If you’ve been reading about this adventure here and here, you’ve already heard about how sad it made me to make the decision to sell my old Acura, but how much I do actually like the new Prius C. And I do like it.
After I left the dealership with all my new paperwork, the keys, and a brand new monthly payment, all that was left was to sell the old Acura.
And that was a tiring process as well. I posted the car to Craigslist with an inflated price (by about $500). I have tried to purchase cars of CL before. I know how it works. Everyone tries to haggle with you so you might as well start a little inflated.
Oh, but wait! BEFORE this I went to Carmax, where we had sold our beater Saturn SL1 five years prior, and they gave me a price for the Acura.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
It was ridiculous. They offered me $2500 under Kelley Blue Book. When I mentioned that fact they said, “KBB isn’t buying your car.” Nope. You’re right. They are not buying it. But their entire reason for existing is to accurately price out cars for buying and selling. So no thank you, Carmax, I will be going somewhere else.
When we took our old Saturn to them they offered us $200 over the value so we’ve previously had good experiences with them. Just be warned: When they say it will take 30 minutes to review the car and give you a quote, they are lying. Both times took over an hour. Just be ready to spend some time there.
Digression! The value of my car was between $9200 and $9400 roughly, depending on your definition of “good” I suppose. I listed it on CL for $10,000. I got tons of calls and emails. I also put the price on the window and got several calls from that avenue. I think the reason for the interest is because of the particular car: Acura RSX Type S. It has a 6-speed manual transmission in it and it can really rip around corners. (I’m getting misty just remembering.)
Most people who called or emailed try to yank me around on price and tried to call me out on my knowledge. Here is a word of advice: Be prepared and know the value of your car and be ready to answer questions. Once I did that, most people backed off. I was also super transparent and put up pictures of the small dents in the roof. I also put the VIN in the ad so people could run a carfax report before calling me. I wasn’t afraid of what it would show. You would be surprised to know how many cars out there are salvaged. I had a clean title.
I met with the first person for a test drive three days after posting the car. It was a girl and she brought a friend with her. They did a test drive and asked all the right questions. She had done her homework too! Girl power! She asked about work done to it and the maintenance coming up. Good for her!
She and I had already agreed on $9500 for the price before we met. I let her negotiate another $250 off the price and held firm. I was impressed with her knowledge.
We then followed them to their mechanic to have the car inspected. If you are buying a car, you should ALWAYS do this. The mechanic said HE would buy this car if they wouldn’t. Yay! All that premium fuel and synthetic oil paid off!
Next stop was the smog testing station. In California, the seller is responsible for providing a smog certificate showing a pass that is dated within 60 days of the sale date. A lot of buyers don’t know this but you will certainly find out when you go to register the car in this state. I knew that little car would pass and when she did we drove to Chase bank so the buyer could hand me $9250 in cash.
Hazah!
It was sold within four days of posting on Craigslist. I never knew it would happen so fast, but because both the buyer and seller (me!) were so prepared and knowledgeable, the sale went super smoothly.
Now all that’s left to do is drive into the sunset with the new Prius C and hope for a fulfilling relationship.