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Stories from the Sales Frontlines
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No one called me at odd hours. Test drives were calm. I got my asking price the majority of the time and never had a ridiculous low ball offer.
I understand folks not wanting to take the chance or not wanting to take the time and energy but I take exception to the "negatives far outnumber the positives" claim.
I've saved a fair chunk of money doing it this way too... even in Washington state where the trade-in costs can be deducted on the sale to save on sales tax. As I said, maybe I'm just lucky.
You break me up!
For do it yourself car sellers I saw a few Nigerian businessman scams too. They usually want to buy your car sight unseen. I know the people here are much too smart to get taken in by these guys, but somebody must get taken in, or they wouldn't be doing it.
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
I know the sales people here have told stories of customers who buy without a test drive but on a used car???
I think it was a reenactment. I don't know if the real thieves would have allowed a recording to be put on the internet.
I don't even know if it has been done, but they show how it could be. People have even sold property to many people.
I have sold a few cars privately and it all went well. The bigger risk is usually with the buyer. He doesn't always know if everything is legit. I'm not against selling privately, I just don't care to do it...it just isn't worth the aggravation and possible risk to me.
What if the transmission falls out when the buyer is one block away, and he comes back and torches your house, and makes threatening phone calls? Nah, just joking, but who needs more complications in their life?
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
One was a restored 1965 Mustang Convertable I bought from a neighbor who had to move suddenly. I had no worries.
The other was a Miata. This Miata had been babied as no other car could have been. I went to look at it on a dark, rainy night and I didn't want to take it out of his garage. Next day I gave him the cash and drove it home.
The car in that clip was so new, and the price so ridiculously low I probably wouldn't have driven it either.
I've had quite a few customers do the same thing.
" It's a two year old Honda why should I bother driving it? I've had five Hondas and I know how they drive!"
In that case, I'll tell them that I will drive it with them in it, at least around the block.
It may be within your acceptable limits but not mine. If I had a car doing that I would dump it in a heartbeat !!
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Then you would never own a Mazda RX-7 or a Cadillac with a Northstar engine.
These use oil by design.
I have to admit this but in my Hondas, I might check the oilo once between changes and it's never low but I really should check it more often.
According to the industry standards that I have heard, a quart every 1000 miles is within specs.
All cars use SOME oil. They have to.
We once had a Ford Station Wagon with the 390 engine. We kept that car for seven years. It ran like a top all of the time.
From the day we got it, it would use a quart of oil betweed 1000 and 1200 miles.
It didn't smoke and it didn't leak. It simply went through a bit of oil which was fine with me! Consumption never worsened and my mechanic said that was perfectly acceptable and not a bad thing.
You would have dumped a great car like that in a heartbeat? You would have given up a great car!
That really doesn't make sense. If it were true that "the negatives far outnumber the positives", then you'd expect that most people would trade their cars. But as it happens, 4 out of 5 used cars are sold privately. That fact alone should make you scratch your head & ask yourself, "Why did I say that? What was I thinking?"
As I said earlier, some cars are better private sale candidates than others. The older, cheaper & more miled-up a car is, the less attractive it is to a new car dealer & the more appealing it is to someone who's tired of riding the bus. I don't think that any dealer in this solar system is particularly interested in a 12-year-old Accord with a deep, ugly crease in the rear deck lid & signs of incipient rust around the wheel wells that nonetheless runs well. And did I mention that the car was a stick? But that didn't keep me from selling it in one day to a cash customer for a nutty amount of money.
The private sale route doesn't work as well for relatively new, high value cars that most people can't afford without financing. You'll need a dealer's help to get rid of these. But if you keep a car until you've pretty much used it up, as I do, then you'll do better on your own. In any case, you have nothing to lose by trying it for a week or 2. If it doesn't work for you, or the experience makes you uncomfortable, then trade your car in. The dealer will always be there.
The last car that I had that used oil was a new 1990 Mercedes C class that would use a quart of oil between changes and I could not wait to get rid of it. I hated driving down the road and have the oil light come on. Since then I have driven Japanese cars, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Lexus. No oil use problems in any of them.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Ditto on all of that. I've sold about 6 or 7 cars over the years, and I've never ran into any real problems. A few people said they would show up that didn't. One guy left his keys and car as collateral, though I didn't ask for them. The farmer/postal dude reminded me of oldfarmer... so I let him have the Buick wagon at invoice... $100 below what he said he would pay. :surprise:
Private selling is actually fun, and I keep the entire commission on the sale...100%. Not even our seasoned "pros" can compete with that return. :P Give your under $6k-$7k car a nice wash and wax, clean out the interior, put a reasonable price on it, leave some room to let the buyer grind you down a couple hundred, put an ad in the paper for $18... you'll have the car sold within a week. You keep the extra $1,000-$2,000 over what a dealership would have given you... which is squat on a older car.
Interesting statistic. Where did you find that?
These use oil by design.
He wasn't talking about a high end car, he was talking about the run of the mill Honda Odyssey types. I don't think an Odyssey is suppose to be burning a quart of oil every 1,000 miles "by design". I would think it a poor design if it did.
People don't check their oil that often anymore, as modern engines don't burn the amount of oil they did back in the olden days when you were a kid. So, some people are taking their Ody's in during a typical 3 or 4 month interval oil change, and finding out their engines are 3 or 4 quarts low. Not good. :sick:
Your Mercedes used a quart of oil between changes and that bothered you THAT much? Really?
So, assuming 4000 mile oil changes, a 2.00 quart of oil and the 30 seconds it took to open your hood and pour in that oil was that big of a deal??
Guess it was...???
I have yet to hear one storry about excessive oil usage on Odysseys or in any other Honda.
link title
What I can't understand is why anyone would want a new car that is burning a quart of oil every 1,000 miles and think that it is "normal".
Is that what Honda tells it's customers?
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Went back outside and realized I had no car. Duh. I called the Caprice guy back to explain my predicament and without hesitation he said I'll drive it over to you. It's nice and you'll like it. Older gentleman arrives with beautiful car. I gave him the cash and drove my new Caprice to his home asking him a million questions about it which all panned out perfectly. Whew. Great car. My wife drove it to work for well over 5 years.
2013 Mustang GT, 2001 GMC Yukon Denali
To be a bit more accurate with your numbers, the article states, "Only one in five new-car buyers sell their old cars, but more should."
Later it states, "According to J.D. Power & Associates surveys, 57% of new-car buyers with old cars traded them in to the dealer."
Not exactly 4 out of 5.
Geesh. You'd have driven my '91 Benz off a cliff by now, in that case. I'm using about half a quart EVERY FILLUP.
'11 GMC Sierra 1500; '98 Alfa 156 2.0TS; '08 Maser QP; '67 Coronet R/T; '13 Fiat 500c; '20 S90 T6; '22 MB Sprinter 2500 4x4 diesel; '97 Suzuki R Wagon; '96 Opel Astra; '11 Mini Cooper S
The 00 Accord has 181K on it now and still doesn't burn any.
Yes 57% traded them in,but hat doesn`t mean 43% were sold privately..Half of them may have been junked,scrapped or given to charity..So that number stands !
The key words are "old cars". It is much easier to sell a car that can be bought for cash than one that has to be financed. There is a big difference between "old cars" and "all cars".
I once had a 1963 Dodge Dart slant 6 that used so much oil I carried a five gallon can of oil in the trunk !! I finally got it fixed and it was fine after that.
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
Got that from my Buick dealership today via email. I'm seeing this type of ad more and more often from dealerships... liable to put the Valvoline's and Jiffy Boob's out of business.
Still a good deal if one can pass on the fuel system cleaning and other suggested maintenance.
This sounds like part of script salespeople use when buyers say 'Sorry, trade # is too low, I will sell car myself'.
And of course the 'sex offender' bomb has to be dropped to scare people even more these days. :P
I wouldn't want a new car that went through a quart of oil every 1000 miles but if I had one that did, I wouldn't care unless it got worse. There are worse things in life to worry about. Didn't you read my Ford story? Our Fors Wagon that we bought when it was one year old used a bit of oil which wasn't a big deal TO ME! It never got one bit worse in the 7 or 8 years we had that car.
Friction has nothing to do with anything. Oil usage can come through the rings or the valve guides. As I said ALL cars will use **some** oil.
Honda doesn't tell their customers anything that I know of. I've just always heard that a quart every 1000 miles isn't considered excessive by the auto industry.
The only suggestion I've received is that the air filter was getting dirty. I checked and it was. I bought one and put it in myself. :shades:
Huh?? You lost me Brother.
It was a used car the previous owner had tinted the windows on. My mind was else where and I started scraping the window like there was no tint on it. The sticker was not under the tint
-looking at and writing down seller's driver license number
-getting a receipt for the deposit with the sellers info, address, and VIN
-writing down the VIN and doing a lien and accident history check (takes all of 5 minutes) on smart phones, or a friend can do it who's by a computer)
-looking at the title and registration (no papers = no deal)
-taking the car for a spin around the block
Plus the unbelievalby low price should have set off alarm bells that:
-this was a nigerian scammer (if the vehicle was not available for viewing)
-that this was a rebuild or badly damaged lemon
-or that it had a lien on it that the buyer was failing to disclose
-or that it was a stolen vehicle
And these would be the same type of people that probably don't trust dealers and only buy privately. :surprise:
2016 Audi A7 3.0T S Line, 2021 Subaru WRX
Del, I agree that 57% doesn't mean the other 43% sold privately. I disagree that if 1 in 5 sells privately it means that 4 out of 5 do trades... for the same reasons you gave.
But I'm sure the sales pros around here know more about it than I do. I just have a problem with making sweeping comments about how dangerous selling privately is. Again, I have no problem with people who don't want to deal with time and energy. Now go trade something in and help the industry!
LOL, I thought that was Toyota !!
2013 LX 570 2016 LS 460
I agree. An engine that burns a quart/1000 miles would be a no-go for me. My old Ford with 200K miles leaked a quart/1000 but it didn't burn it.
My Mitsu engined Chrysler (now owned by my son) was not down a bit after 4000 miles at it's last oil change. It has over 120K on the engine.
I haven't checked the hooptie yet but now you got me thinking I should. :lemon:
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
I only cause trouble on behalf of my wife, otherwise I'm a laydown. If you need some furniture rearranged I could come over and throw some chairs for you though.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
Some of the more radical feminists consider all men to be rapists so maybe we should all be scared to sell privately.
I've sold a couple of cars privately and never had any problem. Then again, I might have been on a test drive with Charlie Manson and not known it. I guess it all depends on where you live. There was a story a few years back where someone posted an ad on Craigslist for a BMW for sale on Long Island for a very low price. Potential buyers were told cash only and when they arrived at the address they were robbed at gunpoint. :surprise:
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
But according to Wikipedia, used car sales far outstrip new car sales - 44 million used against fewer than 17 million new in 2005.
Even if you assume that every one of those 17 million new car buyers traded in his old car, which we know isn't remotely true, dealers wouldn't have enough used cars on hand to satisfy even half the demand.
No matter how you slice it, private transactions have to account for a majority of used car sales in the U.S. I'd bet a cheeseburger & sixpack that at least 2 out of every 3 used cars are sold privately.
-looking at the title and registration (
Your points are good ones for a smart consumer. I think greed got in the way...when the buyers heard the low price they didn't want to lose out. The seller probably would say, other people are coming to look at, if you don't leave a downpayment you will lose out.
Keep in mind, these guys were good. Operated from someone's house. Probably the documents were all forged. I find that people want to believe a scam is real...look how many people get taken in by Bernie Madoff or all the others. In hind sight, it sounds easy to say it was too good to be true, but scammers make you feel you are making a smart choice.
How many people believe they will come out ahead in Vegas? How many think they could win a lottery? Most people, that is the answer.
2017 MB E400 , 2015 MB GLK350, 2014 MB C250
BTW you do know that Fiat means Fix It Again Tony, don't you?
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
On the older car (it has 150K miles) I check under the hood and all fluids every other fillup. But not nearly that often on the ragtop.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
You are missing one senerio, where someone trades in a used car for a newer, yet still used, car. That would be two used cars sold with no new ones trading hands.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
I hate to say this Isell but I was at the auto show today and took a long look at the new Sonata and it blew away the Accord.
And the Equus was something else.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D