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In my experience the best way to sell your car is in the local paper. Especially if you want to sell quickly.
Of course there are many other options available but for my money a clear decisive advertisement in Saturdays paper will probably bring in the most potential buyers and bring you the most profit.

The easy way of course is to sell it to a car dealership. Do not do this! Even if you are trading the car on a new model you will probably make more money if you attempt to sell it privately. If the car dealer is offering a good trade-in deal on your old car make sure you know the market price of your vehicle. Get a second opinion. You can take it to places like the Automobile Association and get a valuation. That way you have some idea that you aren't getting ripped off.

So you have decided to sell it privately. This can seem a quite daunting prospect to someone inexperienced, who hasn't sold a car before and hasn't much knowledge about vehicles. But as I said before the first thing to do is to get an evaluation. When I have sold cars I have owned, I took them around to two or three different car dealerships and just asked how much they would offer me for the car. Also ask politely what they themselves would sell the car for, what the retail value is. Most salesmen will be happy to tell you when they realise you aren't interested in one of their cars. You will find that the retail price is probably close to double what they would give you on a trade-in.
Also you can of course search on the internet for your cars price. Go to online auctions like Ebay and Trademe and look for cars that are the same or similar to yours in age, mileige, make, model and engine size and compare the prices.

Now that you know how much you car is worth you can advertise it on the market. You can advertise it on online as I have mentioned above or you can try selling it at an auction yard. However I have discovered that auction yards can have expensive fees or demand a percentage of the selling price.

An advert in the Saturday paper is usually relatively cheap and probably reaches the most people. Make sure you include all the vital information such as Make, model, mileage, year, engine size, colour, features (air conditioning, cruise control etc), and lastly the price.

Make sure the car is vacumed inside and that the upholstry is cleanand the outside is polished. Remember you want your car to look as near to new as possible. Make sure any faults with the car are fixed or if you have decided that its too expensive be honest in letting the buyers know when they come to see the car.

Have all documentation on hand to show the buyer. It is even worth having the car checked by a garage and providing you with a print out of things like a compression test to show the buyer. It gives them the impression that you aren't trying to hide anything.
Lasty make sure you have the right amount of money and that change of ownership papers are completed before you hand over the keys.

Learn more about this author, Andrew Macleod.
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