A Money-Making Idea: Sell Your Old Car Yourself
by Remar Sutton

How hard do you work to take home a thousand dollars? Well, that's how much you might throw away if you trade in your old car rather than sell it yourself. Follow these tips and if you're lucky, you'll keep that thousand, rather than hand it to the dealership.

1. Clean your car top to bottom. Fix minor things like blown fuses.

2. Find out its "wholesale" value--that's all a dealership will give you for it. Just take your car to a few used-car operations and ask what they would pay to buy your car outright. The highest figure is its true wholesale value. You also can get a fair idea from classified-ad asking prices for cars like yours, and on the Internet at sites like www.edmunds.com.

3. Set an "asking price" that's high enough to allow you to dicker: Add $2,000 to the wholesale price.

4. If you owe money on your car, call your lender for instructions about paying it off before you advertise it for sale.

5. Run a short ad in your local daily paper and in any "traders." Study other ads for tips on wording.

6. Use common sense with any stranger who wants to drive your car before making an offer: Check the person's driver's license; write down the tag number of the person's car.

7. Become a salesperson: Talk up your car's good points. Has it been dependable? Have you kept careful maintenance records?

8. Don't talk trade or finance. And don't come down off your asking price too quickly. If you've marked up your car $2,000, come down in increments of $50 or $75. And remember: Any amount you receive above your car's "wholesale" value is extra profit to you.

9. Don't accept personal checks. Insist upon a cashier's check or cash.

Selling a car yourself rather than trading it in takes work and patience. And your chances of success aren't 100%. But tens of thousands of people just as inexperienced as you do it every week, and do it successfully. And wouldn't that extra thousand or so come in handy?

Remar Sutton's car-buying tips have been featured on "Good Morning America," "Today," "20/20," "Nightline," and in magazines such as People, Newsweek, and Credit Union Magazine. He's president of the national Consumer Task Force for Automotive Issues. He writes this column exclusively for credit union members.