Sell your car or trade it in?

[lcarlson90]

I am curious to know what most people have done. My DH is trying to encourage me to sell my car private party because he thinks I can get $1,000 to $1,500 more but I don't know if you really get that much more. I just wonder how hard it will be to sell it on my own and trading in is just so easy.

Any thoughts?

[pinkmomagain]

We always trade in. I've heard you can get more if you sell privately, but that is waaaaaaay too much of a hassle for us.

[Mommy_Mea]

It is a lot of hassle to sell a car privately. I did it once when we downsized from 2 to 1 car. I sold to a friend of a friend, and that was hassle enough, I can't imagine dealing with a stranger from Craigslist.

So it is really dependent on how much that hassle is worth to you.

Personally I will probably always trade in, using the trade-in as a bargaining chip...

[edurnemk]

We explored both options, in the end we sold privately because we got about 1500-1800 more that way. It sold fairly quickly. BUT my mom's car took wasn't as easy to sell, they did but it took a while (they weren't in a hurry).

[echoesofspring]

We just traded ours in (last night, in fact), usually we sell them privately but DH sold his truck last fall on CL and found it to be a real hassle dealing with some of the folks who called and had no interest in doing that again, though I would have been happy to make it "my project". In the past he's had good experience with CL or we've found a friend, grown child of a friend, etc. who was interested. I did try to sell my car to a couple folks but that didn't pan out this time.

The other option we considered was consigning it to a used car dealer, I went in and they gave me a quote, showed me how they calculated stuff, etc. It was useful info to have in addition to the various info about trade in values. But DH's biggest problem with that route was potential liability issues of having our car sit on their lot, if someone test drove it and had an accident, etc. And then they were kind of flaky returning phone calls, etc. so we were a little concernd wthat the 45 day turn around they said they typically had might not really pan out.

If you can purchase your car w/out doing the trade in, I think it puts you in a much better negotiating position of accepting/refusing the trade in offer. Since we weren't sure if we were consigning, etc. we were prepared to buy our car w/out the trade in. That let us turn down their first two trade in offers and get what we felt was a fair trade in value.

[AnnieW625]

We have sold all of our cars by private party with no issue. I was a little nervous about selling our 01 Corolla private party because it has a stick, wasn't in the best exterior shape (it was navy blue and had a few dents and scratches), and it had over 160K miles on it, and it was 12/1/2 yrs. old. We ended up selling it to my brother and had he not bought it a co worker would have bought it from me for her 16 yr. old son.

We sold our two other cars (a 96 Chevy Silverado extended cab long bed--talk about a niche truck-- it was originally DH's grandpa's; and a 96 Honda Accord Coupe) using Auto Trader. The truck did take almost a month to sell, but I listed the Accord on a Thursday, had a phone call about it on Saturday, drove it over to the prospective buyers (near my work) and had them test drive it the following Monday or Tuesday, and completed the deal the following Saturday at the local auto club branch. We also completed the truck deal, and the sale of the Corolla to my brother at the auto club branch.

I say give it a try and Auto Trader is really reasonable (I think I paid $60) and the LA County issue has a really big area to cover, up to Bakersfield I think.

I listed the truck, and the Accord on Craigslist and got no bites.

[Binkandabee]

We've always sold ours on craigslist. It's not that much of a hassle if you price it right. The three times we've done it, the first people to look at the vehicle have bought it. But, we priced aggressively. More than what we would get for a trade in, but not top of the market, either. We maintain our cars very well, too, and they are generally in great condition. I literally sold my last vehicle a month ago in 3 minutes, and had people emailing within 30 seconds.

If you have a carmax, you can take it in and they will give you a price that is good for 7 days I believe. This is a pretty easy alternative to at least gauge where you should be pricing for a private sale.

ETA: We were offered $1,800.00 for my truck as a trade in and sold it for $3,200.00....definitely worth my time!

[KLD313]

I put my car on craiglist for the heck of it, knowing that if I didn't sell it that way I would trade it in. The dealer gave me a price of $14,900. Within 10 mins of listing it someone wrote, asked the see the car that weekend and bought it for 16k. Before I traded I was going to try carmax and see if they would pay more.

[Melaine]

We were happy with what we got for our very old in and very bad shape van at Carmax...but it had so many issues I didn't even want to bother with private sales.

[codex57]

My parents always used to trade theirs in. However, my first time out, I sold it private party. You do get WAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY more by selling it private party. It's really not that much hassle. Unless you're both working a ton or have some serious illness or something, it's totally worth it to sell it private party. The tricky thing is to find out what works in your neck of the woods. SoCal has a ton of dealers and cars so it can get pretty localized. CL never hurts, but it tends to not really pan out. You may even have to try just leaving the car around with a for sale sign in heavily trafficked parking lots.

[jammytoast]

IMHO not worth the hassle unless its at least 20 years old. We traded in a 9 yr old SUV a few months ago, and I did get the Carmax buyback price after I got the dealer's assessment. I too the printed sheet to my dealer who matched the price for me.

It was about $100 difference, and having the dealer buy it back allowed us to easily transfer the tags/title right there without going back to DMV, and to be honest, even if they didn't match, I'd have traded in as I feel it's worth $100 to avoid the pit of dispair that the DMV is, lol

[BunnyBee]

Check out your state sales tax laws first. In some states, you only pay sales tax on the difference between the value of the car you're buying and your trade-in vehicle. It always has made more sense for us to trade in the car because the sales tax savings (plus saving time/energy) was greater than the difference in a trade-in and private party sale.

[wendibird22]

Well sell privately by putting on the front yard of ILs house. They are on a major road and cars sell in days. I think it depends on the make/model, age, mileage. My Altima had over 100K miles and no used car dealer wanted anything over 100K and the dealer was offering very little on trade. I was able to sell it easily for $2000 more than dealer offer. It was in mint condition with nice features (leather, moon roof, etc). DHs 2dr Civic Coupe sold in a day for ~$3000 more than dealer trade offer. Perfect college kid car so we had several parents sizing it up within hours of the sale sign.

Neither sale was a hassle. Wrote up a contract, had the person put down a sizable deposit, and handed over title when the person paid the balance. Took our plates off and turned them into the DMV with letter of sale.

[codex57]

IMHO not worth the hassle unless its at least 20 years old. We traded in a 9 yr old SUV a few months ago, and I did get the Carmax buyback price after I got the dealer's assessment. I too the printed sheet to my dealer who matched the price for me.

It was about $100 difference, and having the dealer buy it back allowed us to easily transfer the tags/title right there without going back to DMV, and to be honest, even if they didn't match, I'd have traded in as I feel it's worth $100 to avoid the pit of dispair that the DMV is, lol

When I sold the BMW, I got over $5,000 more going private party than what CarMax offered me. And I still sold it for a bit under KBB Private Party Value. Car was about 4 yrs old.

[AnnieW625]

When I sold the BMW, I got over $5,000 more going private party than what CarMax offered me. And I still sold it for a bit under KBB Private Party Value. Car was about 4 yrs old.

A friend had a similar experience, Carmax didn't want to give him squat for his car, which was a mint condition 5-7 yr. old BMW. It kind of made me leary of trying Carmax at all, but when I was looking for a car I found some nice cars that people probably just had to get rid of in a hurry so then their price was actually better than the dealer for the make and model in question. Lots of Audis, and BMWs were on there as well.

[hellokitty]

We take care of our cars, and sell them private party. A couple yrs ago our 98 Subaru Legacy sedan sold in less than 24 hrs. Ppl were fighting over it. I wish DH would have asked for a higher price. That car was in pristine condition and looked brand new. It took us a few wks to sell our 01 Honda Ody, but we sold it to the first person who was interested. The dealership totally low balled us for the trade in when we bought out 09 Ody, trying to make up for the price. So, we just told them to forget the trading in part.

I think that if you don't have a car in that great of a condition, it's easier to do a trade in. My parents are horrible at maintaining their cars and the past couple times have had to do trade in, since they knew they would have a hard time doing private sale. They did private sell two cars, I was surprised they were able to sell them to be quite honest, one car was a lemon (the mechanic was so used to seeing us, he was the one who sent us an interested buyer, I think my parents must have replaced every mechanical part in that car), and one was just a nice car that they let become a POS. That was the car they had me drive and both dh (who was my bf at that time) and another male friend of mine who carpooled home with me for winter break one yr, were not happy that I was driving such a poorly maintained car, they didn't feel that it was safe. My male friend actually kind of lectured my parents about how unsafe the car was and my parents laughed and told him it was not a big deal. I felt sorry for the suckers who bought those cars from my parents.

[belovedgandp]

Kind of depends on the vehicle, but we have had much better luck selling private party. Almost always an older vehicle (10+ years and 100K+ miles).

The only time I felt like we got a decent deal at the dealer was when the vehicle we were trading in was only three years old. Went from a 2-door to 4-door vehicle of the same year. I went in agreeing to pay a certain amount as the difference and they played with the purchase price and trade in prices to make it work.

[lcarlson90]

So I think you guys have convinced me to try to sell my car myself first. It's a 2003 but it's in great condition, never had any repairs and only has 88k miles on it. I think I will list it on Craigslist first since it's free and then if that doesn't work I will look into Auto trader.

[Binkandabee]

I bet it will sell very quickly!

[hellokitty]

So I think you guys have convinced me to try to sell my car myself first. It's a 2003 but it's in great condition, never had any repairs and only has 88k miles on it. I think I will list it on Craigslist first since it's free and then if that doesn't work I will look into Auto trader.

I don't think you will have a hard time selling your car on your own with that kind of mileage and it being a 2003. Good luck! BTW, ppl always want to haggle. Each time we sold our cars, DH listed it at least $500 more than what he wanted. Ppl always feel better if they feel that they can haggle a little.