I have three cars I need to sell soon. Having never sold used cars, i need some help… Best ways to go about it, things i should know etc. I have the carfax reports on all three, all the papers, records, maintenence, etc. Anyone got any tips?
Wash and wax them, and clean the interiors. Detailing is a good investement when selling a car. Park them in a conspicuous spot - preferably where both morning and evening commuters will see them. Put the price you want in 6" high letters in the front window of each car. Use a high-contrast material, like orange or red numerals. If you can be sure it won’t rain soon, you can use water-washable kids paint. Otherwise you can get some blaze orange plastic and cut out numbers. Be sure and pick an even number – if you want $6500, minimum, it’s OK to put $6900 as the price. Just don’t get cute with $6899. You aren’t going to fool anyone. Put a phone number in 2" letters under the price. Use a phone with an answering machine or voice mail – don’t use your home number with your wife answering it, if you can help it.
NOTE - Don’t write ‘For Sale’ on anything. If its sitting there with a price on it, it’s obviously For Sale.
Also advertise - balance the cost vs. exposure there. Use the inexpensive, free papers too. Don’t extoll any non-factory features. Don’t use any performance-related terms. Nobody wants to buy a car you’ve been hot-rodding around with, so don’t tell them you have. 
Go with anybody who want’s a test drive, and it wouldn’t hurt to have a buddy along. Be safe. If, when you negotiate, they offer you a stack of $100 bills - but many bills shy of what you are asking - you can be sure you’re dealing with a professional. Take it as a compliment, and hold out for the minimum price you have already decided on. It’s OK to tell them that price at some point in the negotiations. Don’t waste each others time.
If the cars have any true problems, you’re better off telling the buyer. Minor annoyances (not safety related) can be glossed over. Don’t be deceptive, but don’t offer any info they don’t ask for. About those records, when I bought my last car, I found a service report in it about tire replacement. No big deal, but it had the previous owners name and address, phone number, and credit card slip. Not cool. Don’t give them anything they don’t need for warranties.
BTW, what are they? I might be in the market, or someone on the boards may get a woody when you mention them. Don’t pass up free advertising!
Check out AutoTrader. Not only will it get you wide exposure, but you can run your vehicles’ specs and get a pretty good idea of what you might expect to get for them.
In the last five years I’ve purchasedd two automobiles that I found using that site. The first one was at a consignment dealer and when I got to his lot the price on the sticker was 20% higher than the price in the web ad. As he explained when I asked, if you wander onto his lot and start looking around, he has some idea about how you’re shopping and how much of the market you’re seeing (a small fraction). On the web, though, he knows you’re seeing most of what’s available, side-by-side. So the prices posted there are as competitive as they can get and still have fun selling cars.
In fact, you might consider a consignment dealer. The last one I talked to had a flat fee of $500, and he handles the detailing, paperwork, advertising, etc.
Good luck!
Unless you have collector cars or something really special, the internet isn’t worth a shit. You will get calls from teenagers 4000 miles away wanting to know what kind of sound system it has.
Local ads for local sales. No one is going to fly accross the country to buy your 1995 Ford.
I wasted so much time with internet ads for vehicles with zero results.
Whatever.
There really aren’t local ads anymore. Chances are an ad placed in your local paper will be available via www.cars.com, which is how I found our current vehichle BTW.
I suppose somebody might not have the snap to limit the area where they’re looking. Cars.com and AutoTrader have interfaces that ask you to specify, amongst other things, a radius around your zip code to filter your search.
AutoTrader has been around longer, they were a weekly print magazine before the Web. I asked both to find BMWs between $6,000 and $20,000 within 100 miles of me. Cars.com found 10, AutoTrader found 137.
Still bragging about that Beamer, eh, Ringo? 