Another free site for listing your car is Myspace Classifieds. If you've never heard of Myspace, you're obviously over 30 years old. Myspace is one of the largest sites used by folks 25 and under and features personal space that allows you to say something about yourself and connect with friends. Membership is free. They'll even let you join if you're over 30...heck I'm over 40 and I joined. So if you want to list your car for free on Myspace, you'll first need to join Myspace which take a few minutes. If you are selling a car that is popular with the younger crowd, you should definitely post it here.
How to find the best deals on a new car anywhere in the country
Looking for the best deal on a new car. One great shopping tool is "Best Deals" at MotorAlley. You can search actual ads for the best prices of the car you are shopping for...in all the major US markets at once. Pretty incredible.
It's a good time to buy a new car if you didn't take advantage of the industry's employee-discounts-for all deals last summer.
Automakers are hiking rebates again and dealers are touting special year-end sales with an advertising blitz to ratchet up December sales and boost yearly results during the final days of 2005.
In Metro Detroit, select consumers can lease a sport utility vehicle for as low as $58 a month and about $1,000 down.
Google now lets you post your car for sale for free on their relatively new site called Google Base. Once you sign up for a free account you can post your car with pictures. Even though the service is offered by Google, I doubt the listings get as much traffic as Craigslist...but they might get more traffic than Oodle. Listing your car on Google Base doesn't take more than ten minutes so you should do it anyway.
OK, in the spirit of the Christmas holiday, here's a car to consider as a special treat for yourself. It's the Ariel Atom from the UK. Video hosted by Google.Top Gear Ariel Atom - Google Video
Hey Craig, thanks again. Just finished helping another person sell their car via Craigslist. This time it was my neighbors white 1996 Ford F250.
The story was almost like the Volvo I helped my sister sell. Not many callers or emailers on the vehicle and it took about a week but the few buyers that made contact were very interested. The ultimate buyer for the truck drove over 30 miles since it was exactly what he was looking for.
Lessons learned - don't fret if your car doesn't generate any calls right away, because a lot of people are looking at the cars on Craigslist. The nice thing is they see up to 4 pictures which is much better than any newspaper ad and you don't have to waste your time answering questions that are obviously answered with the detailed description and pictures you posted on Craigslist.
So, now I am a real believer in Craigslist for selling your car. Check out my earlier posts about selling your car on Craigslist for posting tips. TagsCar - Selling - Buying - Shopping - Tip
Donating a car? You can't deduct as much By Mindy Fetterman, USA TODAY If you've heard you can't get as big a tax deduction if you donate a car to charity in 2005 as you did before, you're generally right. But it can depend on who buys the car or who will use it.
A change in tax laws for 2005 limited the amount you can deduct for donating a car. No longer can you always deduct the amount you estimate as its "fair market value." Now, in most cases, you can deduct only the amount the car actually sells for at auction.
"The industry average [used] car value after 5 years is 35% of the new value." The range mentioned is from a low of 22% (worst) to a high of 53% (best). Great reason to shop carefully and know what your'e buying BEFORE you go to the dealer. USATODAY.com - Rio, Sebring top car-depreciation list
Rio, Sebring top car-depreciation list By Chris Woodyard, USA TODAY LOS ANGELES — The Kia Optima is less than optimal on resale value, two used car valuation outfits agree.
So are the Chrysler Sebring, Jaguar X-type, Kia Rio and minivans.
All are on lists of 2006-model vehicles expected to show the biggest drops in value the next five years. The lists were compiled separately by Kelley Blue Book and Automotive Lease Guide (ALG). The competing services, experts in predicting depreciation, make the forecasts so that automakers can better tailor lease rates and so car companies and dealers can predict trade-in values.
Kelley says a Rio is worth just 22% of its window-sticker price after five years; ALG says it's worst of any model, at a mere 15%.
The industry average after five years is 35% of new value, Kelley says. Best: 53% of original value after five years, shared by Mini Cooper, Toyota Prius and Honda Accord hybrid, according to Kelley.
How to find the best price when shopping for a new car
How do you find the best price for a new car? Well, that depends on how much time you have. Hopefully you have not waited until the day before your vacation to buy a car to take on your vacation. You should give yourself at least 45 days to shop around for the best deal. That way you'll be able to shop at the end of the month, when many actually do cut the best deals since they're trying to "make their numbers" for the month.
A word of caution, if you're looking for a "high demand" vehicle such as a Toyota Prius or a Mini Cooper, you should expect to pay a price near or even above the M.S.R.P. (Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price).
Sources of best prices: Newspapers - Car dealers have advertised in the newspaper for many years. They'll usually run their full page ads in the Sunday edition. Here's something you may not know, the Sunday edition of most major newspapers is available on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. Go buy one and get out your scissors and cut out all the ads for the cars you're considering.
Dealers advertise their best deals in the newspaper in order to get you to their store. Unless you're desperate for a car, you ought to search the ads for four or five weeks so you can see a pricing pattern. You should start to get a feel for how low dealers will go in their ads. Be aware that dealers will sometimes run ads for "loss leaders."
If possible, find papers for major cities within a few hundred miles of your home and get those papers as well. You can usually buy them at news outlets or bookstores like Barnes & Nobel.
Always read the fine print - A very common tactic among some dealers is to advertise a vehicle with a bunch of "special incentives" to make the car cheaper. In most cases nobody will ever qualify for all the incentives. Some of the most common ones are "recent college grad" and "mobility,"
Recent College Grad - the fine print from a recent ad stated the following:
Any student who has graduated from an accredited college, graduate school or Jr. college between May 1, 2003 and January 2, 2006 or currently is enrolled in an accredited college. Must finance through FMCC [Ford Motor Car Credit]. Not available on Mustang, Ford GT & Fusion.
Mobility Customer Cash - the fine print:
Provides financial assistance for the adaptation of vehicle for physically disabled drivers up to a maximum of $1,000.
Online Sources Online sources of car pricing include CarsDirect which offers a "target" price for a car in your market and Edmunds "true market value" which is supposed to be the actual transaction price of cars in your market. Each of these prices is an estimate of the price you should be able to buy the car for. When comparing prices in either of these to the newspaper ads, make sure you match the options on the vehicles as closely as possible. You can also get free dealer quotes at MotorAlley.
Telephone/Visit dealerships Once you have target price in mind for the car you want to buy and you've received your free dealer quotes, work the phone. Call all the dealers in your area and tell them exactly what you want and how much you want to pay. If they will match or beat your price, then you have a deal. Just be aware that certain salespeople at a dealership may tell you just about anything over the phone to get you to come in to their store. Keep detailed notes of your conversations including the time you called and the name of the person you talked to. If the actual deal differs from the one you discussed on the phone, be ready to walk. You should be ready to do this at least three times before you find the price that suits you.
Conclusion Finding the best price for a new car is work. All in all, you will probably spend at least 20 to 40 hours doing your research and actually shopping. Depending on the specific car you want, that may save you $500. to as much as $3,000.
Here's a list of the 10 most crash-worthy cars of 2006. Check this list as you narrow down your new car choices.
And the winners are...
Ten 2006 passenger cars have won praise from the insurance industry for offering top-of-the-line protection to passengers in front, side and rear crashes.The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently announced a new designation, the Top Safety Pick award, based on the performance of vehicles in crash tests.
Free car classifieds sites - Craigslist, Oodle, etc.
We've talked about Craigslist which is the obvious place to start if you want to sell something (like a car). I just helped my neighbor post his Ford F250 (1996, low miles) on Seattle Craigslist last night. Then I got to thinking, aren't there other sites out there that allow you to post free car listings as well? Of course there are.
One of my new favorite free classifieds site is Oodle. Oodle is great because it sucks up listings from other sites and presents them in an easy to navigate page. Oodle used to suck up listings from Craigslist too, until Craigslist asked Oodle (maybe screamed at them...I'm not sure)to STOP. So now your Craigslist post no longer shows up on Oodle.
When I clicked on "Post an ad" on Oodle, I discovered that they refer you to some other sites to post your listing, then they'll suck it off the other site. I tried a site called ClassifiedSellers. You need to register (free) to post your ad but it was very quick and I had my neighbors truck posted within five minutes. I'll let you know how well it worked and how long it takes for the truck to show up on Oodle.
If you recall my earlier post, I have been helping my sister sell her used Volvo using Craigslist. I posted the vehicle on Cragslist and made a one page mini web site for the car with lots of photos since Craigslist only allows 4 pictures. I linked the Craigslist posting to the one page mini web site and had 60 people follow the link from Craigslist to the site. Here's the funny thing. I only had two inquiries on the car...and one bought it.
So, let's see...60 people looked at it and two actual inquiries and one bought. No complaints with that kind of action. There are two reasons why we probably didn't get more calls, first of all, the asking price was on the high side, and secondly, the mini web site had a ton of pictures of the car, warts and all. The pictures probably answered most peoples questions about the car and it's condition.
Lesson's learned: First, if you don't want people calling you asking a ton of questions about the car, put up a mini web site with lots of pictures, similar to what people do on eBay Motors.
Second, if you're not in a huge hurry to sell the car, don't be afraid to list it at a higher price...just don't expect many phone calls. And if you don't get any action on the car and decide to drop the price, you should probably delete the original listing and create a fresh one so it's not obvious that you've been dropping the price and your new listing gets re-sent in the new RSS feed.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm helping my sister sell her old car, a 1992 Volvo 240 wagon. I made a site with a bunch of pictures of the car, then posted the car on Craigslist. To come up with a price I looked at similar vehicles on Craigslist. A few cars were listed for more so I figured the listing would get some action. Wrong! So far we've only received one email about the car. That's after a day and a half on Craigslist. The initial asking price was $4,750 even though NADAGuides shows a "High Retail" of $4,300 and an "Average Retail" of $3,500. So we'll try lowering the asking price to a more reasonable level and see if the activity heats up. I'll keep you posted on the results.
Auto sales down in November. Hmmm, what's this mean for you, the car shopper? It means that unless you're shopping for a Toyota or Lexus, you should be able to find some great buys on new cars in December.
Looking for an older Volvo wagon in Seattle - check out this car I'm helping my sister sell. 1992 Volvo 240 wagon with only 12k miles. It's blue and we're asking $4,750. Great first car for kids or college transportation.1992 Volvo 240 Wagon Blue 126k miles
Real information to help you make your next car buying and selling decision, Tips on Kelly Blue Book used car values. How to sell your car on Craigslist and eBay. How to find an auto loan.
If you think we've missed something, please let us know.
About Me
Name:Peter
Location:Edmonds, Washington, United States
I've been in the car biz for more than ten years and love it. I really enjoy helping friends and family buy and sell their cars so I decided to start a blog with helpful information for them. I hope you find it worthwhile as well.
Cheers!
