We like to ask questions at The Autopian. We wanna know about your favorite cars, or the challenges you’ve had keeping your fleet on the road. Normally, we throw out friendly questions to learn about the automotive lives of our readers. But not today!
I’m here to ask you an altogether rude and more pointed question. What’s the cheapest price you’ll sell your car for, mate?
I’m intimately acquainted with how annoying this question can be. I just spent the better part of a fortnight trying to sell my old Mercedes.
I didn’t have high hopes for the sale from the outset. I threw it on Facebook for $2,500, which was quite a bit less than I paid for it three years ago. When used car prices were at their hottest, you were lucky to get a runner for under $2,000. Given my Merc was not just working, but also relatively clean, I figured scoring two stacks shouldn’t be too hard.
I sat and waited, hearing from none but the crickets. After a day, I dropped my price to two large, and the offers started to trickle in. Not inquiries to see the car, not questions about its condition. Just crude mouth breathers that saw fit to dispense with any respectful pleasantries whatsoever.
“last price” said the first drongo. They weren’t interested in inspecting the car, or even talking to me like a fellow human being. They didn’t have time for pesky things like greetings or question marks. They just wanted to see how much they could screw out of me before they got off the couch.
Shortly enough, I met an even cruder customer. They weren’t asking, they were telling. “1100” came the message. Just a number! I suppose I was expected to beg this person to come relieve me of my car for such a princely offer.
I made the mistake of interacting with one of these people. I responded to “Last price” indicating I was firm at $2000. They offered $1,400, and I figured I might as well try and deal. It had been a week and the car was still here, after all. I countered with $1,500 and they agreed. I figured I was well on my way to selling this thing. “Done dell,” they said. I figured they meant deal, but whatever.
Of course, that wasn’t the case. They failed to show up to our morning meeting despite promising they had $1,500 cash to exchange for the car. They eventually rolled up two hours late, looked over the car, and seemed disappointed. They offered “1100 my best brother” and as you might imagine, I sent them packing. They had the gall to keep pestering me the rest of the day, still refusing to meet the $1,500 we’d agreed upon. I elected that I’d sell the car to a wrecker for $500 before this philistine would ever touch my Mercedes again.
I abandoned Facebook Marketplace entirely. Two weeks had netted no serious inquiries—just a continual parade of feckless jagaloons.
Instead, I paid $19 to list on Gumtree at $1,800. The next day, somebody rang and asked to see the car. They came down within two hours, liked the car, and didn’t even haggle. They wired me $1,800, I signed the papers, and off they went with their shiny Mercedes-Benz. Everyone left happy.
Ultimately, though, this isn’t Lewin Bitches, this is Autopian Asks. So I ask you, what is the lowest price you’ll take for your car? You can answer honestly, telling us what you reckon your car is worth on the used market. Or, you can respond as if I’m a crude, disrespectful chancer from Facebook. Tell me off for asking you to haggle against yourself to satisfy my own selfish goals.
Bottom line? It’s hell out there. Be nice and deal well, and the world will be a better place. Lewin out.
Image credits: Lewinous Bergatron The First
Probably $8,000 if I had to do it privately. The used car lots charge north of 15 grand for my chassis Compass/Patriot’s with well over 100,000 miles.
I probably won’t even break 71,000 miles this year.
Sure, it’s a Jeep Compass, but compared to what other people try to sell?
It can’t be that bad of a deal.
Everything is for sale at the right price. That being said, sentimental value is a heck of a multiplier.
01 911 C4 Cab Tiptronic 150K – $18K
04 F250 6.0 well modified but not bro’d 120K – $25K
07 Yukon 2nd engine 3rd trans 2nd rear end 298K – $5500
06 Taurus 123K $2500
23 Mach-E extended range RWD 4K $38K
scrap value
By the time I’m done with a car, it’s ready for the junkyard, and often David Tracy-grade rust too 😛
Maybe that should be their new marketing campaign.
I’d sell my corvette for $12,500. It’s a running project that I have limited time to work on. I love it but I feel bad that it is somewhat ‘languishing’ under my ownership when someone else could have the time to treat it properly. Shoot, I might even sell it for less to the right person.
What are the vitals on it?
Engine and transmission are strong, its a 1978 with the L82 350 and the Muncie 4 speed manual. Needs suspension work which is a bit beyond my skillset but if I had time, I think I could figure out. Just lacking the time..
I don’t like sitting on things for sale. If I’m selling something, it’s because I want it gone yesterday. So, I’ll look at similar examples for sale and then choose a price $500 – $1,000 lower than that. It works every time. I usually have a car sold within a day, at the most a week.
Yeah I’m the same. My MX-5, I sold for $10,000 in under an hour. Money in my account, all done.
2018 X4, 70k miles, but well maintained.
It’s not “for sale” right now, so I’d want what I paid for it…
Realistically, though, if a private buyer offered >$18,000, I’d probably take it. I’d try to get at least $20k if I could. I love driving it, but I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing how I fit in an RF Miata for a year or so 😉
The only vehicle I’m considering selling at the moment is my Livewire. I’m too lazy to go through the effort to list it at the moment, but my lowest price is $11,000. My asking price is also $11,000.
I prefer to trade in vehicles since I am more concerned about convenience than getting top dollar. I only sell vehicles privately if I am not replacing the vehicle or if the trade in offer was extremely low (I was offered $500 for my Leaf recently; I sold it for $5,000 so that was worth the effort).
I tend to underprice my vehicles and include a caveat that I am not open to negotiation. I also leave my work cell number as the only contact information with a note that I do not respond to text messages. From my experience, requiring a phone call eliminates a lot of bullshit since people are reluctant to make phone calls in 2024. Serious buyers are willing to call, though.
So, this assumes I am trying to sell any of my cars. Since I am not, I would treat them like any of the random people that call asking if I want to sell my house, and tell them an inflated number that is at least double what it is worth. If they want to pay me that, I will then deal with the fact that I didn’t want to buy a new car (or house) and have the cash to trade up to something nicer.
Yup. My car needs haven’t changed, so the best I could do with a stack of cash equal to what my car is “worth” is to get a different example of it. Lowest I would go would be enough to get a nicer manual transmission copy plus pay for a rental for the time it takes to get one. That’s even sillier than your house example since the hypothetical buyer could just get that nicer one themselves (cars, unlike houses, have wheels!).
Yeah, the only reason I brought up the house, is because I get calls from people asking me to sell my house all the time, although it isn’t on the market. I tell them double what it is valued at on Zillow, and that I won’t allow a home inspection, and they never seem to follow up after that.
When I used to daily my ’53 Chevy, people would ask how much I to sell that for all the time (despite it not being for sale), but nobody seems interested enough in my dented 2007 Focus to try and buy it from me at the gas station.
I’m flexible, but also easily annoyed. Come at me with a reasonable offer and a reasonable attitude and we’ll deal. Start telling me the deal has to happen in a certain way or treat me poorly and you’ll be lucky if I keep talking to you. Agree to a price and then refuse to meet it? We’re done.
Offering a trade? Sure, but only if I’m interested in the trade. But I’m gonna lose interest really fast if I feel like you’re pushy or hiding something about the trade.
I’ve had a couple people ask about buying my Silverado (not marked or listed for sale). It’s a 2002 with about 165,000 miles, about 35,000 on the engine. I tell them $7500. One hung up, another told me it was for his kid but he was more interested in my neighbor’s Mustang. When I’m ready to sell, I’ll probably go lower, but I’ll certainly see what pickups are going for at that time.
Yeah, I’m the same.
Too many idiots treat these big deals like an opportunity to buff their ego as a master negotiator.
I haven’t sold a car since 2017, and don’t intend to honestly. The amount of love I’ve put into them isn’t worth anything to anybody else, a fact that’s been proven to me before. Plus, I always miss them when they’re gone and then want another later on anyway.
But if I had to sell a car, and the buyer didn’t act like a NPC, I’d try to get as close to what I feel is an appropriate value, I’m not that unrealistic about things, and I’m always super honest about everything, because bad sellers suck as bad as bad buyers.
I’ve got an 86 BMW 528e with a stick. The only mechanical thing it really needs is a steering box. The old one is just too worn out. Cosmetically I’ve seen better, but I’ve seen worse too. I’d sell it for $400 so it might live on as a Lemons car. But my wife thinks it’s worth more. So there it sits.
i would pay at least $1000 for that assuming it’s not all rust
shame I’m on the wrong continent
Oh, I have no problem sharing that. When I sell cars, I stick to my listed price, and I price very fairly. I know I could list my nicer cars at a fair price and they will sell, because I OVER explain what’s good and bad about the car in the ad. But, just like your experience with the MB, it’s the lower priced cars where you wind up in the world of people who will haggle you over $10. Out of my 5 cars, 3 I could sell for what I list, 1 would sell for list to the right person, who may not be the first ones who call on it, and 1 I know I would get lowball offers on.
’01 Jaguar XJR – would sale for $10k
’13 Ridgeline RTL (very low miles) – would sale for $19k
’12 Accord EX Coupe – $9k is reasonable for an immaculate V6 Coupe
’03 Jeep TJ – owned for 18 years, absolutely rust free – $9k (gotta find the right buyer for this one)
’05 Saab 9-2x – $4k – I know I would get lowballed on this one
Having lucked into a stock Bugeye wrx a few years back, I actively covet your SAAB. I have to refrain from leaving a note on one at a facility I often work at as I would have to let the Bugeye go first. Someday….
Anything is for sale at the right price.
I’ll give you $5,000 for the Viper
I’ll go as high as $7500.
Rude
Assuming you mean my kid’s power wheels Viper, you have got yourself a deal
After some thought, I guess I’ll actually answer the question. I would let my cars go for the following, or close to it:
Viper – $150,000 – actual value is probably 125, but there’s nothing I could replace it with besides another one.
SS – $40,000, a bit above its value but not extremely so.
F350 – high 50s – crazy that it’s almost six years old with 32,000 miles and I’d both ask and expect to get what I paid for it back.
Van – mid 30s.
Disassembled ’72 Blazer with all new sheetmetal and rebuilt engine – I’ve probably sunk $50,000 into this so stubbornly I’d want a lot of that back, but realistically it’s not worth more than $25k as it sits.
’70 Blazer that’s complete but has been sitting for 2 decades. I’d take about $6K.
Bold use of the word “Philistine” in these turbulent times, lol.
I once suckered someone into giving me $700, asking price $1000, for an old Chrysler Pacifica (the SUV, not the van). That stupid POS had so many dumb electrical and physical gremlins that I was just glad to have it out of my life. It once stranded me at work because a little plastic clip inside the shifter broke! I had to spend extra time at work because of that stupid car!
I listed out every last fault for the seller that I knew of, so it was a full-transparency transaction.
I could have given that car away for free if I had to.
None of my cars are for sale. But I’d take $100k cash for either.
For $100k, someone can take both of mine.
I’d take $40k for both of mine: further up there’s a 9-2x I bet I could get for $6k 😉
Ugh I’m getting ready to try to sell my CTS V-sport and am not looking forward to it. Tried to sell it once before and was maybe a little optimistic but the main issue I ran into was no one seems to understand what the car is. Half the people asked if it was awd, the other half asked if it had the supercharged v8, neither of these groups would actually be interested in my car.
To answer the question though I’m looking to get 15k, which I don’t think is too bad for a legitimately great sport sedan with over 400hp even with higher mileage.
2020 Rav4 Limited Hybrid. 30k miles. Loaded. Leather looking stuff on seats. Memory seats. Heated and cooled. All the tech that could go wrong. Gray metallic as God intended all crossovers to be. Good luck finding it in parking lots. 35k. Gotta pay the Toyota tax.
It depends on the car.
2006 Scion xB – $1,800. New clutch and flywheel are included but I’m not installing them at that price.
1989 F150 – $5,000 as is, $9,000 if I ever finish putting it back together
2016 Focus ST – $14,000
1996 Rover Mini – $20,000
None of them are for sale.
I wouldn’t sell my car period. It’s depreciated so absurdly that I’d be taking a bath at this point. Eventually the curve will steady to an extent but the best financial move for me is to finish paying it off and keep driving it for another 5-7 years…especially with the low interest rate I have on it and how damn expensive everything else I’d want is right now.
We’re riding the Kona N into the ground, baby. I actually think it’ll do fine because I see Veloster Ns with six figure mileage pretty frequently and the N powertrain is overbuilt. But it’s also a Hyundai lol, so who knows!
Semi related: It was a few years ago, but I once sold a Mercedes E class for less than a Lego car in the same month.
It was a 1987 190E with a blown head gasket that I didn’t have space to work on, and a collectable Lego Volkswagen beetle. The Mercedes had to go so I took the first offer, and the bids for the Lego Volkswagen kept going up.
I will not tell anyone what my bottom dollar is via the internet, not even here for a hypothetical car I’m not even selling. If you want my best price, show up in person you confirm that neither of us is pulling a scam, have a rational business conversation with me about it, and present cash or other foolproof payment. That’s how grownups do business in the real world.
If you throw a price at me via messaging, I will not even respond, except perhaps to counteroffer with the original price plus a couple hundred bucks.
One hundred BILLLION dollars!!
I know what I got!
None of mine are for sale at any price. They all have too much sentimental value and/or invested sweat equity, which you can’t assign a dollar value to. Ask again in ten years, and maybe you’ll get a different answer, but for now, there is no amount of money I would take for any of them.