Tips on selling a used car privately!

Motor Mouth: Daragh

Tonight we're hoping you can send us tips on selling a used car - I know this may have been discussed before but if you could post some more it would be great.

People tend to be weary when buying a used car privately, so what would you recommend people to do if their selling privately to make their car stand out from the rest.

The advantages of selling a car privately are pretty obvious, generally you'll make more money, but for people buying off a private seller they don't have much to fall back ont - so any of your tips would be great.

Also, we'll have Dr. Vag (aka Onkle) and Draffodx live in studio giving us a run down on how "All the way Round" went, so if you want to leave a few posts for us to read out on air for them, please feel free!

Have it freshly washed and polished for good pics, detail all the positives, recent service, how much NCT is left etc. State how long you have owned it along with number of owners (makes car stand out from casual trader types masquerading as private sellers). Above all the price must be right, price it well below what garages are asking, otherwise no one will be interested.

Senna

The second last car i bought was advertised on the net with a 2 minute video walk-around, the owner only used his camera phone, but it "sold" the car to me, especially seen i was a good distance away from the seller.

The other usually things like a good clean and polish for the picture, and of course plenty of pictures. But the most important thing is advertise it with all the information, the number of adverts without mileage, engine size, spec level, fuel type, etc is unreal.

Alanstrainor

Pictures pictures pictures...and videos too i guess!

Give the car a good clean and polish. And take pictures from all angles, and the interior too. Try and use the best camera you can find, and take them during the day! The amount of terrible quality camera phone pictures taken at night time is shocking.

Big Nasty

What sells a car?

Price, Presentation, Information.

Seemples!

ABajaninCork

As before, clean the car inside and out. An air freshner, and a spray of Febreze over the seats (if fabric) is good too. Lots of pix, especially of the odometer (to prove the mileage), and as much information as possible.

A full service history always helps, as are old bills for any work done on the car. I've always kept mine, and when I sold my car, the new owner remarked on the fact I'd kept all the bills for exhaust, battery, servicing etc.

EPM

Honesty helps too...if there's a problem with something be up front. Gives a much better impression to a potential buyer. There's nothing worse than showing up to see a "mint" car and it being a complete dog

Divorce Referendum

EPM wrote: »

Honesty helps too...if there's a problem with something be up front. Gives a much better impression to a potential buyer. There's nothing worse than showing up to see a "mint" car and it being a complete dog

Yes this is very important, if the car is not as described it gives the buyer leverage to knock your price down even more.

dr.fuzzenstein

+1 on giving it a damn good shine and a hoover or valet.
Take pictures on a decent camera, phone pics will look sh*te.
Unless the car has had a very recent service, have one done.
Make sure the timing belt has been changed recently, would put me off if buying a car if I knew a large bill was coming my way.
Dig up whatever service history you can find.
Once the buyer knows it's been looked after and there are no large service bills coming his way he'll be a lot keener to shovel over the dosh.
Make sure the wheels are spot on, wheels make a car, clean the rims best as you can if alloys, for steel rims make sure the hubcaps are in good nick, get new ones if you have to, I'd walk away from a car where every wheel has been scraped cause it points towards careless owner.
Don't have worn or odd tires on the car too.
And personally I think a good set of steel wheels with fresh rubber and new hubcaps beat a set of shoddy and warped alloys with worn rubber any day.
And fix any trim pieces that are loose or missing, it's only a small detail, but an important one.
I'd take off any aftermarket crap like trim, steering wheel, gear stick, anything that even hints at boy racer will scare any buyer into the middle of next week.