I’m probably going to be selling my car soon. It’s a high-mileage but otherwise trouble-free compact econo-box. What’s the best way to sell it (by “best” I mean “intersection of easiest and most profitable”)? Craig’s List?
My first thought was newspaper ad, but then I remembered that I’m not 78 years old. 
Raffle.
Well, that intersection intersects in a different place for everyone. I’m not into dealing with a bunch of hassle just for a couple extra bucks, so if I were in your spot (and I just was recently) I’d either tade it in or sell it to Carmax.
Craigslist or autotrader. Those are the 2 main sites I use to look for used cars. Although, I am always looking and never buying. I think CL is the new era of classifieds though. Just always remember to meet in a safe location. The best part…it is free.
Yup, what michael b said.
If Craigslist, have **Mr. Horseshoe **with you when you meet people - also I wouldn’t meet at your house, meet somewhere like a mall parking lot and have at least one of you go with them for the test drive as well as bring their driver’s license (that you inspect for validity) as well as their current car insurance if they have a car right now.
Require a money order or a cashier’s check, no exceptions.
. . . and those would be only some of the hassles I mentioned. Just wait until something breaks years after the sale and they call you up.
I’ve never sold a car on Craigslist but it’s pretty much a surefire way to sell it most profitably - which is what the OP wants.
Plus I don’t think you need to worry about someone hassling you years later. Chances are very small and even if they* do* hassle you years down the road, you can simply threaten to fill out a harassment report at the police station. Still, very small chance and it’s almost guaranteed that they’ll disappear after you threaten to file a report.
If the buyers are smart, they’ll bring a mechanic or ask you to bring the car to their mechanic.
When I looked at used cars craigslist seemed to have them cheaper than autotrader or cars.com. So I don’t know how profitable that would be.
The big issue is desperation. If you aren’t desperate for the money now and can hold onto your car for a few months you can get a better deal.
It’s amazing how incredibly lame some of the craigslist ads are; people will post an ad with maybe five words and a picture, and it’s a blurry picture of the car with six inches of snow on it. Moreover, the pics that craigslist includes with your ads are small. If you’re willing to work just a little bit, your ad can easily stand head and shoulders above the rest, and your car can wow anyone who shows up in person (provided it’s not an irretrievable piece of shit).
We sold my wife’s car on craigslist this spring and got top dollar for it from the first interested person. I had detailed the car inside and out (including wiping grime/dust off of visible surfaces in the engine compartment), took a bunch of good quality pictures of the interior and exterior from many angles, and wrote up a detailed description. I included the pics and text in a PDF file that I hosted on my own web space, and then wrote up a short craigslist ad which included a link to that PDF file.
I posted the ad late on a Sunday morning, and the first call came that afternoon; I had maybe a dozen calls before that first caller bought it on Wednesday. We had listed it at top blue-book value, and conceded only a couple hundred bucks to the buyer for maintenance it would need soon after she bought it (e.g. timing belt).
Bottom line? Write up a good, detailed ad with flawless grammar and spelling, include the best pictures you can. If you have the know-how/resources, I recommend including a link to somewhere else where you’ve got more/better pictures of the car; if you can’t create/host a PDF file somewhere, else, maybe add some pictures to a SmugMug/Photobucket account and include a link to those in your CL ad.
By all accounts, this is a great time to sell econoboxes. With a craptastic economy, demand for high-MPG cars - used or new - is way, way up. You should be able to get a good price.
Machine Elf is correct. I’ve sold two cars and a motorcylce on Craigslist quickly and profitably. Since Craigslist is free you can include as many photos and as much info as you want.
1- I clean up the vehicle top to bottom and remove/empty it of any personal add-ons (cd holder, license frame, decals, etc.)
2- Take it to a very scenic empty place for photos. Like an empty parking lot in a park, or the top of an empty parking garage in an urban area, preferably on very clean concrete or newly paved blacktop. 4WD vehciles look good on dirt or grass.
3- Park on an angle with the wheels turned sharply.
4- Take lots of photos with no other vehicles/people/objects in the frame. Interior shots taken from outside the vehcile with the doors wide open. A closeup shot of the odometer. Sit on the ground and take a few low level shots. Bring a small step ladder and take some high up shots. After your done edit down to 4 or 5 good photos.
5- Include all info you would find on the vehicles original window sticker. Year, model, style (LE/SE/CE), engine type, power windows/locks?, etc. etc.
6- Mileage, how many owners, where the vehicle has been (owner wise), etc.
7- Research 3 prices from Edmunds/KellyBlueBook. Trade-in value, private seller price, dealer price. Then see what similar vehicles are priced at on Craigslist and Autotrader by private sellers and dealers. I usually go a bit under what dealers are asking for them to attract buyers but still remain high enough so people can “make me an offer” that comes down to how much I expect to get.
8- Place the ad first thing on a Friday morning. A lot of car buyers buy on weekends and start their searches on Friday.
9- Don’t negotiate over the phone. Tell them to come see the vehicle. If they refuse to come see it till you negotiate price on the phone tell them sorry. If someone makes a low offer early on that seems like a last resort price don’t be afraid to tell them you’ll take their number and call them back Sunday evening if you don’t get a better offer. They may scoff at it but if they think they’re getting a deal they’ll wait.
Really? You don’t understand the concept of a middleman? That outfits like Carmax are making money off of the seller and then selling them at a marked up price to the buyer?
Machine Elf hit a LOT of good points but one thing I wanted to second was to get it professionally detailed inside and out. Yeah it’s $100 (YMMV on price) but boy do people go for it. Worth every penny.
Why? What’s gonna happen a few months from now? Zombie apocalypse?
The tsunami in Japan this spring crippled car production there, along with production of components used in many non-Japanese cars. There is some question as to how rapidly the factories there can resume production, and so there’s been anticipation of a shortage that will drive up prices for new cars - and this would be expected to also drive up prices for used cars.
Toyota claims production rates are rapidly returning to normal.
Ah. So it’s the [del]zombie[/del] Japanese apocalypse I should account for - gotcha.
By the way, thanks, everyone, for the suggestions and ideas. Very helpful and much appreciated! 
I sold my 1992 Celica convertible with a sign in the window. I got $2000 over bluebook the day I put the sign in the window of the car. The guy who bought it lives three blocks away.
Use Craig’s list too, but don’t rule out your neighbors.
In general, I prefer not to sell used cars to people I will see on a regular basis. If something goes wrong with the car after the sale, it can strain relations; if you’re dealing with a total stranger, no big deal, but if it’s a coworker/friend/neighbor, there can be ongoing discomfort every time you cross paths with the buyer.
No, I am saying that the cars listed on craigslist seemed to me to be even cheaper than the ones sold by individuals on sites like autotrader. I don’t know if that is bias or not though. When I was in the market fo ra used car, I could find far more really good deals on craigslist than on autotrader. So it seems that would drive prices down on that site. Of course that effect would also spill over into other sites.
I probably didn’t word that well. My point was the big issue is you don’t need the money from selling your car tomorrow, so you don’t need to undercut 99% of the other people selling something similar so you can get the cash ASAP. You can put it up at a fair price and wait a month or more to find a buyer.
I sold my Continental for blue book in two days on Craigslist just a month ago. (I hope the Expedition goes as fast, lest I have to store it for three years.) I ran a price firm ad, stated the blue book parameters, and it was gone. Most of the other ads were way, way, waaaay above blue book. Could I have gotten more? Maybe, but I wanted to be rid of it.