Any advice on which sites and what strategy to follow to sell my used car? Carmax is a joke and I am ready to lease a new one. Thanks
I think most people on here agree that carmax is a rip off, but it’s still a good starting point because it’s an offer in hand. Private sale is probably the best (maybe something like craigslist). Sometimes dealers are willing to pay more than carmax if they’re desperate to make a sale and they know it’s dependent on the trade-in, but my experience was that I got low balled by the dealer even more than carmax.
My question is more focused on the best strategies to attract a private buyer…certainly dealers are not the best option
I was able to sell one used car through craig’s list with pictures posted. Then a second, I sold to a local car mechanic shop.
Try to see if there is a local used car dealer/mechanic shop. They will buy cars to fix up and sell since they can fix up cheaper.
Seems like a good idea, but seems like they would be more willing to lowball you. I feel like people on craigslist/offer up are less knowledgeable and more willing to pay whatever you’re asking within reason.
You can easily counter and if not. Walk away. Say thank you for your time. It all depends on the vehicle shape and price and the amount in return. I found that lots of places only cared about the BLACK book value. No one used KBB and edmunds anymore. Dealers seem to use black book as well.Maybe someone else can chime in here.
any experience on eBay?
What car you are you attempting to sell?
2004 Mercedes Benz C230, 121,000 miles
@pecas
Not sure if carmax makes any sense. They are not interested in keeping your car for resale purpose because it’s too old/too many miles so all they’re going to do is dump it at the auction. So by default they’re going to give you very little as they stand to only make a few bucks at the auction. They don’t sell cars older than 10 years or with more than 100k miles on their lot if i’m not mistaken.
There are some places that will pay more than carmax if you bring them the carmax appraisal. in S. FL it’s these guys:
http://blog.wepaythemax.com/we-pay-more-than-carmax
They advertise they pay up to $1000 more.
Other than that, you can try to put it on Facebook or Autotrader too.
The general consensus for selling used cars is:
Private Sale via CL or AutoTrader etc: More $ but more hassle (especially dealing with shady people etc)
Dealer/Carmax: Less $ but less hassle and less time consuming
That’s the beauty of leasing, you never have to deal with trying to offload an old car. One of the main reasons why I don’t bother.
Can’t imagine the car is worth more than 5-7k. If trading in for another used car. Then dealers may have to give you decent value but for a lease eh…
As for private sale strategy, I’d take a lot of high quality images in nice bright light with detailed description and keep relisting it every day on CL. I mean actual physical relisting, not the automatic relist after 2 days. You want to always be on the first couple of pages and not fall back and have a lot of ads out there. I’d start there.
Also, list a little higher than you want to get because CL buyers will def bargain with you.
Maybe you can also find a internet forum for that car and list on there.
I’ve sold 3 cars on CraigsList over the past 4 years.
My strategy was: Find a comparable car on craigslist and beat the price by a $200-$300 dollars. Expect to be lowballed, so pre-consider a bottom-line figure amount in your mind and don’t go below that. Take LOTS of pictures. All angles, all interior, good lighting, close-ups of the tire tread remaining. Point out all the things of your car that are better than the other comparable 2004 MB C230s that are currently on CraigsList… new battery? new tires? new wipers and filters? oil just changed? clean title? no check engine light? recent smog or registration?
Point out everything good so you can look better than your competition.
Post on a Friday night and schedule viewings on Saturday. Try to line up multiple viewings back to back. People will lowball you, but you’ll be able to tell them you have someone else coming in 30 minutes to look
Hope this helps!
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Thanks so much to all. I have been listing it on Craigslist with few people interested. Here is the link:
https://miami.craigslist.org/mdc/cto/6113969898.html
Would love to hear your feedback on my post. I was wondering if there are non conventional strategies that might work such as parking the car on streets with high visibility or other strategies. Certainly the best way to maximize the price is to sell it to the end user. Would love to hear the experience of other forum members.
That’s a fantastic post! It really shows that you cared for your car.
I wouldn’t park the car on streets. Craigslist is good enough to get your car sold.
You have a tonn of pictures, and were up front about the wear on the drivers seat, which is great. Disclosing all the not-so-great parts gives someone less things to bargain against when they show up and act surprised that some defect would be a deal breaker for them unless you dropped the price by another $100.
If there was one thing I would suggest you do to make your listing even more attractive, it would be to perform a headlight restoration on the hazy headlight assemblies and re-shoot any photos that show the hazy headlights.
Your closest competition is going to be that $6500 low-mileage 2006 in Broward.
Come to think of it, that 2006 in Miramar also has low miles for $6000.
Yours is cleaner, though, and the restored headlights would put yours ahead of theirs in my opinion.
Good luck with the sale!
selling private is now a tough nut to crack. People just text random offers. Then they show up and want to lowball it even more. I was selling a low mile civic for my family, it was 20% off dealer and people still wanted to pay half the price.
I think it’s easier to sell a car that’s 1 to 2k then or a special car like a classic. Otherwise it takes a lot of patients.
Good luck.
i disagree with @Envador, i wouldn’t spend any $ to do something cosmetic like that. It’s not going to make a difference in selling this car.
maybe you should rethink your pricing based on this:
https://orlando.craigslist.org/ctd/6157777208.html
It’s a 2007 with similar milage for less $ and from a dealer too.
Love the discussion. Thanks for all your input. Restoring lights should only cost around $10. I have also 3 tires with considerable wear
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