Best way to sell car these days

[infinitekidM2C]

What's the best way (speed and value) to sell a car these days? I havent done it in a few years and this isn't a BMW which i would normally sell through the forum.

It's a 2016 Land Rover Discovery Sport. Great shape, about 60k miles.

I'm wondering these days which is the most effective way to sell as i need to replace before it starts tanking. Selling websites like Autotrader? Sell to a buyer company like Carmax. Trade in? I know it will vary but wondered if anyone has relatively concrete opinion.

[Alfisti]

What's the tax situation re. trade in in CA?

[BMWCCA1]

Carvana and Carmax have been paying near-retail for nice used cars for the past several years. The bloom my be off that rose now, but certainly worth a try and will give you a baseline if you try to sell it yourself.

If you've ever felt you were being scammed as a buyer, just wait until you try being the seller!

[infinitekidM2C]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

What's the tax situation re. trade in in CA?

I had to look it up. Basically worst case scenario. Trading in has no effect on taxes for the new car purchase.

[pshep138]

Originally Posted by BMWCCA1

Carvana and Carmax have been paying near-retail for nice used cars for the past several years. The bloom my be off that rose now, but certainly worth a try and will give you a baseline if you try to sell it yourself.

If you've ever felt you were being scammed as a buyer, just wait until you try being the seller!

They might be better for something like OP's car, but Carmax and Carvana are very hit-and-miss as far as values go.

When I bought my M4 in April, I had a 2015 S4 I wanted to trade. The dealer I bought the M4 from was out of state, and told me they didn't accept trades from out of state. So I got values from Carmax and Carvana to see if I could unload my S4 quickly and painlessly.

Carmax offered me something like $14,500 and I Carvana was $16,850. Both insanely light. I work for a dealer, so I know how the game goes, but it was a $20k - $21k car on trade pretty easily.

I posted it for sale on my IG story and had a deposit on it the same day for an agreed upon $25k sale, and had contingent offers at $26k and $26.5k all from private party buyers. $25k guy ended up coming through and picked the car up about a week later.

tl;dr Carmax / Carvana can really miss the mark on some cars, and seem to pay through the nose on others.

[BMWCCA1]

Originally Posted by pshep138

They might be better for something like OP's car, but Carmax and Carvana are very hit-and-miss as far as values go.

Which was exactly the question I was answering.

If you have a junker you want to get rid of (and for me that means any RR), then don't make such an ordeal out of it and take the best wholesale offer. The OP did not strike me as someone in "the business" or someone who really needed the aggravation of selling himself. If nothing else, Carvana and Carfax will give him a baseline for any private sale he might negotiate.

Wonderful about how astute you were in your sale. I'm sure if I asked you, you'd tell me you are far from average, just like your car. The OP wanted a quick transaction on a car that the average Joe would likely need to finance. Just dump it.

[diablo2112]

There’s 3 things you want when selling: quick, no work, and high sales price.

Now, here’s the thing: pick 1. Can’t get all 3.

quick: trade it in or sell to Carvana, etc.

no work: just stop making payments. Eventually, someone will come and pick up your car.

high price: advertise everywhere, screen buyers, show car, finally find your whale and luxuriate in your riches.

[chassis]

Originally Posted by infinitekidM2C

What's the best way (speed and value) to sell a car these days? I havent done it in a few years and this isn't a BMW which i would normally sell through the forum.

It's a 2016 Land Rover Discovery Sport. Great shape, about 60k miles.

I'm wondering these days which is the most effective way to sell as i need to replace before it starts tanking. Selling websites like Autotrader? Sell to a buyer company like Carmax. Trade in? I know it will vary but wondered if anyone has relatively concrete opinion.

Submit several "sell your car now" requests, and follow up on the responses you receive. The automated email offer is a lowball, if you take the car to the local dealer that backed the offer, you will get a better price. Do your homework on retail asking prices on Cargurus.

I sold a 4 yr old 100k mile Mercedes this way and it worked for me. Fast and painless transaction with a fair price. I drove to the car dealer and left with a check in my hand. We did one round of back and forth and agreed on a price.

I left a few thou$ on the table but didn't have to deal with tire kickers and counterparty risk.

[diirk]

We just sold/traded-in my wife's 18 GLA45.
I checked on a few buy-it-now offers through various major sites and also Carvana and Carmax. I also spoke to the dealer we were ordering the replacement through. Carvana was the highest by about $1k. Carmax was next and the dealer was willing to match their price as a credit towards our purchase. No taxable income on our end and minimal hassle. We may have left a little cash on the table, but more than made up for it on taxes and ease of transaction.

[Humdizzle]

depends on your state

MO is pretty good. you can sell your car private party and use the tax credit within 180 days. doesn't matter if you sell or buy in state or out of state.

can pretty much just flip cars without paying much sales tax.
they still get you on property tax though.

have a dedicated beater car so you never have to do a dealer trade in on your nice car and get lowballed.

[infinitekidM2C]

Originally Posted by Humdizzle

depends on your state

MO is pretty good. you can sell your car private party and use the tax credit within 180 days. doesn't matter if you sell or buy in state or out of state.

can pretty much just flip cars without paying much sales tax.
they still get you on property tax though.

have a dedicated beater car so you never have to do a dealer trade in on your nice car and get lowballed.

yeah we have a beater, always nice to have. so we're not in a rush, but want to go down the right avenues to get a reasonable price without much hassle

[pshep138]

Originally Posted by BMWCCA1

Which was exactly the question I was answering.

If you have a junker you want to get rid of (and for me that means any RR), then don't make such an ordeal out of it and take the best wholesale offer. The OP did not strike me as someone in "the business" or someone who really needed the aggravation of selling himself. If nothing else, Carvana and Carfax will give him a baseline for any private sale he might negotiate.

Wonderful about how astute you were in your sale. I'm sure if I asked you, you'd tell me you are far from average, just like your car. The OP wanted a quick transaction on a car that the average Joe would likely need to finance. Just dump it.

Seems like a hostile response. I was simply clarifying for anyone who is going to read this thread and think, "Gee, BMWCCA1 said Carvana offers strong money, I'm going to try it!"

No offense was intended, I was just offering some additional insight based on personal experience.

[keg97]

I was getting low trade in prices from dealers on our 17 Escalade ESV with 160K miles so I threw it up on Craigslist for an obnoxiously high price. I had a full price certified check in my hand within 24 hours. Perhaps I caught lighting in a bottle, but it was worth it to me.

[Llarry]

I had an interesting experience with Carvana. "Yeah we'll give you a halfway decent offer on your 2014 BMW X3 35i" so I jumped through some hoops in submitting registration, title, driver license copies, etc, and they said "Fine, just drive it to SoCal" which is 500+ miles away. What?! I went Carmax for a couple of grand less, if memory serves.

[diablo2112]

Originally Posted by Llarry

I had an interesting experience with Carvana. "Yeah we'll give you a halfway decent offer on your 2025 BMW X3 35i" so I jumped through some hoops in submitting registration, title, driver license copies, etc, and they said "Fine, just drive it to SoCal" which is 500+ miles away. What?! I went Carmax for a couple of grand less, if memory serves.

2025?

[Llarry]

Originally Posted by diablo2112

2025?

Oops - 2014. Had it been a MY2025, it would've been worth far, far more back then.

[dreamingat30fps]

Depends what you consider a hassle. To me selling it privately is a hassle. Having to list it, deal with all the tire kickers and stupid questions, having to show it etc. So if you don't want to go that route then not too many options.

Personally I always do all the online quotes first as there is practically zero effort involved in those. Then I do carmax since I still have to take it in. Then I do some others that want to see the car also like wepaythemax and some other place right across from carmax. Then I take the highest one to the dealer where I plan to buy the next car and see if they can match or how close they can get. If it makes sense tax wise (doesn't seem to matter in your case) I will sell to dealer or sell to whoever gave the highest offer. I have sold cars to carvana, vroom, carmax and dealers and never had an issue.

If you want the most money then it will require more work and you will have to sell private, maybe one of the auctions sites, but don't have any experience with those.

[Alfisti]

Am i the only one that finds selling privately really not that much of a problem?

[PcarFan]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Am i the only one that finds selling privately really not that much of a problem?

It all depends on how much patience you have to deal with dreamers.

I sold a Ford F-150 many years ago without any problems. A guy and his wife came to see the truck, he made me a reasonable offer and it was sold.

About 4 or 5 years ago I posted a Porsche for sale in the auto trader and in a couple other online car sites, and I had nothing but dreamers and tire kickers coming by for joy rides.
I even had a guy come by with his wife that was in a wheelchair trying to see if the wheelchair would fit in the frunk. That guy couldn`t even drive manual properly. He drove like a maniac, stalled the car a couple of times and was slipping the clutch at almost every gear. When he was leaving he even put a dent in my wife`s car opening his car door for his wife. That was enough for me. That same week I traded the car in for a lot less than what I could`ve gotten selling it private.

[dreamingat30fps]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Am i the only one that finds selling privately really not that much of a problem?

I can barely even stand selling regular household items like couches and tables and what not. Now maybe I'm not skilled in the art of selling shit privately, but damn it's a pita. I mean sure sometimes I'll post something and get a real buyer pretty quickly, but that's like maybe 5% of the time. The rest of the time is countless messages of people asking stupid questions like is it available then never responding when you say yes or people making offers for half the asking price. Or just no interest then you have to keep renewing or refreshing the listings so they keep showing up for people.

Plus ultimately how much more are you getting? Because the few times I've tried listing cars for $1-$2k more than the trade in offers I get... I don't even get any biters. Especially now days with everyone looking online for cars. I rarely see private sale cars listed on autotrader, cargurus etc. It's probably also very location dependent. I'm sure in some places people are more likely to buy from a private seller than a dealer and it depends on the car, like enthusiast cars vs regular cars etc.

[Theruleslawyer]

Depends on the car.

An enthusiast car you might be best off on one of the auction sites- BAT, cars and bids, etc. You don't have to deal with the tire kickers. If you're patient the forums of buy/sell groups on facebook.

For cheaper NPC cars- Facebook marketplace. I got 50x the response there than I did off autotrader last time I sold a car. If you have anything remotely special that makes it more valuable than an average example those "deal indicators" on the major sites de-rank your car.

More expensive NPC cars are the issue. They probably won't attract as many joy riders. Still the money becomes an issue. It'll nearly always mean a loan and that makes payment more of a hassle. I'm not sure they would do well on auction. Maybe a more general site like ebay motors would be okay. Set the reserve to what ever carmax will give you for it after fees.

[NickyC]

Over the past three years I’ve had far better luck trading in at a BMW dealer than I’ve had with Carmax. Carmax offered me laughably low totals for my cars, on both occasions the employee even apologized and said to go elsewhere. Of course my cars had mods on them, and I think Carmax despises any vehicle which isn’t 100% stock. I don’t think I’ll ever bother going back there.

Private sale is most $$$, but of course can take some time. The tire kicking is pretty brutal, but I’ve found a private sale to be more rewarding as I’ve met nice people and obviously made more money in the end.