Need tips for selling a used car

[The Sauce]

Hey gang, I will be making my first foray into selling a car privately and I have a few questions:

1. Any issues with letting people test drive? i.e. do I need to inform my insurance, copy their license? Should I ride with them or let them take it alone?

2. What form of payment should I request?

3. Bill of Sale? Title transfer?

Any other details I am not thinking of?

 

[thedarkwolf]

I'm pretty trusting so I don't really worry about it but I never sold a car worth a whole lot anyway. I let them test drive alone and nearly every car I've bought from a private party I've also test drove alone. I don't get a copy of anything and if they run off I have their car sitting at my house anyway. I've done a bill of sale for one car but for the majority I just signed the title and let them go and I've always done cash but again I've never sold a car worth a lot. Now if some guy shows up looking like a junky it might be different.

I took my old beat to crap dodge caravan worth about $400 to look at a miata once because if I bought it it came with a bunch of parts I'd have haul back. Anyway when I test drove it I took a wrong turn and it ended up taking me 40 mins to get back to the guys house and I forgot my phone in the van so he couldn't call me. He was just about to call the cops when I pulled up lol. I bought the car.

 

[Midwayman]

1. Any issues with letting people test drive? i.e. do I need to inform my insurance, copy their license? Should I ride with them or let them take it alone?

People you give permission to drive your car are generally covered by your insurance even if they don't have their own. (Happened to my folks once). I always ask to see licence and insurance and ride with people. Mostly so they don't hoon around. photocopy, scan or take pics of this.

2. What form of payment should I request?

Certified check that you can accept at the place of issue during business hours. (So you can verify its legit.) Cash works too. Buy one of those currency checking pens and test a bunch of bills.


3. Bill of Sale? Title transfer?

Just download an example bill of sale from the net. Do you have your title on hand? Usually you just need to sign it. Otherwise you need to tell your bank you want to pay it off so they can have it on hand. Have the transaction take place at your bank where you can pay off the title then if you can't afford to do it before. (Plus if you get cash you can immediately deposit and then its the bank's problem) Just look up your DMV website and it'll detail if you need to do anything special. Plates typically stay with you for example.

Any other details I am not thinking of?
Listen to your gut if a transaction feels off.

 

[Brainonska511]

Depending on your state, don't forget to take your license plates off the vehicle. In NYS, the license plates stay with the seller.

 

[NutBucket]

I always ride with the people. Oddly I've sold two cars where the person buying declined a test drive. Very odd IMHO.

I only accept cash or bank transfer. Luckily one buy had the same bank I do so it was a piece of cake. Same with a car I bought from a coworker. The most cash I've had is $14k. Buyer and I went straight to the bank and I deposited it. Don't know if that really protects me from anything but at least I can't be followed and robbed or something.

 

[aigomorla]

Never let them drive alone unless u have a tracker and camera inside it.
Always sit in the back seat.

It helps to have a car fax pulled on the car as well, to show any proof of no major accidents, unless u had one.

It is also a very big bonus to have documents of service done on vehicle.
Your service dealer should be more then happy to print out all the work done on the car.

Usually if i see the last 2, and everything checks out fine, also if the price is right, the car is sold.