Few years after buying a car, the owner stops looking at it as a lifeless vehicle, a mere tool for getting around. He begins to see it as his buddy. The buddy ship hurts when he realizes that it’s time to send the car to the junkyard.
First he hesitates, but then he picks up the phone (reluctantly), and gives a call to a towing service. He shouldn’t.
Used car market
Used cars have an excellent market. And it is getting bigger every day, inasmuch as startups never stop jumping on the bandwagon. The chief reason many buyers prefer those cars is they come dirt cheap. As for quality, most buyers have realistic expectations. They don’t expect the car to last for a lifetime.
To strike gold in this market, you need to follow a few strategies, which will ease the whole process without hurting your finances. Here are some of them:
Frugal advertising
Don’t go for a newspaper ad because such ads are quite expensive. You want to earn money without investing anything, right? Print ads will make you pay. Advertising online, on the other hand, won’t cost you a dime, yet help you find potential buyers.
Post photos of your car on Facebook, Craigslist and on buying and selling websites. Statistics says buyers click more on posts with pictures. Clean up your car and make it look shiny before the photo-shoot.
Word-of-mouth advertising may also help. Tell your friends that you want to sell your car. They may find you a buyer. In one of my previous articles, I discussed the ways your online friends can save you money. The referral link was one of those ways. You can use it to sell off your car.
Right price
Wondering how’d you know the right price? I strongly recommend you to take help of online car valuation tools. Such tools ask owners for plenty of details regarding their cars such as year of manufacturing, make, model, etc.
You have to reveal everything about your car including the engine type, the transmission, braking and traction, steering options, safety and security features, roof and glass type (sliding or flip up), exterior material, etc.
Based on inputs given, online tools calculate the price of a used car. While you use such tools, check classified section of the newspaper everyday and the local sales listing for the asking price demanded by people, who want to sell their cars. This will give you an idea.
Car flipping
Some dismiss it as a sham. But it’s not. Car flipping relies on some secret arts. Once you master those arts, you can buy a car today and sell it tomorrow, and make money from the deal.
Unlike selling the car upfront, which is an old school strategy with nothing new to it, car flipping requires you to work on the car. Investment? Affordable, if you opt for DIY. And the return would be worth it. Restoration cost depends on factors like the car model’s popularity, and whether it’s imported.
Don’t compromise on the price because a restored car can be sold at a decent price. When negotiating, don’t go below 20% of the original market price. A lot depends on how you restore the car. A handy and neat restoration work can fetch you many buyers.
Auto recyclers
If you don’t have time to restore the car, and don’t get any buyer from online ad posting, go for the third option; sell the car to an auto recycling agency. A regular car has 65% steel. The steel is used by recyclers after they shred the car, and saves more than 8 million tonnes of steel every year.
Plastic is one among many components of the rest 35% as it is used in the bumper, dashboard, seat-belt, airbags and carpeting fabric. Plastic has petroleum in it, and that’s why recyclers sell the plastic-made components to those, who produce petroleum by burning those components.
Recyclers pick up cars from for free and offer a cash payment. The key benefit of selling the car to a recycler is he can buy the car for its individual parts separately, which are still functional, meaning no matter how bad is the condition of your car, you can always sell it off.
Sell the license plate
The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) mandates all former owners to remove their license plate after selling their vehicles, and the new owners to pay for a new registration number.
While most states require the owner to return the license plate, some states like North Dakota and Wisconsin allow him to keep it to himself, which means he can later sell the plate as an antic.
He Just needs to make sure the buyer doesn’t put it on his car as that’s illegal. It’s fine if someone buys the plate only to decorate his garage. The more attractive is the number-letter combo on the plate, the more lucrative is the deal.