Getting the Right Price

A few weeks ago, I did what most people never thought I would do. I sold my Jeep Wrangler! I put 100K miles of love into that vehicle, had some off-roading fun, and had some great memories driving around with the doors off. But in this season of life, it was time to move on. With our 2nd son nearing 16 and me racking up 400 miles a week back and forth to work, it was time to move on to something different. The plan was to let the Jeep go and buy something that could eventually become my son's and then I'll move up to something a bit better for the commute next year. I say all this because both of these take quite a bit of research time and analysis to figure out what car is right for you, what price you should get for your car, and what you should be paying for the next car. Let me take you through my process, what I go through, and how to make sure you get the most out of this process.

It is no surprise that when you sell your car, selling it yourself will always bring more for it, than trading it in at the dealership. My Jeep was especially difficult because it had a few thousand dollars worth of upgrades, from wheels to seat covers, to a soft top. The first step is always to check for some other listings. Search for your model on common sites like Autotrader and cars.com. Then run the numbers at Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, and CarFax to see what they say your car is worth. Now for my Jeep, I factored in other things, such as what I was willing to take for it and how much my upgrades were worth. I had some other negotiation tactics, such as offering to remove parts and sell privately to get to the price the buyer wanted.

Now I never did take it to a dealership to see what they would give me for my 2013 Wrangler with 180K miles on it, but my assumption was probably around 7-8K if I was lucky. Simply, put no dealership wants a vehicle with that kind of mileage on it, no matter how good it looks. So I listed it on Craigslist ($5), Autotrader ($50), and Facebook Marketplace (FREE) and maintained my listing. Initially, I started high, asking 14K for it. I knew this was a bit of a perfect pricing and I was not likely to get it. Over the course of a few months, I brought it down to 13K, with the plan that anything lower was going to be time to start selling off parts.

After about 2 months I had a buyer. He pulled up to my house and seemed reasonable (this is always a character judgment point and you do have to be careful, I highly recommend at least 2 of you are available to meet prospective buyers). I let him test drive it around my neighborhood and he was ready to deal, coming in very low as I expected and I refused to budget my price, as he came up I marginally came down. When he offered a final low price I told him I would take certain add-ons off and he could have it for that price. He did not like that and came up just $500 short of my asking price. Overall, was the deal I wanted, not exactly, but it was not the deal he wanted either. That was a win.

Now, normally, when I have sold cars and a motorcycle in the past there are 2 options to work with. 1) Get Cash! This is the easiest. 2) Go meet them at a local bank, have the bank verify all the money, and issue a certified check and all is clear, now head over to Title and transfer everything. In this case, my buyer fully trusted me and wrote me a personal check, telling me once it cleared let him know and we would meet up at the title to transfer everything. I'm happy to report the check cleared and we met up 2 days later. He even took an Uber and drove me home from the Title company. Not a bad deal. Really, this was not common.

Overall there were 2 things that were key to this overall transaction.

1) I knew my bottom line price, I knew the worth of the vehicle and I knew where I was and was not willing to budge. You MUST know your numbers and what you expect to get from the deal.

2) I had to have the title to the Vehicle. Without it, it is very difficult to sell. I sold our RV several years ago and had to take a HELOC out to pay for the RV outright, then wait a few weeks to get the title and then work through the process to get it transferred, all during the COVID shutdown, so that was fun. Otherwise, you need to find a buyer who is trustworthy and trusts you, which I can tell you makes the number of buyers slim and reduces your leverage in any deal. Your best option, if you do not have the title is to take out a personal loan to pay off the car and then sell it. Yes, your loan will be at a higher interest rate, in most cases, but remember you are going to pay it right off, once that car is sold.

That is my car-selling story with lessons to help you. Now, come back next and I'll talk about everyone's favorite part of this and that is car buying.