Prius Sale Question

The only cars that I ever sold are the ones that near death so I don't have experience in selling cars this new. You could use kbb.com to check what your car is worth and see if carmax.com would pay you at least close to the value.

 

i sell mine at a little gas station up the street. the owner shows them and does test drives. if it sells, he gets $300., a lot of people come thru and cars sell fast because they trust the opinion of the owner. it's a win-win.

 

I've sold my old cars on Craigslist and based the price from kbb.com.

 

Set up a throw-away email address (some folks also like to get a throw-away cell phone number, too) and put an ad on Craigslist. Have potential buyers meet you at a public location. If you don't find any live buyers in a few days, pay for an ad on autotrader.

 

Craigslist with lots of verbiage and pictures. People dont have time to piss around with partial half arse postings. I have sold several cars on craigslist within 48 hours of posting them. Its just a matter of details and pictures. Those who call then will be serious buyers

 

The best way to show your car to a prospective buyer is during normal hours at their bank or credit union's parking lot. Bring a friend - they might show up with friends too. A test drive should just be you and the prospective buyer. Hopefully their bank's lot has surveillance cameras. If they like the car, funds are readily available from them and verifiable too. Good luck.
I assume you have clear title to your Prius?

 

I see lots of suggestions from paranoid folks getting throwaway emails and phone numbers and meeting in public. The title will have your full name and address so its not like you can hide once they've bought the car.

 

Pictures are worth thousands of words. I usually max out the allowed pictures in Craigslist and then add more pictures using photo sharing sites like Flixster. Other people I know post a video in YouTube and link it to their Craigslist post.

 

You could do what Edmunds does with their long term cars; they get a quote from a local CarMax store and then try to sell for a higher price. If you have no takers, you have a certain period they will honor their quote.

 

We're looking to buy a second Prius, used, low miles. We live in SF Bay Area though. If price is right, we'd consider coming to OC.

 

Carmax with give you a written offer to buy your car. Your local dealer will buy it also, they are always looking for a low mileage car. Nada or KBB will get you a number of it's worth. Post it around town...........

 

Craigslist.

 

Cars.com

 

Yes Cars.com and Autotrader too

 

Sold my 2 1/2 year old 2009 Prius Jan '11, private. Scary but got through it. My opinion:

Cragislist was great. Autotrader sucked. Paid $30 to get it in Autotrader, that got me a robocall from outfit in Vegas(?) that wanted to buy it. whut?

Had to repost on Craigslist, but when I did, got 2 calls the same day, 2nd caller ended up the buyers, 60 y/o couple, homeowners, super nice people, paid exactly what I was asking.

When you sell, get paid with cashiers check. When you get the check number, call the issuing bank / inst, verify they issued that check number. A real cashier's check is secured funds. They may need a couple days to get a check. Mine left deposit on New Year's eve. Had to wait til Monday, but they came back on Monday with check and got the car.

What else ... try to avoid the test driver that wants to take your car out and 'see what it'll do'. That happened more or less with first party. Me in fr passenger's seat, his dad and brother in back. Dude kept gassing it to see the pickup. Made me nervous driving back to house. Then offered max of $2k less than my asking. Kindly informed him he needed either one with more miles, or lower trim level.

2012, that's quick turnaround, but you may be pleasantly surprised to find a good buyer who would rather buy from a private party because they don't want to deal with a dealer. ...

That's how it was with the couple that bought mine.

 

I 2nd the idea of having tons of pictures.

Last year I needed to sell a 6 year old road bicycle that was not a popular model. Took something like 3 or 4 weeks but the difference was putting up really good pics and lots of them.

Prius is much easier to sell than a 6 y/o bicycle. More compicated, but will move quicker.

One more thing ..... Seem to recall it mentioned to price the car $500 more than the lowest I would take. Asked $18.5k, my lowest was $18k, but they didn't know that. Got 18.5

 

I sold on Craigslist and eBay. If you list locally on eBay it is free. If you do a regular listing it is just $100 if it sell. If it doesn't, it's free. I would get a throw away email and phone number. There are a lot of spammers and you don't want to get calls in the middle of the night. Gmail and Google voice is what I use. You can it forward the calls to your phone so they do not know your real number.

It took me awhile to sell my car, but ended up selling on Craigslist. I posted in several cities close by. So, OC, LA, San Diego, and Bay Area. A guy from the Bay Area ended up flying to SD to buy my car and drive it up.

 

I have always sold my cars within 2-4 weeks at the end of my drive way. Check all sites for a fair price. My drive way is on a busy county road, so may not work for you if you are on a less traveled road! Some times if you ask nice! and if you are a regular customer of there's!, Mac & Don's, Hardee's, Wendy's places like this will let you put your car on the lot in a out of the way place. Esp. if you are really friendly!