Have you sold your car? What sites / methods worked well for you?
This car is my wife’s POS 2012 Nissan Leaf, 52,500 miles and only 45-50 miles on a full charge, so it’s really nothing. Not fancy. I say POS because I’ve never been a fan of that 1st-gen Leaf styling, but my wife loved that car. I finally convinced her to upgrade out of it.
I’m asking only $2,400 / bo so it’s not worth placing it with a reseller on a commission. If I traded it in when buying her replacement, I’d only get about $800 to $1,000 so that’s lousy and it’s worth it to me to hassle with selling it myself.
I first posted on Craigslist and I got a lot of nut job quacks replies. Truly silly. Only 1 bonafide interested buyer, and they did not buy. Lots of “static” in all the crappy replies — a very low signal-to-noise ratio. Terrible!
Yesterday I deleted the Craigslist ad and I posted it to FB Marketplace. Lots of interest there! Lots of replies and already on the same day one bonafide interested buyer (she did not buy).
Anyway, am sharing here that FB Marketplace is much better than Craigslist IME and so far.
What has worked for you? It’s been many many years since I had to sell a car.
Craigslist in general is pretty barren in my experience these days. I sometimes browse around on there but it rarely feels worthwhile.
Last time I needed to sell a car, it went on Facebook Marketplace and we had a number of interested replies almost immediately. I actually assumed they were all scam bots for how quick they were but the first guy to reply showed up in person and wound up buying it. We were selling it cheap since it was an older car with a blown head gasket but still did way better ($1200) than the “We Haul” guys were offering ($200).
I had already printed out a bill of sale from online with the usual “Sold As-Is”, no warranty, etc stuff in it. Buyer paid cash, we signed the bill of sale, signed over the title and I registered it as sold. Easy peasy and done in an afternoon.
I haven’t, but I’ve been paying attention, and CARFAX carries a lot of weight these days. In fact, my SiL just bought a Lexus RX350 via CARFAX, and it’s performing like a charm.
We have a trusted mechanic, and sold our car thru him. In fact one of his nephews bought it, after the mechanic fixed it. Then I bought my replacement car from one of his customers.
This way we know we wont get some car with hidden issues.
I sold several cars via Craigslist, but that was years ago and I don’t know if the site has gone to hell or not. There were always a few obvious trolls, but I had good luck with my efforts there. A few years ago I sold all of my major power tools on Craigslist and FB Marketplace. Same sorts of trolls, but enough serious buyers to make it successful.
The last car we sold, we used Carvana to get a minimum offer, knowing that if we sold it ourselves we could expect substantially more. In the end, we did a private sale, with full disclosure on the vehicle’s needs (in good shape, well maintained, but was at the point it needed new spark plugs).
We sold it to an employee of the same company my wife works at - who had very unreliable transportation in the form of their old car that they kept working on and kludging each system as it failed. We sold it for what Carvana would have asked, so something of a mitzvah for us, and my wife benefits from that team member (not on her direct team) missing a whole lot less work, and they still thank her every time they bump into each other.
Especially having working A/C after the multiple heat waves we’ve had!
Slightly off topic, but I want to report that I’ve used Craig’s List on and off for many years with no problems at all (though not for automobiles). I would expect that problems vary by region and by category.
I agree, although I’d compare Carvana, Carmax, and Edmunds. I did a little exercise to see what I could get for my car a few weeks back and found one of them (don’t remember which) offered 18% more than what I was seeing elsewhere.
Note that Edmunds is not specifically a buying service, but going through their valuation process triggers a built-in offer from one of their partners.
But yeah, after past car sales experiences, and general adventures selling a boat and trailer on FB Marketplace, I’m only interested in a trade in or the Carmax/Carvana experience.
I don’t necessarily have an issue with Craigslist, it’s just (IME) a shadow of its former self with most of the traffic having moved to other sites (FB Marketplace for commerce, Reddit for social). I wouldn’t tell anyone to not use it but I’d say that they should use it in conjunction with FB if they want the best odds for a quick sale.
I guess it matters s to one’s location, location, location. Here near San Francisco, FB MP was so much better than Craigslist.
I now have a motorcycle I need to sell, but for that I’m going to have a local motorcycle shop sell it on consignment. With buyers wanting to take test rides and all that, I’d rather have the local shop deal with that hassle.
I had a first-generation Honda Insight (the one with skirts on the back wheels). Loved it, but everything needed replacing at once.
So I ran a Craigslist ad titled “WHY the hell would you buy this car?”, and detailed all its faults… with extra snark (“Ok, it’s a cute red two-seater … so save up and get a Miata instead.”)
I made a Google phone number and said texts only. Got a lot of spam, like “Is the ‘Why the hell would you buy this car?’ still available?”
But also got a guy who said “I’ll pay your price in cash right now! The more wrong with it the better, because I wrench on hopeless cars for therapy.”
My problem with both Craigslist and FB Marketplace is they’re now full of cars with 150-200K miles. And I need a dependable car … NOT the best time to be looking!
The one and only time I’ve sold a car (as opposed to trading it in when buying a new one), I used Carmax. It was really simple, and I was satisfied with the amount they offered. Maybe I could have gotten more if I’d sold it privately, but to me the simplicity of the process was worth it.
One of the Craigslist replies was a definite scam. Never came to look at the car, said he’d send a cashier’s check, then sent a cashier’s check for more than the asking price (asking $2,400/b.o.; check was for $3,980).
