How to make a success of selling your car
When you look to trade up with your car, you may be looking to sell your old vehicle to a dealer. There are many ways that you can choose to sell your car, but trading it in at a dealership is probably the most convenient one. Many drivers choose to go down the part-exchange route for a guaranteed quick and easy sale. However, if you want to use this method, you need to make sure that you get the best deal.
Selling your used car to a dealer
Once you’re ready to change your car, you may have another vehicle already in mind to purchase. If this is the case, you need to make sure that the dealer you are buying from, and selling to, has the best deal in place for you.
A business like Trade Price Cars will be able to offer a good price and access to financing if necessary. Using a car dealer is definitely the most convenient route, but you must be careful about the price – you generally won’t achieve as high a price as selling to an online car buyer, so you need to decide if the convenience is worth the difference.
Dealerships need to make a profit on vehicles that they buy and resell and may be keen to knock cash off for faults in the car’s condition. However, it is possible to get a fair deal if you’re careful.
Negotiating for the win
Just like when you buy a car from a dealership, you also need to use your negotiation skills to get the best price when you’re selling. Car dealers have a lot of information at their fingertips and they are astute at persuasion. You need to understand that when trying to get a fair price.
First of all, understand the value of your car. You can use a site like Parker’s to get an idea of what the make and model is worth so you have a point to negotiate from. This gives you a target price, but the individual condition of your vehicle will also come into play.
It may be worth getting your car serviced, any small scratches in the paintwork and alloys taken out and the interior valeted before sale – the better taken care of your vehicle looks, the closer to the target price you are likely to be able to achieve.
Get your mind prepped for success
Get into the right mindset. Try to get your price in first and make it the highest end of what you’re prepared to accept. Some dealers may try to get in first with a deliberately low offer to wrong foot you.
If you do know of any faults on the vehicle which the dealer could use to drive the price down, then get an understanding of what it would cost to fix them, so that the dealer can’t drive the price too low. Make sure you aren’t in too much of a rush – it’s worth visiting several dealers to get a range of prices that you can compare.
** This is a collaborative post
