How hard can it be? Some people put very little effort into preparing their car for sale, and even less effort in creating an ad. But with proper preparation, you can avoid showing your car to people who realize it's not what they're looking for, and instead, attract really interested buyers.
I'm doing this in hopes that I see better ads while I shop for a car. Yes, I'm looking for a pickup and I created this post because I got tired of really bad classified ads. The days of being able to sell a car by putting a "for sale" sign in the window are gone. It's all online ads now. At a bare minimum, you need a picture and a price in your ad. When you see an ad without one or the other, you shake your head and scroll past it. There are other very important details that could make your car selling experience either great, or laborious. It's up to you. Let me help you out.
Vehicle Preparation
There's a reason this section is first. You can't even set a price without a good inspection. First, clean up the inside and outside. It's nicer to inspect a clean vehicle. Hopefully you've been keeping it clean and it won't take much work.
Do a multi-point inspection. Here's an example form
After going through the checklist, even you may be surprised at what you find wrong with it. That AC that worked perfectly last season may not work this spring. Be up front with what's wrong with the car and what it needs. If you've just given up and don't want to clean it up or do any more repairs, then don't expect to get book price for it. Look at the trade-in value. You'll need to reduce the asking price. Car dealerships sell cars that are already detailed and in good running condition. Don't expect to even approach their selling price if yours isn't just as good looking and in near perfect condition.
This may be obvious, but remove all personal belongings that you don't want to include with the car. I once bought a car that came with a wedding ring in the glove box, but I took the ring back to the owner.
Mechanically inclined people often buy old cars because they have the skills to repair them. They'll know what to look for and will be able to detect neglect. If you haven't had the transmission serviced properly, they'll be able to tell by looking at the fluid. Expect them to look at the engine oil, brake fluid, power steering fluid, engine coolant, air filter, belts and hoses, and how much debris has collected under the hood.
I was looking at an old pickup truck and saw that a rear leaf spring was broken. That was news to the owner. Then I said the engine was misfiring. (One cylinder wasn't firing for the whole test drive.) He didn't know that either. He didn't know the transmission's synchronizers were completely worn out. Maybe he never upshifted from fourth to third gear. He didn't know the check engine light was not functional, or that the OBD-II port's wires were cut so I couldn't check for codes with my code scanner.
After the car is clean and prepped, then you're ready to take pictures.
Pictures
If you don't include a picture in your ad, you're not alone. About 6.8% of the car ads on ksl.com don't include pictures. I'm not trying to make you feel better about not including a picture. You may think it's not a big deal, and that somebody will love your car as much as you do, without even seeing it. Good luck. If you don't include a picture, you're about as lunatic fringe as the 7% of people that think the moon landings were faked. And if you're one that believes the moon landings were faked, I'm not saying you're a lunatic, just that you approach the world with a healthy dose of skepticism.
I've seen some truly bewildering photos in the classifieds. Here are some tips that are sure to make your ad stand out from the rest. A good set of pictures really helps to generate interest in your car.
- Focus! Clean the smudge off the lens. This should be a habit every time you pull that cell phone out to take a picture. Actually look at each photo full-screen before uploading it. Don't assume the picture is good if the thumbnail looks good. Only include pictures that are in focus. If the one you want is out of focus, re-take the picture. A good camera helps to get good pictures. If you can tell that the picture was taken with a cell-phone that has fingerprints or scratches on the lens, find a real camera and re-take the picture.
- Take all pictures in landscape mode. Yes, every last one of them needs to be in landscape orientation. If you upload a picture in portrait orientation, it will shrink to fit in the landscape box. See what I mean?
- Make sure they are oriented vertically. We don't want to turn our head to the side to view the picture. Worse yet, we don't want to stand on our heads. Don't think you're being clever by posting an ad with an upside-down picture. An upside-down picture is a bad picture. It's hard to visualize. That'll just irritate us and we'll skip it.
- Fill the frame. You want as much of your car in the picture as possible. Pavement and sky don't sell. If you didn't zoom in when you took the picture, you can always crop the photo using a free photo editor such as irfanview.
- Avoid sunlight glare. Take pictures preferably on an overcast day because lighting is great then.
Take pictures of both the interior and exterior. Yes, we do want to see what the interior looks like. If you don't include interior pictures, we may wonder what you don't want to reveal.
If you take a picture of a tire to show tread depth, do it with a tread gauge in the picture. Then list the tread depth for each tire. Otherwise, we'll think yay, it has tires! I'm sure glad those were included!
Fish-eye effects don't look good. We're not here to admire your artistic efforts. We like to see realistic photos. Step back and zoom in.
Don't include duplicate or very similar pictures.
Get all the sides of the car. Get pictures of the inside dash, doors, seats, carpet, stereo, etc.
The main photo (the ad's thumbnail picture) should be the outside of the car and recognizable for what model it is. If you're selling a Suburban, the main photo shouldn't be of the front because it looks too much like the pickup. Side views are better for pickups because you can see if it has a regular cab or extended cab or crew cab, long bed, short bed, or service bed, camper shell, etc.
Don't use stock photos from the internet in your ad. We know that's what a similar car looked like brand-new, but yours isn't brand-new anymore. We'll just assume that either your car looks so bad you couldn't bear to show what it really looks like, or you are too poor to buy a digital camera, or you can't figure out how to upload pictures. All of the above would lead us to believe you didn't maintain your car very well. Yes, a stock photo is as bad as not including a photo.
Price
This is where you can really create interest and sell your car fast, or end up having your ad expire without an offer. Don't expect to get top dollar without putting the time and effort into preparing the vehicle and creating a great ad.
Don't say the price is $1 unless you're really serious. Even then, you'll have to clarify that the price really is a dollar because of all the other not-really-a-dollar ads. People assume you're waiting for some idiot to offer more than it's worth. Ridiculous prices are the same as no price. You can almost hear the mouse wheels scrolling past your ad.
If you're upside-down in your loan, that doesn't mean you'll get what you owe because someone feels sorry for you.
Do research on the price with all the correct options and mileage. Set the price accordingly. There are several free online tools for this such as
kbb.com. Unless you're a car dealer, use the private party selling price. There's a reason car dealers get more money for a car than a private seller, and that has to do with vehicle preparation. Most private sellers don't go through the prep work necessary to make it look like a showroom car.
Don't start high and expect to negotiate down to your expected selling price. That just means you'll only get hard negotiators interested in the car. Set the fair price first. Don't get greedy or you'll wait a long time for a sucker to come along and buy it at the high price. The car's value may decrease in that amount of time. Time is money. How much time are you going to spend trying to sell it? How much was that worth per hour? You don't want to spend time showing your car to 50 people before somebody finally buys it (unless it's worth $100,000).
Blue book on this Ranger is $5300. I've been watching this ad for a month. This guy is asking too much and hasn't had any luck selling it for 30 days.
Specifications and Details
Here's where you sort out who really wants your car. Correctly fill out all the blanks because these go into the search engine. This will help bring you serious buyers and you won't have to waste time with people not interested because it has one feature or lacks another. For example, on KSL.com classifieds, you can specify the following information about your car, as in this poor example:
Year: 2007
Make: GMC
Model: Yukon
Trim: not specified
Body: Crossover
Mileage: 200,000
VIN: 1GKFC13017J2*****
Title Type: Clean Title
Exterior Color: not specified
Interior Color: not specified
Transmission: not specified
Liters: not specified
Cylinders: 8
Fuel Type: Flex Fuel
Number of Doors: not specified
Exterior Condition: not specified
Interior Condition: not specified
Drive Type: RWD
You may not think that a certain feature is desired, but it may be what someone is looking for. Or someone may not want that feature and you won't have to spend time showing them the car if that's a show-stopper for them. Unfortunately, even car dealers are unreliable at entering the correct specs. I've seen dealers say that a car is a manual transmission and the interior picture shows it's an automatic. (It wasn't a 3-on-the-tree.)
Please use a dictionary if you're not sure. Spell check doesn't tell you that you used the wrong word. It's not a Cadillac converter. It's a catalytic converter.
Use the proper definitions of words and be honest about the condition of the car. Be clear.
Wait, what? How does it run without the motor? Oh, how I wish there was a comments section in classified ads. Some of us will understand that there is a misfire in one of the cylinders, but as stated, it has no motor. Write the ad not just so that it can be understood, but write it so that it can't be misunderstood.
If you've done any modifications, such as a cold air intake, you will not get your money out of it. In fact, the new owner will probably want the original air box so he can buy the OEM style air filter. List all modifications done. A modified vehicle has a much smaller market and may take longer to sell, even at a fair price.
Where to Post Your Ad
Find the most popular online classifieds for your area. For Utah, it's ksl.com. Ask your friends. Call a dealer and ask where they post their online ads.
Presentation
Be friendly and show the buyer the features of the car and any interesting quirks. Show them how to operate any uncommon features. We all know the turn signal, but the OBD-II port may be in a strange place, like on the passenger side as in my Thunderbird.
I like the owner to ride along during the test drive. That way I can talk to them about the car while I drive it.
Maintenance records are helpful. We want to know when the last time the transmission was serviced, how regularly it was serviced, and how often the oil was changed. We definitely want to know if and when the timing belt was changed.
Negotiation
Know your limit. Don't go way below book value if the car is worth more. The buyer will probably ask you if that's the best you can do. Yes, you could take less, but why? If you have already done your homework and set a great price, you won't need to come down very much, if at all. When I sold my 1994 Caravan AWD with a bad transmission for $300, the buyer tried to talk me down, but I had other people interested in it for the same price, so I wouldn't come down. They bought it for $300 anyway.
When my son was selling his 1996 Outback with a rod knock for $300, the buyers offered $280 and said $280 or we walk away. Son was firm on the price. I wanted it out of my driveway, so I said "sold!", took the $280 and handed my son the money plus $20 from my pocket on the stack. At least the car was out of my driveway. It's only a $20 difference. You spend that on fast food anyway.
Treat others how you want to be treated. Karma comes back (or whatever you believe in). I saw an ad for a 2001 Subaru for an awesome price. I took a look at the car, test drove it and knew that it was a deal I couldn't pass up. When it came time to haggle, she said to negotiate with her husband on the phone. I said "no need. I'll give you the asking price." We both walked away from that deal thinking we had won.
