How to Lose a Car in 10 days...

or "how I sold my 140,000 mile car for Blue Book* in ten days".

Part 1 - intro

The little black car was well loved. "Daddies Fast Car" was my kids description of it. Close to 100,000 miles when I bought it, it now had over 140,000 miles. By now, I'd gone through two clutches, a transmission and numerous other newly replaced or refurbished components. But it was still 10 years old and it seemed like I had driven it around the world once.

But I sold it online in one shot in 10 days! I only paid for one eBay listing for 10 days and I didn't even use AutoTrader. In addition - and remember this is in Southern California - the air conditioning didn't work at the time of sale.

Of course I did the standard stuff like giving it a fresh clean, taking pictures and writing up a description. However there are two fantastic opportunities here when breaking out of the standard classified:

1. You can write a long description. I did, in fact I wrote a VERY long description... including all the things that I knew were worn out, broken or not quite up to snuff. I know from my experience as a buyer online that this builds trust. For example "Black Golf GTI 140K miles" tells me as a buyer what it is but I have to go digging for the downsides. "Black Gold GTI 140K with broken A/C, worn tires, missing grille... etc" sets expectations and starts to answer the questions I didn't even know I needed to ask. This type of detail builds confidence in your buyers who are more likely to bid and buy. The importance of transparency can't be under-estimated. A buyer (in most cases) has numerous choices... but you want the potential buyer to feel comfortable buying your car. What this really means is that the potential buyer has to have a level of comfort buying from YOU. They likely don't know you from Adam so what can you do to build a basic level of trust with the buyer? Be transparent and open as to the actual state of the car (as you know it). Obviously you can't vouch for what you don't know.
2. You can take control of the sale and use multiple avenues for promoting YOUR car.

So anyway, I sold my car on eBay. It costs about $50 for a 7 day listing (I paid a little extra for 10 days). This gets you immediate exposure since eBay allows buyers to search for specific cars across the country or in specific locations. Listing on eBay is a crucial factor in making the sale because it gives you immediate exposure to buyers searching for a car on the Internet and directly on eBay.

How I sold my car on eBay part 2

*Reference to the Kelley Blue Book - trademark of Kelley Blue Book co. kbb.com. This car sold between the trade-in and private sale price given by Kelley Blue Book.