Selling Your Car Privately: Top Tips

Going to the effort of preparing your car properly for private sale could mean the difference between selling it within 24 hours and having to deal with tyre kickers for weeks on end.

We take you through a few of our top tips to make the sale process run as smoothly as possible and to help ensure you get the maximum amount for your car.

Car Selling Tips #1: Photos are everything

Take it from the Rare Car Sales team; we spend hours trolling through car classifieds looking for cars that we can feature on rarecarsales.com.au. There are thousands of cars out there that we would love to feature but the images that the owner has taken don’t do the car any justice. The same goes for people who are genuinely interested in buying the car- they want to see car images that evoke the positive emotions that are associated with owning a new car. If you’re showing them a half dirty car and some blurry images then they’re not likely to get a sense of the joys that come with owning your car- only the burden.

Car Selling Tips #2: Wash and Detail

It sounds so simple but we’re still surprised by the number of people who don’t do this. It’s a buyer’s market- for every poorly presented car for sale there is a nice one for a similar or better price. Make sure that EVERY TIME someone is coming to look at your car its been washed. No one is going to buy your dirty car- if you can’t be bothered to present a clean car to prospective buyers then why are they going to buy it. Invest in some good quality car care products, set aside a Saturday afternoon and give your car a good clean before you list it for sale.

Car Selling Tips #3: Pay to Advertise

Take it from someone who was once offered a used jet ski in exchange for a Mazda RX8 on gumtree — pay the money to list your car. It may seem annoying, but it won’t be half as annoying as fielding phone calls from tyre kickers looking to see if you want to trade your car for their 1997 WRX with a $4 STI badge stuck on the back.

Local Classifieds are great for listing smaller items for sale, but when it comes to selling your major investments such as your car- spending a little up front will save you a lot in the long run.  For the small outlay, you’ll get greater coverage and can be sure that your car is going to be seen by people who are genuinely in the market.

Car Selling Tips #4: Be Honest

If there’s a scratch down the side panel- don’t mislead the buyer with a false description. You’ve got to expect that the prospective buyer is going to go over the car with a fine tooth comb, so there’s no point in lying about what kind of condition it is in- be honest and make sure that your price reflects anything that will need to be fixed for the new owner.

Car Selling Tips #5: Service Before The Sale

If your car is coming up for its next service, save the new owner some time and get the service done ahead of the sale. This means three things;

• The prospective buyer is going to know that you’ve taken care of your car and have never missed a service.
• A car that is ready to drive with an up to date service history is far more appealing.
• A recently serviced car is worth more to the buyer.

Car Selling Tips #6: Always Ride Along on Test Drives

 It doesn’t matter how trustworthy the person seems- at the end of the day you don’t want to let them out of your sight  with no collateral to show for it. If you search, ‘Help! My Car was Stolen on the Test Drive’, you’ll see just a few of the horror stories of people having their cars stolen when they let someone drive off for a test drive.

If the person seems like they’re not a genuine buyer- don’t take them for a test drive. If they don’t seem like they’re there for the right reason, politely thank them for coming to look at your car and let them know that you don’t want to take them for a test drive.

Car Selling Tips #7 : No Payment, No Car

So you’ve come to a deal- Congratulations! The final step is perhaps the most important step in selling your car privately- making sure that you’re receiving a genuine payment. There’s really only three ways to receive payment for your car;

1. Bank Cheque
2. Cash
3. Direct Cash Transfer

Until you receive the money in your hand or the money has cleared in your bank account your car still isn’t sold. You may be inclined to trust the person you’ve just spent a few hours with selling your car but the deal isn’t done until money has changed hands. Don’t let the new owner drive away without having payment cleared and titles signed- you may be risking your car if you do.