Advice for selling a used car

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a used car to sell. I have sold my own used cars before, but not for a long while. The threads on this I could find here are 20+ years old, and things have changed.

This thread is primarily about how to advertise it, show it, and conduct a sales transaction.

Advertising

What is the most effective advertising channel? I have used AutoTrader in the past. I may have put an ad in Craigslist also because it’s free. The one time I did this, I got six responses. Four of them were emails from scammers. The other two I actually talked to on the phone. I think they were brokers, and were making sight-unseen offers that were lower than my Car Max quote, which was low to begin with. I ended up giving the car to my son.

Should I pay for a CarFax report?

Showing the car

People seem to be unwilling to show cars at their homes. It’s not like you have someone inside the house casing the joint. I’m not sure how just knowing my address is going to make me vulnerable, but feel free to tell me why I should set a public location as a meeting place and not have people come to my house.

Some buyers would want me to come to them. In my mind, that’s not how the whole selling thing works. Should I be willing to drive 20 minutes to show someone the car?

I am assuming I should not just hand someone the keys for a test drive, and I should ride with them. Convince me I’m wrong.

Payment. I am inclined to insist on cash only. I use PayPal, Venmo, and Zelle, and although those are touted as cash equivalents, I am concerned about scams. For example, I have heard of a scam where someone overpays on Venmo, asks for the overage to be refunded to a different Venmo account. The original account turns out to be stolen, the payment gets reversed. Or you get a fake payment confirmation email. Once I took a personal check, which turned out to be fine, but I found out after several interactions with my bank that there is no way to tell with absolute certainty on my end that the check has cleared the payor’s bank. The other option might be to meet the buyer at their bank and have them cut a cashier’s check on the spot.

Transfer. I would remove the plates, sign over the title, and hand them the keys. Everything else is their problem. Right? (Once I sold a car to a guy who put a set of regular license plates on the car on the spot and drove it away. I didn’t ask.)

2

How valuable is the car and what kind of area do you live in?

For example someone living in a rural area selling a $2,000 junker probably wouldn’t hesitate to give someone the keys for a test drive. But someone selling a $25,000 car in San Francisco probably would.

3

I’ve only sold two used cars and two used motorcycles. I advertised all of them on sites where listings were free. In all cases I wasn’t in a hurry, so if free didn’t work I could always pay for additional listings in the future. That was never necessary.

The most recent was 5 years ago, and that was found by the buyer through Facebook marketplace. Both motorcycles were found on Craigslist. The first car was bought by somebody who saw it on the street with a “For sale” sign in the window.

For the most recent car and the motorcycles I did not ride along on test drives. In all cases I took pictures of the person, their driver’s license, and insurance card.

Whether you keep the plates or they go with the car will vary by state. In Colorado, the plates belong to the seller. It is up to the buyer to figure out transport and plating. Two buyers drove off without a plate, one hauled the bike, and the other I agreed to drop off the car, and take the plate then (it was nearby).

My interpretation of meet in a public place includes my suburban drive way. I don’t think I’d be willing to meet in a secluded, rural location, even if I happened to live there.

I would be careful about the ability of electronic payment to be reversed. Up until very recently Zelle would not reverse payments (which was bad if you got scammed). I did take a personal check for the most recent car. I had all kinds of personal information on the buyer, and I made it clear I would not hesitate to file charges.

Definitely would not take a personal check for, “I’ll mail you a check, when you get it, leave the car in the parking lot by 5th and Main with the keys on top of the front left tire.”

If they want to overpay for any reason, run away.

Before the car is sold, put any receipts, service records, documentation, spare parts, and extra consumables in the back. This may be a nice bonus for the buyer, but more importantly gets it out of your house.

4

ETA: Partly ninja’ed by @echoreply whose ideas I agree with.

This varies by state. In some states the plates stay with the vehicle (so the buyer drives off with them) and in other states the plates stay with the person they were issued to (that’s you, so you keep the plates). Koow which kind of state you’re in.

Almost every state has a “report of sale” form for you to file telling the government you’re not the owner anymore. Do that for sure. The same day. That way if your buyer doesn’t register the car promptly, you won’t be on the hook for their parking tickets, etc. Your state Motor Vehicles website will have a “how to sell your car” page with their local details you need.

Been many years since I last bought or sold private party, so I can’t really comment on your other ideas. I do agree it matters a lot whether you’re urban, suburban, or rural and generally how much of a clunker or nice car you’re selling.

Back in the day my habit for payment was to meet the buyer at their bank. They can get cash right there from a teller or a machine. In any case I walk out of the lobby with a stack of greenbacks and they walk out with keys & a signed-over title. There is NO other mechanism that some scammer hasn’t figured out how to defeat. I would not trust Zelle, Venmo, etc. I use them routinely, but much more as payer than receiver. I can’t guarantee the money won’t somehow be retracted later.

Cash greenbacks is the only truly impenetrable firewall between you and the buyer. Just don’t get mugged in the bank’s parking lot.

5

Updates:

2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid, fully loaded.

KBB direct sell price is about $6K.

Virginia. I live in the DC suburbs, sort of up-scale-ish but not Dan Snyder’s neighborhood. If I walk out my front door I see about 8 houses in view. Not at all secluded.

The plates are mine; DMV prefers I send them in if I sell the car but they’re OK if I just destroy them. We have an annual car tax so you’re damn right I’ll report the sale the same day.

6

Sold my ’68 Camaro a few months ago. It was on Craigslist for 2.5 weeks (note: CL charges $5 a month for car ads). Responses included the usual scammers, flakes (“What is the lowest price you’d sell your car for?”) and low-ballers. Of those who made offers in their responses, none asked to see the car first. The one guy who did ask to see the car made no offer in his response (he ended up buying it). Needless to say, this is one way to distinguish serious buyers from everyone else.

If you’re confident of the car’s condition, I see no reason to pay for a CarFax report. If someone is interested in your vehicle, they can always pay to have it inspected by a reliable mechanic of their choice, at your convenience. This is not something you should mention up-front to prospective buyers, but you should be prepared for it.

Meeting in a public place is always preferable when it comes to Craigslist, imo. That said, the eventual buyer of my car came to my house to check it out. I should probably mention that he was a fairly prominent figure in car circles and not just some random dude, which gave me extra assurance of his good faith. In any event, you could park in front of a neighbor’s home so that prospective buyers will not know where you live.

Taking photos of the person, DL and insurance before a test drive is an excellent idea. Not that it will do much good, but you might ask if buyers have any weapons on them before you accompany them on a test drive.

Payment – Cashier’s check or cash. Transaction should take place in your bank so that you can deposit the $$$ right away.

Be prepared to deal with people who say they are coming to look at the car, then never show up.

Best of luck.

7

So much this, from my experience as a landlord, don’t take it personally. People seem to find it easier to say nothing and not show up than to send a quick “my plans have changed and I do not need to see it” text. I figure the karmic inverse is to send out “thank you for interest, but it has already been sold” to anybody who seemed like a genuine buyer you were actively corresponding with.

I’ve never sold a car with enough interest to do this, but when leasing I schedule multiple people to view it at the same time. Making it seem like there are lots of takers is only a small part of my motivation; mostly it is so that when one of them doesn’t show up, there were other people and I didn’t waste my time.

8

My horror story: I had a junker to sell, and when I asked the buyer to remove the license plates for me, he said that one of the plates had rusted on (I trusted him–big error) and he assured me that he’d remove and destroy it when he got home to his tools, WD-40, etc.

About six months later, I got notified to appear in court to explain how it was that a license plate assigned to me was involved in a felony. I got the case dismissed by a sympathetic judge on the grounds that I was too stupid to live.

9

A popular scam in the UK is for buyers to complain that the car was faulty and needed repairs costing £xxx. They have no leg to stand on in law, providing that the seller told no lies, but sellers often feel intimidated and pay up to resolve the situation.

The plate problem doesn’t happen here because the plate stays with the car, not the person. The seller and the buyer both notify the Licencing Authority of the change and that’s it. A seller who does not do this may acquire a nice collection of speeding and parking tickets.

10

When i sold my old van a couple of weeks ago, i allowed interested parties to test drive it once they handed me the keys to the vehicle they arrived in.

11

The state may offer a form called something like a “Motor Vehicle Transfer Notification”. It’s to help avoid this situation. You file the form stating you no longer own the vehicle so that if it’s involved in a crime or whatever, they know it’s not yours. It can also happen even if you remove the plates. They could run the VIN of the car and see it’s still under your name.

12

I may be a little unimaginative about this. How would it be a threat to me for someone to know where I live? My name and address are a matter of public record, not hard to find.

13

The theory is that certain scammers find it useful way to prospect for burglary victims. Them searching online in e.g. the property assessor data base leaves a trail. Them showing up to test drive your car does not. The point being these are not ordinary people looking to buy a car. They’re just crooks looking for houses to burgle and you volunteered to be on their case list.

I agree that the theory is largely bunk. But not totally. Most of us are pretty clean hands. But when we interact with the full cross-section of US society we see a lot more of the opportunistic criminal set than we might encounter at Starbucks.

14

I’ve sold two used cars on Craigslist. Took lots of pictures, and asked a reasonable amount. I ignored the scammers and lowballers. I had it on the street next to my house, so I gave out the address. One guy wanted to test drive a car, and claimed he heard a “click,” which he claimed was probably a bad bearing, so he deducted several hundred dollars from the asking price. I politely declined. I got the impression he bought and sold lots of cars. The other car did have a bad bearing, which I disclosed, but one buyer said it sounded like a brake caliper (it wasn’t), so he bought the car.

I let people test drive if they left their keys with me. If you want to ride with them, that should be fine. Buyers who had cash and made reasonable offers were accepted. MN has a sale form with the title, which I sent in, but plates stay with the car. Several months later on one car I got a tab renewal notice, so the buyer hadn’t retitled it, but they did soon after.

Facebook marketplace seems to have gained ground on Craigslist for buying and selling, but I’d be wary of scams there, too.

15

If others do not know your full name, they will not be able to find your address. Note that this applies to all prospective buyers - including those who do not end up buying the car - and assumes you do not show the car at your home. If your address remains unknown, any threat risk is guaranteed to be less than if such knowledge is available (admittedly, a paranoid perspective). Even if it only adds minimally to peace of mind, being careful with personal information given to strangers is a low-cost, low-effort general life precaution.

16

When I sold my old car back in 2015, I used a company called We Buy Any Car. They will quote online for (yes) any car, but when they inspect it they almost always reduce the offer due to the dents and dings you were unaware of.

Yes, I could have got a better price privately, but it would have been a lot more hassle as can be seen from the comments upthread which are pretty much common on both sides of the Atlantic.

I assume that similar businesses operate in the USA.

17

It actually might be a little harder to find your address than it used to be but I digress.

People have become more paranoid over time - even when it doesn’t make sense. I had a job that involved testifying in court and people were outraged that they had to give their full name. Even though it was usually easy enough to find their full name in a database of government employee salaries. I think the general idea of “meet in a public place” is supposed to prevent abductions or robberies, not someone coming back to burglarize your home. At any rate, I don’t really ever see this advice in my urban area and my guess is that’s because the sidewalk in front of your house is a public place.

18

I have sold two used cars and many used boats. Craigslist works fine, although the signal to noise ratio is outrageous. I always make it clear that IANAMechanic and the item is being sold as is.

I accept cash payment only, and ideally meet at a notary to transfer the plates and record the sale.

19

Not to hijack my own thread here but I’m not sure why someone selling a car would be a more attractive target that a random house in an upscale neighborhood. I don’t see anything they could learn about me by posing as a car buyer that would help them rob me later.

20

Thieves may go through car ads like a shopping site. They may target your car because of something they see in the picture, like nice wheels, video headrests, etc. If you meet them at your house and park outside, they may come back later to take what they like.