How to Sell Your Used Car, Van or Truck and Get the Most Money for It
Selling a car isn't quite as simple as it seems, particularly when a bear market does its best to smack down your every plan. Getting top dollar for a car is like doing body-work; 90 percent of it is in the stuff that no one sees or thinks of. If you're serious about squeezing every last drop of liquid value out of a car, the best thing you can do is to follow the patterns set by those who sell cars for a living.
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Instructions
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Clean the vehicle. Then clean it, pay somebody to clean it and clean it again. A good detail job --- including carpet shampoo, polish and wax --- is vital to getting the most out of any car. Dealerships employ whole crews of people to clean AC vents, polish headlight lenses and windows, steam-clean undercarriages and get rid of interior stains. Replace anything that will turn off a potential buyer, including mismatched tires and visibly broken parts. Consider removing personalized add-ons; you may think that stick-on chrome looks snazzy, but not everyone will. After cleaning your car, hit the underside of the wheel-wells with inexpensive flat-black spray paint. It'll hide the ugly stuff and make your paint and wheels look brighter.
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Call an auto broker to find out what's moving in your area and in surrounding areas. Auto brokers typically have the inside scoop on what's moving in a particular area. An auto broker calls dealerships around the nation, attempting to move cars from one place to the other and taking a fee for the service. Ford F-150s might sit like stones in San Fransisco, but they're selling like hot-cakes in Anahiem; the broker's job is to know who's buying what and how much they're paying for it. If you can't find a broker in your local yellow pages, head to a local new-car dealership and ask the manager who they use.
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Decide upon the medium that will suit your sales needs. A newspaper add is more likely to end up lining a parakeet cage than getting read, so don't bother with print. The Internet is a good option if a broker tells you that your type of vehicle is selling best in the next state. If your type of vehicle is selling well somewhere nearby but not locally --- say 100 to 400 miles away --- then contact a consignment dealership in that area. Consignment dealerships will sell your car in exchange for a percentage of the sale and will babysit it till it sells. Even if your car is sitting at a consignment dealership, post it online to double your odds of sale and possibly save on the commission fee.
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Take your car to a professional photographer. While professional photography may seem like an extraneous expense, good pictures could well make the difference between a quick sale and another used car on the Internet. Pro photographers will probably charge you $100 or less, and a good one will use top-notch, high-definition equipment and will know compose your shot with ideal lighting and background to emphasize the car's positive aspects. Car photography is an art in and of itself; don't expect to get top dollar for your ride with a blurry cell-phone pic taken in a gas station parking lot at high noon. If you're serious about getting big money, then you'll do well to invest a bit in advertising beforehand.
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Tips & Warnings
Be careful who you deal with. Have someone else there when you show the car or go for a test drive. Classified ad sites attract scammers. Be careful about the information you disclose about yourself and your location.
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