So you have just purchased a new vehicle and you are ready to say goodbye to your old car, you've only ever put the best fuel and oils in it, you've kept it clean and tidy and had it serviced and treated well it's life.
You're car has served you well and has a lot of life left in it, so it should definitely fetch a good amount right? Wrong!
I recently sold my bundle of joy which I had for 6 years, and purchased when she was about 6 years old. My Pulsar SSS 2000 model was in pristine condition, I swallowed my pride and put the mere price of $5,500 on her, a STEAL! No enquiries. After a month I beat myself up and figured the price had to drop down, so I went to $4,500, this was a really cheap price for an amazing car and also the cheapest 2000 SSS advertised online! No one came to look at her, I spent money advertising on carsales.com and had her up on Gumtree, the only enquiries I had were people offering me 2000 or less that hadn't even looked at the car, when it comes to buying used cars, people don't care about you, they are looking to rip you off and get the best deal they can. Eventually I had massive conflict within myself and dropped it down to $3,500. This was really hard as I knew I could never get such a great, well taken care of and reliable car for anywhere near that price, the offers remained the same. In the end, just yesterday I let her go for only $2600.
Sadly, regardless how well you take care of your car, people will force themselves to believe your vehicle has been treated badly. One thing I had against me was location, all my offers where from people in Sydney, and maybe had I lived in Sydney I would have been able to show the car off and made a little more cash, ironically it was the first person who actually took the car for a drive who paid cash straight up.
Selling my car was extremely stressful for me and assuming you are reading this, chances are you are having a hard time selling your car. My best advice would be to take what you can get and not get upset with stupid offers. It is much easier than stressing out about people trying to rip you off and trying to sell it for months. For a few thousand dollars? Money comes and goes and really not worth the stress and worrying. If you really don't want to see your car go, perhaps you could offer it to a relative in need, or give it to a good cause.
Now I'm not saying you can't sell your second hand car for what you think it is worth, but chances are by the time you do, you have invested enough time, money, energy and stress that it probably would have been easier to go work a second job and make the money that way instead!
Now that you've read all that and probably in disbelief your car is actually worth closer to the stupid offers you've just deleted without thought, think of the reason you are wanting to sell your car and is it worth it.
For me personally, my partner and I both purchased a Toyota Landcruiser Troop Carrier converted into a motorhome (As you can see this is an Aussie travel blog!) and we don't need our cars, to leave my car parked up at home with insurance and rego would set me back about $1500 - $2000 a year, so I'm looking it at in that way too. Keeping a car can cost more than the small sale price if you don't need it!
If you are looking at selling as you want to purchase a new car then think about the reasons you want to buy a new car, is it for practicality, like a utility for work or larger car for family, or is it because you want something faster, shinier and cooler? If the latter think is it worth it if your car sells for barely anything?
New cars are much cheaper and easier to acquire now than 10 or even 5 years ago, which is good for getting that new shiny car, but again, makes it a lot harder to sell that car that's a few years old.
In the end you need to do what you feel is right, but just weigh up if money is worth the stress!
- Cameron
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