Selling my Prius

Edmunds.com has a decent system where you can put in all your cars info and it'll give you rough prices to work with.

 

You can price it via kbb.com and edmunds.com. With other cars, I've found KBB to be optimistically high and edmunds to be low. Autotrader.com will give you an idea of what other cars are being offered for. Remember, you can always lower the price in negotiation.

You wouldn't be interested in a trade for an 07 Subaru Outback plus cash, eh?

 

Since you inappropriately posted this "for sale" here, I will tell you it ain't worth a plugged nickel.

 

He's considering selling it and wants advice, it appears. Think you kneejerk/missjudged his post....

 

The best route partly depends on your appetite for work and/or risk. Some folks get a better price by selling it themselves, rather than selling to a used car dealer. But they have to do the advertising, check out buyers, etc., PLUS,
Your car is valuable enough that a lot of prospective buyers will need to get financing. I don't know whether and how banks deal with folks buying cars from private parties. Can anyone else help here?

If your buyer cannot pay cash, then you have to deal with the possibility of taking payments from the buyer, which obviously carries the risk that the buyer will default--in which case you may have to take the car back, perhaps after it has been wrecked.
Do you want to deal with this?

This is why a lot of folks may want to sell to a used car dealer. You can shop your car around, the same way you would shop as a buyer. I've seen it said that a Toyota dealer may pay more for a used Toyota in good condition than another random used car dealer. I don't know how true this is--can anyone else help?

Finally, the conventional wisdom--borne out by research--is that you should not negotiate trade in as part of a purchase of a new car. The research shows you should either sell the car in a different transaction, or bring up trade in only after agreeing on the price of the new car--that way you can see what you are really getting in trade, and compare it to other offers to buy.

 

Price it $500 over the lowest you will take for it

Check edmunds, kbb, nadaguides and more with all the correct trim/options put in

you could do spreadsheet of similarly listed cars, get an average of price/miles/year

I did best with Craigslist - I got a good couple, nice people willing to pay my price on 1st of Jan. this year before the earthquake in Japan.

A $30 ad on autotrader didn't do me much good except for a bogus call from a reseller out of town and a young dude (who wanted test out the pickup here and there) with brother and father offering $2k under what I'd take.

The couple that bought my car - all the lady wanted to do was drive it around a parking lot. Of course I drove it out to the business area on New year's eve day .... that's a good day to try 'n sell a car. People shop for cars on New Year's Eve.

 

Around here, the dealers are using Galves for pricing trade-ins and their prices are low.

 

I'm curious as to why you are selling. As someone who is looking to buy in the next few weeks- wondering if there is something you didn't like about it.

 

I have add the best luck with Craigslist. Including a car that high enough of a value that the guy needed financing. Since I'm not a bank, I told him, I would only take cash/check at the bank with him and that he would need to work out a loan situation on his own with a bank of his choice.
Also, I had a few buyers wanting to get the car inspected before making an offer. I insisted on going to the actual dealership/service for it to be checked out. I didn't want any joeshmoe mechanic friend of theirs on some random street corner messing around the mechanics of my car. Trust issues and most people understood this
Disclaimer: this was back in 06. Not sure if things have changed.

I also am curious as to why you are selling it. Just like Mike I'm looking to purchase one in the next few weeks.

 

Go on eBay and do a search for Prius. Then go to the advanced tab and click "completed listings." That will show you which ones actually sold and for how much.

If you do this, I'd also recommend you set the price you are searching for to something like over $10,000 so that will weed out accessory listings.