For every driver, there comes a time when you will need to sell your car. Whether you plan to trade it in for a newer model or just sell your spare vehicle, the time will come for you to finally say, “I need to sell my car.” If you are ready to part ways with the vehicle that has been sitting in your driveway or garage for years to give it a new life with a new owner, just know there is a recipe to successfully sell your car to get what it’s worth, and we'll divulge these secrets just for you. So when the time comes, remember to do these five things before listing your car to maximize its worth.
#1 Choose Your Selling Method
There are actually a variety of ways you can sell your vehicle based on the amount of time and effort you are able to dedicate to finding a new home for your car. Traditionally, many drivers choose to trade in their vehicle and put it towards the purchase of a new one. However, if you don’t need a new car, you have the option to sell it directly to a dealer or take the responsibility into your own hands and sell the vehicle yourself. Both of which come with their pros and cons.
Going the dealer route, whether it's a trade-in or selling directly for cash, is typically the simplest choice. Selling a car can be time-consuming and often mentally exhausting. From preparation to listing it to advertising and then meeting and bargaining with potential buyers, there’s a lot more to the selling process than just putting a "for sale” sign on the window and waiting for someone to bite.
Some people prefer to do the work themselves, hoping to get more from the sale that way; however, time is valuable and investing it in the car-selling process can often produce less than spectacular results if you are not experienced in selling vehicles. If you’re looking for a quick and easy sale, sell it to a dealer like us and we'll take on the burden of finding a new owner for you. If you prefer to do it all on your own, that's fine too. No matter which method you choose, you’ll still have a little bit of work you’ll need to do to seal the deal and get the most from your sale. Preparation is key when deciding to handle the duties normally delegated to a dealer.
#2 Determine Your Selling Price
Once you have figured out which selling method works best for you and your goals for selling your car, the next thing you want to do is study the market. As much as your vehicle may seem worth to you, the market value may not agree. This is why you need to research what your make and model is going for around your area.
Researching local used car dealerships and even websites like Kelley Blue Book and local online marketplaces is a great place to start to get an idea of your car's value. This allows you to generate a fair and reasonable price range that you are willing to sell your car for, whether as a trade or for cash from a dealer or private sale. However, if you know you want to sell your car to a dealer, get an accurate estimate of its value. Although we still encourage you to investigate what models similar to yours are selling for so you know you are getting a fair deal, your best bet is to go straight to your chosen dealership.
Another thing to consider while researching the market for your car’s selling price is where models like yours are selling. If you plan on trying to sell your heavy-duty, full-size pickup privately in the city you live in, and you see that the few trucks like yours that are listed for sale on the internet in your area have been listed for a while, possibly even with decreased sale prices, you may not want to advertise it there due to lack of demand. You may find that listing it in the rural areas around the heart of the city you reside in can get you better results. Understanding your potential customer demographic may generate potential areas you can list your vehicle on. Try to think beyond just your town or city. You may need to expand your selling radius in order to attract a buyer.
Dealerships also come with some factors to consider before agreeing to sell to them. If you browse through the inventory on their website and find they are stocked with many models like yours, you might not want to sell to them. They’ll likely buy from you, but perhaps not at the price you were hoping for. To get the most from your sale, research the market.
#3 Prepare Your Car for the Sale
No matter which method you choose to sell your car, you will need to do some prep-work before the sale. From the squealing brakes to the squeaky door to even just a deep cleaning to the interior and exterior, you will want to make sure your vehicle is presentable and in good working order to get what your car is worth. That is unless you are willing to accept less than its market value, but let's be honest, you hope to make a profit, right? Of course.
One of the benefits of selling to a dealership, whether as a trade-in or for cash, is that you can skip some of the preparation if you want to. Most dealerships are going to perform a thorough inspection, make repairs, and do a full detailing to your car before they sell it to another buyer. If you wanted to replace the headlight that was out and only do light cleaning to the interior and exterior, or just skip it all completely, a dealer will still likely buy it from you, just at a lower price than if you had fixed the obvious issues and gotten it detailed yourself. If you choose not to clean your vehicle at all and put it out for sale yourself with a headlight out, with a dirty exterior, and an interior that looks like you shaved your dog in the back seat, potential buyers will hassle you on the price, and unless you are willing to take less than its worth, you are going to have a lot of people pass on the sale. To put it simply—you're going to get out what you put into it.
Whether you sell your car yourself or to a dealership, what you will need to do is clean out all of your personal belongings and remove your personal information from the car completely. This includes removing anything from the vehicle you don’t want the next owner to have. Whether it be your roadside emergency kit in the back or anything you may have lost in the storage compartments throughout the cabin over the years, if it's important, make sure it's out of the car. Most importantly, make sure you remove any paperwork from the vehicle with your personal information.
The last thing you need to do in preparation for selling your car, which is just as crucial as removing your physical imprint from the car, is removing your digital footprint. This includes wiping the history from your vehicle’s navigation, deleting your cell phone’s connected information with your saved contacts, and even canceling or transferring any subscriptions like satellite radio. Once your car is clear of all the signs of your ownership, you are ready for everyone's least favorite part of the car selling process.
#4 Gather Paperwork
Gathering the paperwork to sell your car sounds easier than it is, especially if you have never sold a vehicle before. Get yourself prepared to do some research and hunting because unless you plan on selling to a dealership, the whole paperwork process is in your hands. Although some of the documents we’re going to recommend are not required to complete a sale, they will make your vehicle more appealing to potential buyers, which in turn could get you more money than if you didn’t have them.
If your vehicle is still covered under an extended warranty and you are selling privately, it’s good to have the details and proof of the warranty handy for your potential buyers. It will not only increase the value of your vehicle and make it more appealing than other vehicles being sold privately but having the information will make it easier for them when they need to make a claim under warranty. Dealerships usually have access to look up any warranty information on your vehicle, but it won’t hurt to bring it along if you have it handy.
The universal piece of paperwork needed for any car sale is a vehicle’s title since it is documentation of the vehicle’s legal owner. With any car sale, you will need a transfer of title. Some states do not require a title to sell a car once it has reached a certain age, but Texas is not one of them. The state even recommends that if you sell your car privately, to visit them at the county tax office and make sure they file for the transfer of title. By doing this, you cannot be held liable for tolls, parking tickets, or even crimes that the buyer committed in your vehicle. Dealerships are not required to transfer the title in their name when buying your vehicle. It is recommended that even if you sell to a dealer, you file for a Vehicle Transfer Notification. This ensures that once the dealer does sell your car to someone, you are protected against violations committed by whoever bought your car and failed to transfer the title into their name.
A sales contract like a bill of sale is another piece of documentation commonly used with car sales. In the pile of paperwork that gets put in front of you at a dealership when you buy, sell, or trade-in a vehicle of the documents requiring your signature is usually some sort of sales contract. But when you’re handling the sale of your car on your own, you are in charge of getting all the paperwork together and ready for your buyer.
#5 List Your Car for Sale
Now that you have your selling price in mind, your car is prepped, you’ve cleaned the vehicle and made any necessary repairs, or not, and you’ve gathered all of the paperwork you need, you are ready to list your vehicle for sale. Take a few pictures of your car's interior and exterior, put together a detailed description of the vehicle, slap the “for sale” sign in the window, and list it online. It is good practice to list your car for sale on many platforms or websites to reach as many people as possible. But if you’re selling to a dealership, all you need to do is shop around for the dealer who will offer you the most for your vehicle.
Ready to Sell Your Car?
When you are ready to sell your car, we here at North Park Chevrolet in Castroville, TX will make selling your car easy for you. Not only will we take care of most of the daunting paperwork for you, but we can even give you an estimate for your car without bringing it to us. Today’s technology has allowed us to make the process simpler than ever. All you need to do is text us a few pictures of the interior and exterior of the car, send us the VIN number, its current mileage, and let us know if there are any cosmetic or mechanical issues we should know about and we’ll let you know what your vehicle is worth. So when you are ready to sell your car, you should not only consider making the process easier for yourself by selling to a dealership but consider letting us make selling to a dealer even simpler.
