Live Real, Now

The no-pants guide to spending, saving, and thriving in the real world.

Automobile

Selling Your Car

Finance

English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Pa...

English: Jalopy car in Joshua Tree National Park in Hidden Valley Campground (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When it’s time to replace your car, most people focus on the new car, instead of the old, but that is ignoring real money.  Your old car–unless it has disintegrated–still has value.  Sometimes, it’s just time to ask yourself, “When should I sell my car?”

When you’re looking to sell your car (like with We Will Buy Your Car), you generally have several options:

  1. Tow & crush. If your car has been wrecked, doesn’t run, or is just old and beat up, you may be stuck with calling a junkyard and accepting $50 for them to pick up your car and crush it for scrap.
  2. Trade it in. This is probably the least hassle, but–other than #1–doesn’t pay well.  Dealerships are willing to pay something under what they will get at a wholesale auction, which is quite a bit less than the blue book value.
  3. Sell it yourself. Now you’re thinking, “He’s going to buy my car! Oh, bother.”  It can be a pain, but it’s also the best way to get a decent price for your wheels.

When you sell your car, there are a few things to keep in mind, much like when you sell something on Craigslist.

  • Don’t be alone. There are bad people in the world, but they don’t like witnesses.  Bad things are much less likely to happen if you have company.
  • Know your price. Specifically, know three price: your dream price, the price that would make you happy, and the absolute lowest price you are willing to accept.  Make sure you figure these numbers out ahead of time.  Know what you are comfortable with before it comes time to close the deal.
  • Check IDs. The buyer is going to want to test-drive your car.  That’s fine, but you want to make sure you know who is driving off in your car.  “Officer, Sumdood took my car.  He was wearing jeans.”  That won’t get your car back.
  • Clean it up. Get the car detailed before you show it to a potential buyer.   A sparkling-clean car will almost always bring in a few hundred extra dollars.  It’s well worth the expense.

Following this plan should make the sale go as smoothly as possible and bring you the most possible money.

Readers, what have you done to dispose of an old car?

This is a sponsored post written to provide some insight into the world of used car retail.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

Zombie Wheels: How to Own a Car That Just Won’t Die

Finance

Soccer Mom Zombie
Image by juco via Flickr

The average car dies somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 miles.    My car is coming up on the lower end of that range and I’d like to see it last a lot longer than the top end.    I paid the thing off in January, and I’ve grown fond of not having a car payment.    Extending the useful life of your car–and continuing to use it–means fewer car payments and cheap auto insurance premiums.

Who really wants to keep making car payments month after month, year after year?  I want my car to outlast me.  Scratch that.   If that wish come true, I’ll have a meteor fall on me the day before the transmission explodes.

How can you help your car continue past undeath, past the point when other cars have given up and accepted the True Death?

Keep Your Gas Tank Full

Here in the frozen north(though not as frozen or as north as some of you), it’s conventional wisdom to keep your gas tank full in the winter to prevent your fuel lines from freezing.  Did you know you should keep it full the rest of the year, too?   An empty tank is more likely to rust.  Even before the rust eats a hole through the tank, there are tiny flakes of rust drifting into the gas lines and clogging the fuel system.

Change Your Oil

When you run old oil, you’re leaving contaminants and little flakes of metal flowing through all of the important moving bits of your engine.   Changing your oil removes those tiny abrasive bits from the equation.  I don’t recommend buying into the propaganda put out by the oil-change stores and changing it every 3000 miles, but do it regularly.    I aim for about every 5000 miles, but a better recommendation is to do whatever your owner’s manual says.

In between changes, don’t forget to check your oil level and top it off when it’s needed.    All by itself, that will improve your fuel efficiency and keep your car running happy.

Consistently keeping up with just these two small things will keep your car running smoothly for a long time.

How many miles are on your car?  How long do you plan to keep it?

Enhanced by Zemanta