Why you should avoid selling second hand vehicles privately

Selling an old automobile isn’t easy. When you decide that it is time to put your vehicle on the market, you know that you are entering a world of annoyance and hassle. There are questions running through your head, such as "why am I selling", "who’s going to buy". You will be especially worried as to how much money you will be making. Of course you want to get the most that it is worth.

There are ways to sell a car that will get you the most amount that you can possibly get, but you put yourself at a very high risk if you decide to sell privately. Here are the reasons why:

Your Personal Safety is at Risk

As you can probably guess, this is the most important thing to worry about. The personal safety of you and anyone else you live with. You are, after all, inviting complete strangers onto your property to look at your car. The chances are very small, but someone with less than savoury motivations may be coming along to perform acts of violence against you. However unlikely it is, you still need to take precautions before-hand. Like taking some self-defence courses.

Buyers who are Not Serious

This is a serious problem in the auto trading community. People who have no intention of buying a car, and are just having what really amounts to a window shopping session. And it is always at the seller’s expense. These people are real, and there really is no way to tell who is a serious buyer and who isn’t. Although, there are warning signs. If they start kicking your car’s tyres, this is a common trait that time wasters have. That’s why sometimes people call them "tyre-kickers".

Relentless Nip Pickers

There is nothing wrong with wanting to get a sweet deal on a vehicle. That is what negotiating is for. It is a time honoured tradition. But beware people who, even after having the vehicle described to them in great detail, try to look for flaws and problems that they can use to negotiate the price down to a lower value. They will look at each and every little square inch of the vehicle, absolutely intent on finding something, anything that will force you to sell to them at a lower price. Try to resist the urge to be terse with them, but at the same time, do attempt to hurry them along. You want to sell this car for a good price, and these people don’t want to buy the car at a price that you deem is good.

Scam Artists

The worst people to look out for are people who want to scam you out of what you are owed. They will try any dirty trick in the book in order to pull the wool over your eyes. Bad Checks, fake cash, convoluted overseas transactions are all various ways that they will use to make a sucker out of you. Avoid them by asking for ID and meet them in person.

Finally, to avoid private sales, you can get a free quotation from cash for cars companies who can even give you a better price for the actual worth of the vehicle.

Glen Hunter is an online marketing consultant, PHP programmer, project manager, writer, blogger & social media enthusiasts.