[ONTARIO] Getting ready to sell my 2012 Prius C... any advice?

Well the circumstances that dragged me into car ownership have evaporated as of September. I changed my field of employment to IT, and I'm now living and working in downtown Toronto. My car sometimes sits for weeks unused at a time. I even had some repair costs on my last maintenance service that are typical of underutilized cars. In the 5 years I've owned it, it hasn't even seen 40,000 km. I pay monthly for insurance and parking that I'm not using and I want out of car ownership.

So off I go towards my final Prius C adventure: selling the damn thing. Dealerships don't want it unless I'm trading in for something new, which I'm obviously not doing. Nobody in the family wants it. So I guess that means posting an ad and selling to a stranger.

Any advice? I have this sense of dread that it'll be a lot of work and kind of demoralizing.

 

Thanks for the advice. Regarding service records, I did write down in my owner's manual which dealers I took it to from which regular services at which kms, but no signatures. Is there a printed record I can get from Toyota?

I see there's also a few of these "sell my car quickly" companies in town. I wonder how much of a hit I'd take on the sale price if I went with that. I might consider the difference in cost to be worth the reduction in hassle.

 

I think Kelley and Carmax are US things. There are CDN equivalents to Kelley. I think there is no real CarMax equivalent, just some newer local businesses. For example there is one I spotted at: Sell My Car Toronto, Ontario - Sell Your Car For Cash

And I do not love dealing with people especially buying/selling. I found the whole experience of buying the car in the first place in 2012 to be really stressful. Had to get a friend to hold my hand throughout the whole process and keep me calm. I honestly never wanted to own a car at all but I got a job that made it pretty lousy not to have one. That job only lasted a year, and the last time in my life when having a car was more help than hindrance ended a year ago.

Over the past year I've spent $900 on maintenance services, $1600 on insurance and $1200 on home parking for a hardly used car. For that money I could get pretty good value out of a car sharing membership.

Sigh, used car sales guys make me want to vomit.

Overall the crux of my problem is that getting out of car ownership puts me through all the stuff I really hate doing.

 

Honestly the universities near enough for me to do so are very transit oriented. I'd be very surprised to see students in the market for a car. There's a more suburban one but I don't have the time to go up there.

I did have one recall during the lifetime of the car and got that serviced.

 

Well, it's up now on AutoTrader and Kijiji. Fingers crossed.

 

Well it's done. Ended up getting $11500 Canadian for it, including winter tires on rims. I could have pushed a bit harder but once I got close enough to my "okay number" I didn't have the energy to stick it out any longer.

And just in time for the new month. I won't have to pay $100 for parking!

So... this is my farewell to fellow Priites. However during the time I owned this car my Mom bought a 2016 or 2017 Prius V, and my Dad just got the 2018 Prius (dumped a BMW for it!). So I might still pop in from time to time.