Car dealers hate us...
You'll Love us!

Strategies for selling your used car, best used auto classifieds sites such as UsedCars.com, Cars.com, CarsDirect.com and Car.com where the world can see your used car classified ad. After you read our used car classifieds tips here, be sure to read both our used car guides:

• Tips On Selling Your Used Car
• How To Buy Used Cars & Avoid Scams

Successful people sell their cars online. Millions of people see your ad, out of state buyers may be moving to your city looking for a car. With online auto classifieds, enter a used car you want and they list all models with your selected options. Newspapers have limited coverage. Use online used auto classifieds so the whole U.S. sees your car. Pick car classifieds with money back guarantees if your car does not sell, or use one that keeps your listing until your car sells. Some buyers drive across states to buy your car, and drive it back home. Use these sites below to sell you used car, or buy your next used car.

Online Used Car Classifieds To List Your Used Car For Sale
Savvy consumers search for used cars online at car buying sites such as UsedCars.com, Cars.com, CarsDirect.com and Car.com. Sell your car there and you'll get much more for your car than trading it in, because you'll sell it at market value, which is $2000-$6000 more than trade-in value. One Mercedes dealer offered my sister $6000 below market for her E Class, wanting her to pay MSRP on a new Mercedes. Here's our review of the major players:

I highly recommend that you place an ad in an online site. By posting to both, you pretty much have the internet covered.

FACT: Your strategy is to blitz the media and let the world know you have a great car for sale. You'll almost always get more for your used car by selling it yourself privately, than trading it to a car dealer. If your car is 4 years or younger, the dealer will give you $3000 less than fair market value for it, because they have to dump it on the wholesale market. If your car is over 4 years old, banks won't finance it, so it's worthless to dealers, they will only give you a heart breaking 25% of fair market value!

TIP: Give yourself a budget of $75 -$100 to sell your car. The world is not beating a path to your car so you have to beat a path to the world. Spend more than just the usual one week $35 newspaper ad to sell it. Very few frustrated people sell their car using a one week newspaper ad. Like a key in a lock, if the ad for your green 1997 Camry does not appear during the one week time that a buyer is looking for a green 1997 Camry, you're out $35. Your budget will get you into 3 different classified ad venues like a newspaper for about $35 for a 1-2 week run, and at least 2 popular internet classified ad websites, usually $20 for a 30 day run. Newspapers are not a scam, but that $35 classified ad fee they advertise is a farce, as they are stingy on the number of words. In order to really give any useable info in your newspaper classified ad, you'll most likely end up spending $40-$50 for a one week run. My friend Steve got dismal newspaper response on his Corvette newspaper ad, yet he got 2 calls from his web ad the first day. He sold the car 2 weeks later to a LOCAL buyer who saw his ad on the web, not the newspaper! Auto classifieds on the web are much more cost effective than newspapers because they are cheaper, and run 4 times as long or longer. Why limit your ad to maybe 5 local people who might be interested in your model year car, when you can put it on the web where there are millions of people interested in your model. For half the price you get 1000 times the exposure! A coworker of mine sold his Jaguar on a web based ad to the first person that emailed him. Web based classified ads have the advantage of your car appearing in a buyer's search of cars within hundreds of miles of their house. But by contrast, newspapers usually cover a small metropolitan area. Look for online classified sites where your ad stays until the car sells. Don't even think about parking you car on the side of the road to sell it, it could get vandalized, ticketed, towed, or all of the above.