How to get the most money for your used car

This article explains how to get the most money for your used car.  In the end, I sold my car for an additional $5,000 to a private party ($11,400) over the trade-in price ($6,400).  This article also provides helpful tips to streamline and ensure the safest transaction possible.

You are likely wondering how much effort and extra cost I had put in?  For me, this equated to about 20 hours of effort and extra $115 to prepare my car for the private party sale.  

Was it worth it for the additional $5,000?  Yes!!!  The best part was that I received my full asking price while securing a sale in only 1 day of listing.

Background

The big motivation to sell my car was that I had a new Tesla Y on the way (see 5 Reasons why I bought a Tesla Y). The timing was right to test out a hot used car market (see ‘Bubblicious’ used car prices are rising faster than bitcoin).

With my previous cars, I have always opted the trade-in route to the dealership as it was the fastest and easiest “no hassle” transaction. However, the trade-off was leaving money on the table and not getting top dollar.  

This was slightly offset by saving on the state sales tax.  As an example, my state’s sales tax is 6.875%.  By trading in a $10,000 car, this would represent another $687 in savings.

Lastly, I knew I had a gem on my hands.  Although my car was 11-years old and had over 90,000 miles, it was nearly in perfect condition with no accidents and no mechanical issues.  My Infiniti G37X Sport was well-taken care of and the next owner will be able to get more many years of enjoyment.

Preparing the Sale

Finding your Vehicle’s Worth

This was a surprising easy and fast step to complete over the internet.  As a tip, the first thing you should do is find your car’s original paperwork with the options listed.

I skipped this initial step and had to guess on the car packages (advanced, premium, sport, etc).  By including some options like the rear spoiler and navigation system, I actually found this made a difference bumping up my car price another $400-500.

The website you should visit is Kelly Blue Book (www.kbb.com).  You will need your vehicle year, model, mileage, zip code and car condition as well as providing the additional options as mentioned above.  You will then be able to get the price range for Trade-in and Private Party sale.

Getting your best trade-in quote

The next step is to get the best trade-in price for your used car.  If you do end up trading in your car, this step can hopefully get you the most money with minimal effort.

As for my situation, Telsa was willing to take my car for about $6400.  This required taking a few pictures, collecting the odometer reading, and inputting similar information as the Kelly Blue Book site. 

For comparison purposes, I recommend checking out competitive sites for an apple to apple trade-in quote.

In a few minutes, I was able to get quotes from Carvana, CarMax, and Vroom.  The range was pretty drastic receiving the highest offer from CarMax ($8,400), mid offer from Carvana ($6,767) and not so great offer from Vroom ($5,842).

According to Kelly Blue Book, the optimal trade-in was $8,368- $9,992.  Private Party sales range from $10,024- $12,064.

If any of the trade-in quotes were close to the $10k range, I probably would have stopped here and not pursued the private party sale route.   

The next section details the steps I went through to prepare the car for a private party sale.

Preparing for a Private Party Sale

Cleaning your car

Consider detailing the inside of your car as well as getting a good wash for the exterior. Putting yourself in the buyer’s shoes, who wouldn’t want to see a nice clean car?

Although my interior was relatively clean, I opted to do a $80 interior detail by a local company who dusted, washed the mats, wiped down the seats and cleaned the windows.  

Lastly, I ran the car through a gas station wash for $10 prior to taking photos.

Taking Photos of your vehicle

During the weekend, I took my car to a school parking lot for a photoshoot session.  I choose a big open lot as I ended up needing to re-position the car to capture the best pictures in the sunlight.

As a tip, take tons of photos including multiple angles of the car, tires, doors open, engine, trunk, features you want to highlight, dashboard, conditions of seats, etc.  The listing site I used allowed 25 pictures.

If you have scrapes, door dings, etc, these are also good items to document as this will ultimately help you in the future. By disclosing issues ahead of time, the buyers will not have any surprises when they see your vehicle in person.

Gathering the necessary paperwork

Check out your state’s DMV site to ensure you have the proper paperwork to complete the sale.  For my state, the main requirement was the certificate of title.  Since I initially financed the car, I also needed the lien that showed completion of payments.

As a tip, it was handy to have the latest maintenance record to show the buyer.  This helped solidify the asking price by showing the car had a clean bill of health.  

Listing your Car

There are many articles that offer recommendations for used vehicle listing sites (see The 10 Best Used Car Sites to Buy and Sell).

Ultimately, I choose 2 options to pursue: CarGurus.com and Autotrader.com.  I was attracted to CarGurus for their secure payment and messaging.  I also wanted to try Autotrader as they had a trade-in option if I was not able to sell my car quickly via the private party sale route.

Due to a website crashing issue, I was not able to list my car at Autotrader. Hence, CarGurus was the primary site I used. The actual time to post the car was fairly fast (30 minutes) as I had the car photos ready, vin info, and option information gathered earlier.

The price to list my car on CarGurus was $4.95 (a real deal!).  I upgraded my car listing to a ‘featured listing’ for $19.99 to gather additional views.  

As a tip, check out similar listings to your car to determine your price.  I did not do this step and likely left money on the table. 

Due to the “bubblicious” used car market, many cars were listed above the Kelly Blue Book private party price.  Instead of following this approach, I took CarGurus recommendation to list my car $500 less in order to get the ‘Good Deal’ rating.

In the first 30 minutes, I had 4 inquiries on the car requesting test drives and 8 inquires total on my first day.  Even after locking in a handshake deal with a buyer 1 day later, I had a steady stream of other buyers inquiring about my car. 

For this reason, I believe I could have listed my car even higher due to the strong demand.

One of the strategies I did was to message all the potential buyers saying that I would not negotiate the price and that I would like to complete the transaction in 2 weeks or less. All of the buyers responded back that they were agreeable to these terms.

I ended up contacting the first buyer to setup the test drive as they were the quickest to respond.

Setting up the Test Drive

Following the recommendation of other articles with safety in mind (see How to Safely Sell Your Car), I met my potential buyer (Charity) and her husband at a local Target parking lot with my Dad there also.  

It was a straight forward process as the potential buyer examined my car and took it for a short test drive. They were happy about the clean bill of health as well as the transparency about a future transmission fluid flush recommendation by the dealer.

As good karma, these buyers also owned a Tesla.  I was able to ask them a bunch of questions and received good tips for my future Tesla.

I was happy that I had messaged these buyers previously about not negotiating the price.  This definitely sped up the process as all that was left was to setup a time and date to transfer the car title.

As suggested by the buyer, they provided a check deposit for $300 to hold the car. If they backed out for any reason, I would then cash in the check.

Watch out for Suspicious Buyers

There was a very aggressive out-of-state buyer (Rob) as one of the potential buyers.  He was eager to test drive the car, and willing to drive out over the weekend (8 hour drive).  When I mentioned that I had arranged a test drive with another buyer, Rob messaged me to wait as he would drive out right away.

After declining to wait for Rob, he proceeded to message me every 30 minutes stating his location and his ETA.  In his last message, he even shared a picture with a handful of cash.

This aggressive behavior definitely turned me off. I was also wondering if the buyer had nefarious plans for my car due to his all-cash offer. 

The best advice I read was that if you do not feel comfortable with a buyer at any step, do not proceed forward for your own safety. 

Transferring the Title

The final step was meeting the buyers at the DMV to complete the title transfer.

I had read horror stories of not completing this part of the sale (see What is Title Jumping and is it Illegal).  

The DMV person mentioned this could result in small liability issues (parking tickets in your name) as well as big liability issues if the title never gets transferred.

Conducting the Payment Transaction

The CarGurus payment transaction was super nifty.  After agreeing upon the price ($11,400), CarGurus walked both Charity and myself through the remaining steps to complete the sale.

Prior to meeting at the DMV, both the buyer and seller provides their banking information to CarGurus secure payment system. Once the title is transferred over to the buyer, CarGurus will then send the final payment to the seller.

The secure transaction is included in the $5 listing fee and added piece of mind for me as the seller (not needing to deal with cash or personal check) as well as convenience for the buyer.

Sensitive information shared between you and your buyer

CarGurus can keep your identity safe for the initial stages.  However, I did find personal information such as your address and name will be shared when you transfer the title.

Due to this information being shared, think back to the advice about not proceeding forward if you do not feel comfortable about the buyer.

Just imagine if you sold your car to a sketchy person and having them appear at your door in the future.  Maybe I have watched too many horror movies, but this could definitely be a nightmarish scenario.

If you are skirmish about this, the safest route is to go down the trade-in route. This takes you out of the picture and the dealer is responsible for the future sale.

Suspending your insurance

After transferring the title to the new buyer, I put in a quick call to my insurance company.  The process they recommended was to suspend my insurance.  

This would enable me to stop payments, however all the good driving discounts (see State Farm Drive Safe & Save Review: Is it Worth it) and my accident forgiveness would transfer over.

Summary

This article explained how to get the most money for your used car.  I was elated to get more than $5,000 over the original trade-in quote by Tesla.  The effort was 20 hours total and cost an extra $115 which was not bad at all.

In summary, here are the key highlights to get the most money for your used car:

• Gather all paperwork ahead of time such as the car options and title
• Utilize Kelly Blue Book to know your vehicle’s value
• Check out sites like Carvana and CarMax who can give you competitive trade-in quotes.  If I had sold my car as a trade-in, I would have netted about $2,000 over the Tesla Trade-in with just a few minutes of effort.
• Have a strategy for your listing site. I give CarGurus high marks as it was quick (1 day of listing) and seamless (secure payment).
• Always keep your guard up and protect yourself with the safest measures as there are sketchy people out there.

As for overall strategy, my recommendation is to first get the highest trade-in quote.  You can then compare the delta between this and the private party price to determine if its worth your time and effort.  

The delta was significant for me and fortunately everything worked out very smoothly for me.

Happy Selling and Good Luck!

About DadMBA: Through his schooling (he does have a MBA) & more importantly being a Dad, he has provided practical advice to family & friends on finances & other life topics.  He loves helping others thus the creation of DadMBA.