car sales etiquette (1 Viewer)

[Philip_G]

I'm selling my car and had a question.
Guy calls today, and denver is pretty big, I'm down south. He's like hey meet me up north, it's halfway. So against my better judgement I drove up there, 23 miles one way to meet them. They drove the car, weren't real serious it seemed, didn't ask "the right" questions, just wanted a joy ride I think. So I think next time my answer is "no but I'll meet you at the nearest mall" which is like 5 miles away.
what would you do? is it rude to refuse to drive very far? I think it's rude to waste my time and gas if you're not serious about the car.

 

[Tim Morton]

Trouble is that you just never know...I am on the opposite side of the fence and looking to BUY a nice used car...looking for a saab 9-3 convertible. I was driving though a town in Vermont and saw one for sale on a guys lawn. It was exactly what i wanted and I had the cash in my bank account, so I could have written him a check then and there and was prepared to do it...I know from research that buying that car with that milage and year from a private sale , i should pat between 16.5 and 17.5 depending on condition...well he was asking 19.5 and was not looking to lower his price, I KNEW I was not going to buy the car from him, but took it as an opportunity to drive the car since I had never driven that model in the convertible...was I rude in doing so? I thanked him for his time , and offered him 17, which he declined and we parted company...Its possible they guy who drove your car did not want it when he saw it...he may have been very serious about buying it until foe any number of reasons he saw it...I would just consider it part of the process of selling the car.

 

[Jon_Welker]

Screw that, having to drive 30 minutes for someone to test drive your car is rude of someone to ask. Tim, you bring up a good point, but your situation was a little different. You were right there already. Philip, I think that you meeting someone at most 5-10 minutes away is very generous on your part. By doing that you are putting more miles on your car, and like you said, wasting your time and gas.

 

[Dan Lindley]

It's all supply and demand. Have you had enough nibbles to "get tough" or are you beginning to feel you'll be lucky if you sell it? There are no hard and fast rules, but you can try to screen for seriousness on the phone.



Good luck, there are lots of tradeoffs between speed of sale, price of sale, number of nibbles, etc. What is hard to judge is quality of nibbles.

DL

 

[Philip_G]

the ad started today and I had 2 calls. There are 5 or so in the paper and I'm the cheapest by quite a bit, I imagine she'll be gone by friday. A little scary, since I don't have another car lined up

thanks for the opinions, I think the nearest mall is a good idea, for one I'm new to the area and can NOT give directions from the interstate to here, for two it keeps people away from the house and they can't come back at night if they decide they "would like to have the car" if you know what I mean.

I have no problems with a quick spin, it'll only make someone fall in love with WRX

 

[Ted Lee]

hm...this is kinda tough to call.

i guess i wouldn't be too harsh on the guy. he did meet you half way - so it's not like he didn't invest an equal amount of time.

you can't gauge whether you're going to buy a car just based upon someone's words or description. you gotta kick the tires. perhaps the guy just decided that it wasn't the one for him.

i suppose if i called you and you gave me the impression that you weren't willing to "go out of your way" to meet me, then i would (probably) say forget it.

however, i absolutely agree that you should not meet them at your residence. as a matter of fact (and i hate to sound paranoid) you should take as much precaution as you can. these days you just don't know. i specifically forbade my girlfriend to do any of the person-to-person type activities when she was selling her car - i said i would do all of that. i didn't want her meeting any strangers.

eventually we just ended up selling it at carmax - they gave us a pretty good deal. if you have one if your area check em out - they may make you a good offer.

 

[brentl]

The only thing I'm wondering is what laws are in place in California that protect you from curbsiders??

Brent

 

[Lee L]

What the heck is a curbsider?

 

[Markus Lidstrom]

A Curbsider is...