experience selling old vehicle..

We listed my dad's 73 D200 on facebook marketplace about a month ago. Many people have messaged, one person has come to see it. A very common message is someone asking if I'd take $xxxx before they've even seen it in person. So far I've been basically ignoring those, because I can't imagine any serious buyer make any kind of a legimiate offer before seeing it, and I think the offer would only go down once they actually see it and can start pointing out x, y and z that make it worth less.

I knew selling it would be a PITA. But just wondering what approach you all have found successful. Do you price it way higher than you want, knowing that people are going to "offer" (putting it in quotes because I don't believe it's a real offer if they haven't seen it in person) less before even seeing it? Do you just ignore them, or are those people actually serious in your experience?

Is there anything you guys put in the text of the ad to weed out those people? I'm thinking I don't want to put "don't make an offer before you come and see it" because I wouldn't know if I'm dealing with the same bonehead that would have sent an offer without seeing it. And if I tell him not to make an offer without seeing it, I don't want that same bonehead asking about coming to see if they're not serious about that either.

Just kepp ignoring the "will you take" clowns.There is a real buyer out there somewhere.Don't give up and don't give it away.

Selling life was easier when all there was were the Thrifty Nickel papers, and/or a grocery store parking lot at the end of the street where you could park the vehicle with a for sale sign and your phone number on it. If it was priced right it would be gone in a week or two. Today you have used car sales people looking for easy flip material trying to get it as cheap as possible, and tons of people who act like they want something and never show up to look at it.

I sell parts on CL occasionally and get some strange calls and no shows as part of it.

Cool, yeah that's my thought too. No rush to sell on our end, so won't be giving it away.

I was taken by surprise when my Shelby Daytona sold. Younger kid came out and looked, seemed pretty impressed, said he had to talk to his dad about it.
3-days later he says he'll take it. We arrange a time for pickup.... he comes out, pays cash. Drives car away.

Didn't argue one bit about the price. I did have to put a new master cylinder in the car but that was no big deal.
Usually, selling cars is like pulling teeth. I'm also cursed in the fact that every car that I've brought back from the dead and sold; gets destroyed. So, I'm hoping this one breaks that curse.

But other than with the Shelby.... selling stuff has been a never ending nightmare. People asking ridiculous questions that could be easily answered by a simple Google Search. Trying to trade things that are worthless. Asking to halve the asking price or more. I was asking $7500 for the Shelby. The week before the kid bought it I had some woman from one town over offer .... and I quote: "I'll give you $2300 - take it or leave it." Like..... the audacity of some people. I can't tell if it's bravado or ignorance anymore.

Facebook Marketplace is the go to standard for buying and selling in 2024. When I get the dumb trade offers and lowball offers, I block that person. Talking about Facebook MP. At least then that same person can't bug me again.

Before responding to any inquiry on Facebook Marketplace I use the 'Buyer Details' button to see their profile. If the 'customer' has just joined FB, or the buyer details look bogus or are non-existent, I ignore the request.

Don't bother writing a detailed ad description...noone reads it. I respond to every message, even just to poke at someone's ridiculous offer. I should ignore them, but I can't help it.
Most offers are half of your asking price, no matter how you've priced it, so list high.
DO NOT rearrange your schedule to meet someone who says they're coming to look at it. 95% (or more) are no shows.
Be very careful who you let come to your house.

Patience and persistence are key nowadays. Put your ad in as many places as you can. Facebook and Marketplace have many 'groups'. Check out the ones that may apply to your offering, sign up and post your vehicle. Don't forget about Craigslist. Some still use that. The point it to get as many eyeballs on your ads as possible. It's all free. Well, except for your time.

In big bold letters at the top of the description say that you will not respond to automated messages like 'is this still available' and don't. That alone will eliminate a lot of the nuisance crap. Also look at the time stamp on responses. If it is overnight, it is far less likely to be worth bothering with. I have found that if a person is truly interested in the offering, they will follow up if I ignore their automated message. Personally, I don't block unless there is some additional back and forth that appears to be going nowhere.

If you don't get any real interest for a while, pull the ad for a few days or so, then relist. It sounds like you have time on your side, so be patient. I cannot tell you how many times I have listed something for months with little to no meaningful responses. Then BOOM! A real buyer seemingly comes out of nowhere and we do a deal. In fact, that very thing happened with my Challenger just Monday.

And if you don't get any meaningful interest to your initial ad, when you re-post, list it as 'in stock' rather than let it tell perspectives how long your ad has been up. The longer it says it has been up, the more you will get low ballers and other troll types wasting you time.

another place to list is the e-bag "classifieds".
i'm in the process of getting my wife's 1994 chrysler concorde ready to sell.
it's almost mint, runs great, and looks good. plus, it has 100% all new AC parts, with the exception of one hard line. however, the edmunds book lists the high book price as $595.00............
i'm going to get CONSIDERABLY more than that, or i'll demo derby it ! [well, not really]

Dealing with the public may be the #1 reason people consign to a dealer.
Most people don't seem to read a detailed description, and yeah, the low-ball offer without seeing the item is irritating.
FBM seems more active than CL, but it seems things take longer to sell anywhere, even if being almost given away.
But I've sold a few things where people showed up & the sale went smoothly.
As for cars, I've had the best luck using Cars On Line or Hemmings: can't recall the last time the actual buyer haggled with me.
I typically have a good feel for what my stuff is worth, and the real buyers have agreed.
I've become friends with a couple people I've sold cars or parts to, and bought cars from, which I find quite satisfying.

In every ad I place in bold letters PHONE CALLS ONLY E-MAILS AND TEXTS WILL BE IGNORED

I would rather that too but then all the dang scammers start calling. I ask that people message me first then I'll give my number.

As far as pricing; I always price parts/cars at pretty much my bottom dollar and say so in the ad. I don't want to mess around with the back and forth and would prefer a quicker sale if I'm straight up with my pricing. I don't know if this works better or not though.

It's sometimes hard to gauge real people who are serious buyers as opposed to time wasters & scam artists. I had some extremely vague message come regarding camping trailer I listed a couple of years ago. I almost ignored it but gave the person the benefit of the doubt & replied. I was glad I did because they showed up, gave me the full asking price & paid in cash. The couple that bought it were so cool that I gave them a $500 weight distribution & anti-sway controller set up for nothing.

If I list on facebook or craigslist I put a few standard terms in my ads such as....

Don't ask me "Is this still available?" because if you see the ad, it's available & will be removed when sold.

Please put the name of the item you are interested in, in the subject because I have several ads for different items.

Reply through craigslist or facebook but make sure you reference the item in the message so your email doesn't go to a spam folder or get deleted. You can also call me on a land line at xxx-xxx-xxxx. This is not a cell phone, so do not text it.

None of this guarantees anything but it does help weed out a number of nimrods. The ones that start haggling or low balling in the first sentence are the most annoying. I was selling a solid wood, hand made bed for $425 & got a message, "Will you take $100 for the bed?" I sent a one word reply back, "No."

The next message was, "What will you take for the bed?"

My answer was, "Not $100."

Have a vehicle on there right now, what a chore. But a no BS buyer is out there, just have to wait. Blocking is a great move to the dumb offers and questions, I assume the "will you take" guys have a limited budget and are seeing how far they can take it, but after they get blocked by 20 sellers they might wise up and stop shopping for stuff they can't afford

Same here, including when it's clearly not a real name.

My wife just had exactly the same experience when trying to sell this Jeep Wrangler on Facebook Marketplace. All she ever got is low ball ridiculous offers. She was already taking a loss on it, especially considering she had spent $3500 on the wheels and tires you see on it—with only about 1,000 miles on them. I told her to respond to those folks by telling them to come LOOK at it first. Nobody ever came and looked at it. Finally we just said the heck with it, we'll just KEEP it!

We sold a 72 Cutlass supreme ragtop a few years back on FB. We knew what we wanted to get and priced it above that. Minutes after listing our FB blew up with people wanting the car. We ended up meeting the 1st responder to the ad the next day....he never negotiated the price and was holding cash in hand. Sold within 24 hrs....cash deal. Obviously we could have gotten more for the car but we were VERY happy with the sale price. Price it right and it will sell.

I listed my Duster on a few websites, this one included. Never got any response here, except one member
was seriously interested, but he went another direction ultimately. It was listed on Facebook, Craigslist , Racing Junk, and the A body website, also.
LOTS of ridiculous questions, especially on Facebook... also a lot of people asking to trade, even though, I put it in the ad NO trades!
It's funny, a member on the A body website saw the ad, last month, told his father about it... turns out the dad lives about 3 miles from me.
He ended up buying it, I got my price, every one is happy. Stay patient and positive. Your truck WILL sell, just a matter of time.

People will not read any write up that exceeds 3 or 4 sentences. It takes zero effort to send a message asking a stupid questions to the seller so many do just that. I like blocking lowlifes- that way they cannot keep bugging me. I sold my 71 Demon using FBMP (Facebook Marketplace) back in Dec 2019. I had to use my blocking method but after 2 weeks a guy in Detroit (I am in Holland MI) contacted me. After a phone conversation he sent me a check from his bank for the ENTIRE amount. He came 2 weeks later and picked up the car. I placed his $13,000 check in my bank account for safe keeping and had the transaction take place while my bank was open- just in case something happened, and he did not want to go thru with the purchase.

I think it depends if you are selling a "classic" or a "daily driver". It's different selling a '67 Belvedere versus a 2012 Kia. For the most part, different groups who would be interested.

I sold a 2010 Escape last year on FBM and got my asking price. Car was up for one hour and gone that night. Had tons of randos making stupid lowball offers. The one that did buy it was some lady who brought family with her to look at it. She translated for the father who knew cars. He complained the struts felt weak, to which my reply was, what do you expect for 120k miles?" They tried to get me to lie on title regarding the sale price and then asked if I would leave the plate on it. People are assholes. Needed to take a shower after that.

Very much so and getting worse.

Selling certain things has become an exercise in frustration.

When I sold my wagon last year, I used a Mopar specific group on Facebook. Using a special interest, private group cuts down on the nonsense, but doesn't completely eliminate it.

Not a complaint since I expected this from the very beginning, BUT I did not expect just how many "I'd be interested if it wasn't a '73" responses I would get. So many that my 'enough time to sell', became 'I have to sell NOW'...

The buyer was nice enough, I'm not going to bad mouth him, but he had cash and used my situation to his favor.

The only thing that upset me after the fact was that as far as I know he parted it out. Never had the intention to fix it. (I came across a number of parts ads),

The 4dr I had years back suffered a similar fate, but at least with that car, it was a number of years later as the buyer had gotten in over his head and bailed.

I'm down to just my Dakota now, and I'm real close to driving it to the junkyard and walking away.........

I sold my Duster on Craigslist. Sold within 24 hours, buyer was happy, I was happy. On flip side I've had parts for sale on CL for months without a single ping. So heck if I know. Some stuff sells, some stuff doesn't. Sometimes I'll list stuff and I don't hear anything for months and then a guy shows up and pays full price and takes it.

" then asked if I would leave the plate on it. People are assholes."


my brother lives in california, and sold a 1995 olds ciera he bought here in pa at one of the auctions i used to go to when he lived here.
it was a pretty decent car, bought very cheap, and served him well for many years, and he took it with him when he moved because of his job.
well finally it was time to sell it, so by then, it had a ton of miles on it and needed new tires and a couple of other minor things, so he listed it on "whatever" out there.
some lady and her son showed up, bought it with cash for his cheap asking price. he signed the title, off they went, and that was that..........or so he thought............
about a month goes by, and he gets a letter from the local PD claiming he is going to have an arrest warrant issued for him unless he pays the speeding ticket issued the same day he sold the car. the date and time was listed, as well as the ticket number. as this was almost 12 hours after he sold the car, he knew it wasn't him. he calls the phone number on the letter head, explains the car was sold way earlier in the day, gives the PD the woman's name and address, and the PD then tells him to just disregard the letter.
in california, when you sign the pink slip, the buyer is supposed to go to the DMV and finish the sale process. [at least that was the way it worked at the time of this incident] the tags stay with the vehicle.
a few weeks later, he gets another letter for another infraction, plus a phone call for yet another still ! so after a few phone calls and hours spent explaining the car had been sold [giving the date and who it was sold to] and he didn't have it anymore, he thought FINALLY, this mess was taken care of. HAHAHAHAHAHA !!!!!!

NOT !!

this went on for several more MONTHS, he would get multiple letters, mostly registered [requiring him to spend/waste time going after them] and phone calls threatening him with arrest if he didn't pay up for the tickets "he" received.
hours and hours were spent on the phone and visiting the DMV explaining he no longer owned this car, and it was the woman or her son who had purchased his car that were creating this mess !
it ended finally, when he got a phone call from a tow service, threatening him they were going to sell or junk "his" car if he didn't pay the impound fee, coupled with the tow bill, within 72 hours !
he started laughing and told them he didn't give a $hit what they did, because he had sold this problem months and months, and by this time, almost a year ago !
the tow company person got a pretty good chuckle out of this story, so he told my brother this will be end of his problems................
it must have worked, as he hasn't heard another thing about "his car" in all the many years since.

yes, people really are A$$HOLES !

I had a similar deal on a '65 Coronet 500 daily I sold to a young guy, but it actually turned out kinda funny.
Started getting parking tickets on the car from various locations in L.A.a few weeks after selling it and advising DMV accordingly with the mail-in form.
I responded tot he tickets for awhile, even mailing in the new owner's info, but the tickets kept coming.
Eventually, the car was impounded by a tow outfit, and I received a notice of lein sale.
I knew a shop who did a lot of high-end stuff, and being L.A., he also did some commercial real estate in partnership with Sly Stallone.
At the time, he was doing a bulletproof Suburban for him.
Anyway, I go down, basically buy the car back for something like $350, and he tows it to the shop.
Stallone ended up buying the car from me, for his son, while it was sitting there.
And paid me more than the 1st guy, and more I had in it by a decent margin.

The new titles in IL have a detachable flap on the bottom that you fill out when you sell the car. You are suppose to send that flap into the State. If you do that, those future problems just don't happen.

I tell the people I sell old car to that I'm sending that flap in the next day, and they don't get my old plates. I tell them I want to keep the plates so I can remember that great ride, then I cut them up and scrap them. .

I made up a little form that the buyer has to sign acknowledging that they received a transferred title for the vehicle. Haven't had to use any of them yet but that day's coming.

Here in Illinois there is no reason (other than maybe laziness) for a vehicle to leave with it's current plates. Here, the plates stay with the owner. Not the vehicle. But that is not true for every state.

In Illinois, ALWAYS remove and retain the plates.

And a sales agreement signed and dated by both parties is a bare minimum for a sale. Nowadays, further steps should be considered, but a signed and dated sales agreement by both parties with the pertinent vehicle details is an absolute must.

In Arizona, the plates are to be destroyed or retained by the old owner (I tack them up on my garage walls) and a "Sold Notice" can be filed on-line with the Department of Motor Vehicles stating that you sold the vehicle and are no longer responsible for it.

moparx That is where the 'report of sale' that Washington State uses. We have 5 working days to submit the report stating who bought it and when. Had a toll company send me a bill for the freeway use by the SST I had owned. I sent them the official report from the DMV that stated who bought it and when. I also called the toll company first, and they then billed the new owner that hadn't registered the car in their name, turned out to be a car used car salesman that bought it.

and yes we are supposed to remove the plates.

Well we sold it yesterday, for a price we are happy with. The guy who ended up buying it, had messaged on FB asking for a pic of the interior and a video of it running. Since it's my dad's truck and I don't live there, I couldn't just walk outside and snap pics or a video. So I said I'll see if I can do that sometime (I never did). About a week after that he messaged with an offer. It wasn't a crazy lowball offer like others had sent, so I said yeah we'd be willing to entertain that but you'd need to come see it first. He's about 80 miles away. So we messaged a bit more, he came yesterday with someone to drive his car home, and gave the same amount he offered that we were happy with. I'm glad I didn't block him right away for sending an offer without looking at it, but that was only because his offer wasn't a lowball.. it was more than we would have accepted.

We are in CA and the release of liability is something we've thought about too. Part of the title that the seller detatches, contains the release of liability form that includes the seller, buyer information, the sale price, and of course has the vehicle plate and VIN. It can either be mailed or done online. We did it online. The website did say that the process is only complete once the new owner transfers title. We can't do anything about that obviously. It also occurs to me that there is no requirement that we, the seller, verify that the buyer's info is accurate. He could say his name is Bill Smith and he lives at 123 Main Street, how are we to know whether that's accurate. The form just says that we fill it out with the best of our knowledge or something to that effect. He might never transfer title into his name. I know when so many cars are sold all the time, that's got to be a common thing to do. I certainly hope the guy doesn't rack up any tickets with it. But who knows.

Edit to add the text from the CA DMV website about the release of liability. So I guess we're done.

sometime directly, i am selling my wife's car because she voluntarily gave up driving because she said she didn't feel safe because of all the idiots out there playing with their phone while driving, and she didn't think she could react fast enough to avoid an accident if one were to present itself.
i'm really proud of her taking the initiative on the safety aspect.
her car is a 1994 chrysler concorde, and believe it or not, it is not rusty [] and runs and looks great !
i don't know where i'm going to list it. as others have said, it's tough dealing with all the crackpots, dopers, and weirdos out there.
and i'm most certainly going to ask considerably more than the edmonds price guide value of $595.00..........[idiots..... ]

Wait until you get a notice of past due or parking tickets AFTER you sent in that form and the years it takes for them to stop sending them... BTDT. Never bothered to register/change ownership. I sent that form in about 6 times on a car I sold and they kept sending me bills. Car went out of state and the owner used it for a race car. Make sure you keep it in a safe place and photocopy/scan digitally save it. YMMV with the dmv and them trying to collect $'s.

That form is worthless based on how the DMV recognizes its use. Great for future use when they come looking.

Funny thing, I was a used car dealer in Indiana. Bought many from ads in local papers. You would be surprised at the number of people that leave their plates on cars that they sell. Bought one car from another used car dealer. It had valid plates on it. I thought it may have been his personal car. He said, "No, they were on it when I bought it." At least I removed them before selling the car.

Yep! Plates, clothes, money, IDs, photos, tools and all manner of personal possessions are left in vehicles. I remember we used to joke that when the ashtray got full it was time for another vehicle. Maybe that has been expanded to when the trunk is full.