Selling Privately

How to Prepare the Car For Sale

The public are suckers for clean-looking cars. So, whatever old rubbish the car may be, if it can be made to look good, someone will inevitably buy it.

Making a car look good is a matter of thoroughly cleaning it inside and out, thoroughly polishing it - paying particular attention to the windows, treating the plastic with a restorative, touching up or 'blocking in' as many paint chips as you reasonably can and blacking the tyres to make the whole show look new. An upholstery spray such as 'Apple Fresh' also goes down well. Whatever you do, don't spray the plastic around the dashboard with shiny glop. This looks and feels hideous and will make the public suspicious.

If you are selling the car privately from your doorstep, consider servicing it and putting it through a fresh MOT. It doesn't need to be a big service, but it will give buyers confidence and make then feel much better disposed towards you. A fresh MOT is worth many times the MOT fee, assuming the car dos not need expensive work to get it through.

A couple of years ago I came across a lady with a filthy Rover full of kids stuck by the roadside. The car was dead, I couldn't help, and the lads from the garage round the corner were called in. A few days later I asked one of them what had been wrong with the car. 'SPlugs and throttle valve completely choked up with muck. Hell of a state', he replied. 'I asked her when she last had it serviced and she told me 16,000 miles ago. I offered to service it for her but she said, no, we're selling it next week.'

This is the worst way to sell a car because all any trader will look at is the profit they can gain from cleaning it up and re-offering it. She'll have got about £2,000 less for it than she would have done had it been clean, freshly serviced and newly tested.

How to Prepare Your Advertisement

If you're using a photo ad in one of the many 'Trader' publications, don't let their bloke come round and take the photograph. Especially don't let him take his snap of the car parked next to the dustbins round the back of a block of flats.

These days, if you don't have a digital camera you can borrow one. Obviously it's well worth taking a bit of time over the photo if a good snap is going to sell your car faster and for a lot more money.

So take twenty. Photograph the car against a variety of backgrounds. Side-on, three-quarters, against a contrasting skyline; then pick the photo that both shows it off the best and is most likely to reproduce well on fairly grotty newsprint, as well as in full colour on a website.

Describe the car accurately and simply, using no superlatives. 'Nissan Primera 2.0SVE 5-door, 2004/04, 55,632 miles, full service history, met blue, air-conditioning, alloy wheels, good condition, £5,500' will go down a lot better with the general public than 'Beautiful Nissan Primera, two litre, top spec SVE model, 04 reg, 55k, FSH, stunning metallic blue, a/c, alloys, drives superb, first to see will buy £5,499'.

Vital these days is to include in the ad the words, 'No Canvassers'. I'll explain that later.

Where to Advertise

This depends on the car and the price range.

For cars under £3,000, it's always worth putting a postcard in the local newsagent's window. Local newspapers or freesheets usually have sections for this type of car. People who buy Loot, the London classified newspaper, expect cars advertised in it to be cheap. Auto Trader magazines also offer sections for cheap cars. And if the car is a bit specialist, Exchange & Mart is worth a stab.

Mid-range family cars seem to go best either from the bigger local newspapers (or groups of newspapers) or from a photo ad in an Auto Trader.

If you have something you think a dealer or an enthusiast might be interested in, Autocar is worth a try. If attempting to get a high price or an 'over' for a car the demand for which exceeds supply, then you'll do best with an ad in Exchange & Mart, The Sunday Times or The Daily Telegraph 'Motoring' which appears on Saturdays.

But I reckon that the best place of the lot is the Autotrader website, www.autotrader.co.uk which costs £17.99 a fortnight and gets cars gone for me when all else has failed. Exchange & Mart also has a website: www.exchangeandmart.co.uk And then, of course, there's always www.ebaymotors.co.uk.

How to Answer The Phone

Though you are a private individual, it's better to sound fairly professional. Blaring television, loud pop music or kids fighting in the background are a definite turn-off to the buyer.

Answer with a polite, upbeat, 'Hello', followed by your telephone number. This immediately confirms that the caller has phoned the right number.

There is then a 95% chance that the caller will say, 'I'm calling about the car.' This is your cue to say words to the effect of, 'Yes, the Nissan Micra' (or whatever) and confirm to the caller that you are not a 'home trader' who has a lot of different cars for sale. Quickly add, 'What can I tell you about it?'

You're honest, you've put the buyer at ease, and you are welcoming his or her questions. What more could the buyer want? You must then try to answer every question as quickly and straightforwardly as you can, which is not always easy when they make ill-thought demands on you such as 'Does it have any marks?' (Every car has marks, so your answer to this is 'Nothing significant'.) Similarly, if they ask 'What sort of condition is it in?' you say 'Good condition, at least I think so.'

What they should be asking are questions such as, 'Are you the owner of the car?', 'How long have you owned it?', 'Why are you selling it?', 'When did you last have it serviced?', 'Can you be sure that the mileage is genuine?', 'Do you owe anything on finance for the car?', 'Is the colour Baliol Blue, Rimini Blue, Ontario Blue, Cayman Blue, Java Blue, State Blue or Petrol Blue?' (that would indicate that the caller knew his or her Mondeos).

Remember, depending on the scarcity of the car and how competitively you have priced it, the buyer may either be working through a list or you may be the only vendor he is phoning that night. If it's obvious he is working through a list, you have to hook him and you'll do that by charm and honesty, not by a load of old flannel.

Even if the buyer does not yet want to make an appointment to view the car, be sure to get his name and phone number before you give him your address. When subsequent callers query how much interest there has been in the car you can then read out a list of names and that might make them want to come and view the car immediately. The British are a bit peculiar like that. They always seem to want something if they think everyone else wants it.

Getting the name and number of all callers also helps protects you against theft from your driveway or from the street. If you are selling a highly desirable, much-stolen sportscar, take all callers' phone numbers, then phone them back on that number before divulging any address details. Smart thieves can get your address from your phone number anyway but they're not all that smart.

I mentioned earlier including the words 'No Canvassers' in your ad. This it to try to stop phone calls from insistent charlatans telling you that for £79 or £99 or whatever they know a lot of people who want a car like yours and they can put you in touch them. Don't speak to them at all. Not a word. Just put the phone down.

The same goes for callers and e-mailers from overseas offering to transfer much more cash than you are asking to your account on the understanding that you will pay some of it to their agent in the UK. It's a money laundering scam, picked up by the banks long ago, but the scammers have even taken advantage of that. Money could appear in your account and on the strength of it you could pay some of it to the 'agent' as well as consign your car. Then, a few days later, the original credit to your account is cancelled as 'suspect' and the funds returned to the sender. So you have lost your car and the money you paid to the agent. You would never be so foolish, would you?

How to Demonstrate The Car

It is illegal for anyone to drive your car if he or she is not insured to do so. In effect, many purchasers' private car policies still cover them to drive a car they wish to purchase on third party terms if that car (your car) is insured by someone else (you). But 'third party' means just that. If the potential purchaser wrecks your car, his insurer will pay for any damage to third parties, but not to you. Similarly, if he steals the car from you, you will get nothing back either. And if he turns out not to be insured at all, then crashes your car, both you and he could find yourselves facing criminal charges.

So be very careful indeed about allowing other people to drive your car, and don't even contemplate it unless you see their insurance certificate or have an 'any driver' policy for your car, or a trade policy.

Assuming the insurance question is satisfactorily answered, there is not much point in you driving the car with the purchaser as passenger unless that is specifically what they want.

Why not let them drive? The procedure is for the buyer to get into the driver's seat and you to get into the passenger's seat. Both of you then make yourselves comfortable, the buyer gets familiarised with the controls and you both put your safety belts on.

Then, and only then, hand him the key.

If you drive first, there are two safe ways to carry out the swap-over. You climb from the driver's seat to the passenger seat and let the buyer walk round to the driver's seat. Or you both walk round but you take the key so he doesn't get hold of it until you're both belted in.

Never, ever, take more than one male person on a test-drive unless you also take a big bloke as your own back-up.

How to Take Payment

There are five ways to take payment for a car.

The first is a Building Society Cheque issued by the Building Society itself, in which case you need to see the buyer's statement to check the amount has in fact been withdrawn so you can satisfy yourself that the cheque is genuine.

The second is a Bank Draft, which you must only take during banking hours so you can phone the bank that issued it and check it is genuine.

The third is a CHAPS or BACS transfer that is usually okay if it comes from within the UK. Don't simply trust on online check that it ahs come through; phone your bank to makes sure the funds are credited.

The fourth is a Western Union or Moneygram payment, which is irrevocable and usually in cash, and the best way to take payment for a car sold to someone overseas.

The fifth is 'Nelsons' (Nelson Eddies = Readies). The best advice when taking cash is to swap the V5 and keys for the cash in a bank so you can bank it safely straight away. Take cash on your doorstep and you won't be the first to receive a little 'cash relieving' visit shortly afterwards by big, nasty men you wouldn't want to argue with or to threaten your children.

However, seriously large amounts of cash ring alarm bells at banks that it might be drug money. So check with your bank the maximum amount of cash it will accept in one transaction.