Selling a car can feel like a major drag, but it’s actually simple and straight forward if you have a good process.  If you’re short on time, finish each step individually until you’re fully prepared.

Research the Market

• Expectations about how quickly or slowly your car will sell can be mitigated by doing some online research and will help to lower any potential frustration. Look at Craig’s List and online marketplaces such as AutoTrader.com to see how many cars of your type are for sale. A lot of cars will mean that you need to be flexible in price and a few cars will mean you are in the power position when it comes to negotiating.

Price Appropriately

• Since you are a private seller and not a dealer, don’t expect to sell your car for as much as a dealer. Dealers offer things such as extended warranties that have extra value to buyers. When you are completing your market research, note the prices of similar cars. Next, price your car at a comparable price to other similar cars (not lower!). Find your car’s Blue Book value and figure out how much of a discount you are offering off of Blue Book, if any. This is an important number to buyers.

Clean Your Car – Please!

• A clean car is a sign of car and well keeping. You can usually get your car cleaned really well for less than $30 – and it is worth every penny. If your car’s paint is looking a little flat, also consider paying to have your car waxed by hand. Waxing usually costs around $50-$75. The money you spend on cleaning your car will easily be recovered by either the price you get for your car or how quickly you are able to sell you car.

Take A Million Photos

• Buyers HATE going to see a car and then find there is unexpected damage. Take a lot of photos and email them to your perspective buyers so they aren’t surprised when they arrive. Here’s a quick list of important photos. Exterior: all four corners, bumpers, all four wheels, tire tread (if possible), hood, doors, fenders, roof, front grill, license plate (with current registration sticker). Interior: driver’s seat, passenger seat, back seats, odometer, vehicle identification number (VIN), dashboard controls, transmission stick, floor mats, inside trunk, spare tire.

Advertise

• Picking your advertising place and creating the advertisement may be one of the hardest parts of selling a car. Look at other listings to see how those advertisement are communicating the cars features in a succinct but clear manner. Remember to think about the buyer’s perspective as your creating the advertisement. For example, people shopping on Craig’s List are looking for a hidden gem from a private party. Making your advertisement look like a dealer’s advertisement may actually scare some people away.

Get the Records In Order

• Just like a clean car, having all your car’s record together and organized is a sign to the buyer that you organized and took good care of your car. Part of the records should also be the pink slip in case you find a willing buyer!

Be Ready to Negotiate

• Everybody has their price. For a seller, I define this price as the price where if the buyer offers you $1 less, you will feel good about walking away after they leave. Don’t let your emotions get in the way during negotiations. Know your price before hand and stick to it.

Have the Motor Vehicle Department Paperwork

• How bad would it be to have a willing buyer, and lose the sale because you don’t have the right paperwork ready? Call your local Motor Vehicle Department or check online to get al the right paperwork to transfer your car to a new buyer during a sale.

Cancel Your Insurance

• Once your car is gone, there’s no need to spend $2-$6 per day on insurance. Cancel your insurance and stop spending money on a car you don’t even own.

This blog is often about buying cars. Specifically, buying used cars using Carsala, instead of spending too much on an overpriced new car and having to deal with the deceitful tactics of car sales #%@!s. But what about only using public transportation because it is sooooo good? How revolutionary would that be?

Well, take a look at the first public transportation system that may actually fill that need. London’s Tube is pretty good, but this is so much better. In Abu Dhabi, they are developing a “personal rapid transit” system. Individual pods will take you to exactly where you want to go. Notice in the picture that there appears to be four cables that lower the car down to street level. Theoretically, it could stop anywhere, lower you down, open the doors, and out ya’ go.

One of the keys to this system is that it runs on a grid instead of tracks with pre-defined destinations. The cars can move around the grid to get to exact locations in the minimum amount of time. There are still a lot of issues to work out such as how to power the different pods. Currently, the plan is to have them battery operated. This may be a good idea for the future, but right now battery technology is desperately lagging behind the needs of the consumers and businesses.

This idea has actually been explored before. France spent 18 years trying to create a similar system and ultimately canceled the project because of safety issues. France’s crime-phobic public didn’t want to get mugged in a private car and they apparently could figure out a way to increase safety. Security cameras have been in use since 1968 and police departments have existed since… forever?

The biggest hope for updated public transportation in America probably just happened and it’s included in the new U.S. economic stimulus bill. Here’s what was allocated to public transportation:

· High-speed and inner-city rail: $8 billion

· Public Transit: $6.9 billion

Sweet! This is the answer, right? Unfortunately, no. As an example, the San Francisco Bay Area’s BART system costs $200 million per mile of new track.  That means the entire allocation for public transportation could only build 75 miles of new track – for all of America. Oh well.

So, when will cars be obsolete? Not in our lifetime. Just make sure you don’t spend too much on the car you’re driving while dreaming about getting home in a personal pod.  Make a comment about your dream public transportation system!

Trying to be “most environmentally friendly” car in the auto industry is like playing a game of hot potato.  As soon as a car manufacturer makes this claim, they’re strangely disadvantaged because somebody else is using their PR machine in an attempt to beat them down.  It was even claimed that at Hummer was more environmentally friendly than a Toyota Prius!

While car manufacturers go to war over who is making the most environmentally friendly new car, nobody is arguing over the fact that buying a used car is much better for the environment than buying a new car.  The core of the logic is that it takes energy to make a new car – so if you buy a new car, you then have to offset that energy expense somehow.

Consider a Toyota Prius for example.  It takes 113 million BTUs of energy to make a Prius – that’s the equivalent of 1000 gallons of gas.  When you buy a two year old Toyota Camry it doesn’t take any new energy to make that car.  Think of it as trading the energy it took to make your old car with the energy it took to make the used car you just purchased.  Buying a new car puts another car on the road, even if you sell your old car.

Since I’m a bit of an analysis nut, I thought I would compare the new Prius with the used Camry.  Here’s a table with the results:

The Prius price was generated by estimating what a buyer might actually pay, out the door.  The Camry price was generated by using Carsala’s new quoting tool and adding for tax, title, and license.  Gas prices are low right now, but I used $3 per gallon since that is probably more realistic longer term.  I did not include the time value of money in the table calculations.

The end result is pretty amazing.  After 75,000 miles, the Prius saves 328 gallons of gas compared to the Camry, but costs $5,570 dollars more.  Ouch!  Add in a 5% interest rate the dollar difference becomes $7,784 after 5 years.  Yowsa!

If you are really sensitive to your environmental impact, and the extra 328 gallons of gas is really bothering you, I have a suggestion.  328 gallons of gas in the Camry will drive you 8370 miles.  The carbon offset for driving this far costs $56.  That’s it.  Buy the used car from Carsala, buy your carbon offsets from Offset Consumer, and live a better environmentally friendly life with your extra cash.

Everybody has a different reason for loving a particular car.  I’m a Porsche fanatic probably because my dad let me “drive” his Porsche when I was ten years old.  Some people buy cars because they want to own the same car as their favorite celebrity.  If you really want to buy a celebrity car or if you’re just curious about what cars celebrities drive, here’s a list I put together of Celebrity Cars That You Can Afford to Buy.

Remember, just because the cars are “luxury” cars, doesn’t mean they have to cost a lot.  For example, newer Range Rovers with less than 40,000 miles can be bought for the same price as a new non-luxury sedan as long as you trust Carsala to do the shopping for you.  Have fun checking out the celebrity cars in this virtual paparazzi land!

Orlando Bloom drives a Toyota Prius

Mary Kate Olsen drives a Porsche Cayenne

Verne Troyer drives a customized Mercedes CLK

Cameron Diaz drives a Toyota Prius

Justin Timberlake drives a Jeep Wrangler

Charlize Theron drives a Range Rover (made by Land Rover)

Jessica Simpson drives a Cadillac Escalade

Julia Roberts drives a Toyota Prius

Kevin Costner drives an Audi Q7 and Audi S8

Amy Winehouse drives a BMW 7 Series

Kristen Cavallari drives a BMW 3 Series Coupe.

Jerry Seinfeld owns and drives a whole slew of Porsches

Wow!  The blog is already up to the 25^th post.  Thanks to all the readers who have only responded with comments that have made me more enthusiastic and excited to be an author for this blog.  To celebrate this milestone, I thought it would be entertaining to point back to some of my favorite so far and then have some fun.  Here are my top 5 favorite posts:

1.       Do Democrats Drive Greener Than Republicans?

• I spent more time writing this post than any other post. My goal was to be entirely objective (and I believe I was), but in a post about politicians in an election season, there were lots of critics!

2.       Why Carsala Loses Money When You Pay More

• I love the 2007 Honda Civic I bought through Carsala. My friends and family love it too, and they are amazed when they hear I save over $6,000 by using Carsala. This post is one my favs because I can email it to them as an explanation about why Carsala is different than other used car buying services.

3.       Evidence that Value Car Are Two Years Young

• Intuitively, I always knew something like what I wrote in this post was true. I was just thrilled when I was able to show, with evidence, why value cars are two years young. Look out for Part 2 about value cars, which I’m currently mulling over. When you take a deep look at new vs. used cars, there’s a surprising second reason why value cars HAVE to be used.

4.       The Top 10 Things A Car Dealer Absolutely Won’t Tell You

• Hands down, this is the best short summary about what dealers won’t tell you. I borrowed a lot of the content, but it’s still the best short summary of what dealers won’t tell you that I can find.

5.       Used Car Sales Down – Used Car Buyers Jump For Joy

• There’s too much in the news about struggling car manufactures that are having a hard time selling and developing new cars. The untold story is that used car sales are struggling too and that makes it a great time if you’re in the market for a used car.

Now onto some fun…  Here are four hilarious car commercials to help lighten your day.  Come back for more posts soon and let me know if there is a specific topic you want me to write about!

Have you ever felt like the guy in this video?

When I lived in New Mexico, I used to see these great commercials all the time.

Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, obviously missed his true calling as a car salesman.

I would have probably been eaten too…