I sold my car on Craigslist in NYC. It was kind of weird, because the guy didn't even test drive my car. He just sat in the driver's seat for about 20 seconds and made an offer. When I agreed to the price, he just gave me an envelope with cash in it and walked away. I didn't have the the title since it was in another state. I got the title a week later and one of his cousins came and picked it up. The guy who bought it responded to my ad within 3 hours of posting it. The whole transaction was completed in less than 12 hours of me posting an ad. So my experiences with selling on Craigslist have been positive, albeit a little strange.

 

was it a pathfinder?

 

If you post it online be prepared to receive stupid people asking to trade you a POS car, or their grandmas wedding ring + a 1989 Civic + $1500 cash. No joke, I had off the wall offers when I had my motorcycle on craigs list. Same thing happened when I sold my Camaro as well.

If you use ebay motors, always require a deposit and let it be known it is non-refundable. This will usually deter "tire kicker" bidders who will buy the car/win the auction then come of with "family emergencies" or "busy at work" or "insert buyers remorse excuse here"

Like said above. Put nice clear pictures, be pretty straight forward with your description and stand firm on your buying requirements. Generally things will go well and the car will sell (assuming its a respectable/fair price) But seller beware of the tire kickers and gamers out there.

Also there are a few scams who say they ill pay for shipping but in the end you will never see the money..etc.

 

I sold my car on eBay before. My process was that I went to CarMax to see what they were willing to give me (of couse that is pretty low), and then I used that offer as my reserve on eBay, so that worst case I would get at least that much.

I ended up picking up someone from the airport who flew in from Utah. They gave me a cashier's check, I gave them the keys to the car, and the title, and they drove back to Utah ...

I don't think I made as much money as I could have, but at least I made more than I would've gotten off of CarMax. The buyer got a pretty good deal, and it was an interesting process to go thru. The bidding process meant that as long as I didnt set the reserve too high, the car WOULD most likely be sold within a week, which was a nice way to get things over with.

There was a guy more local (Austin) who wanted to purchase the vehicle too. He didn't understand eBay bidding and tried to place a max bid that was actually less than he was really willing to pay. After he lost the bidding, he tried to contact me to cancel the transaction with the winner so that he could give me more money and buy the car. I didn't like the way he did things so I opted to "go with the process" and sell to the person who actually won.


I also BOUGHT a car on eBay. I made a mistake here by buying from a seller with VERY little feedback (although that's what I was too when I sold my vehicle). It turned out to be some very shady middle eastern guy, and the vehicle had a bad transmission, and the check engine light was CUT. So I got a price that was "too good to be true" but it ended up being a little more costly due to the replacement of the transmission. I would buy from online again, but I would most likely take the vehicle to my mechanic for a buyer's inspection first.

 

Oh yeah, and when I sold my car, I put a lot of pictures from every exterior angle, as well as the interior and engine bay.

I also disclosed a basic history of repairs that I had done -- pretty much everything from replaced window regulator, recent brake work, etc, as WELL as stuff that was likely to need replacing soon on the car. I wanted to disclose as much information for the seller's comfort so that they would feel comfortable with the transaction, and that they were dealing with an honest seller.

 

I have heard good things about autotrader.com and actually got a quote from them. I didn't run an add.

The scary thing on Craig's List, and the site itself warns you of this now, is that people are able to fake cashier's checks in such a way that would fool you (or certainly me.) If you take one of those puppies to the bank, they aren't sympathetic, apparently.

I had my little car on Craig's List for two hours and got five emails of interest. One was from a guy with the handle "wangpower" and was very strange. I pictured meeting these people (as Craigslist advises) in random parking lots, etc, and then there are no parking lots in San Francisco with empty spaces. Ugh.

I took the ad down and sold the car to my cousin's kid, who is heading to college. So I didn't make all the money I could have, for sure, because I wanted to help this kid, but if I do this again, I'm going to go through the friends and family network pretty heavily *first*. You'd be surprised who is looking to buy from a reliable known person just like you'd prefer to sell to the same.

Good luck!

 

Few years back I sold my 93 Honda Civic on Craigslist and it was easy and little hassle