I've detailed my car, taken pictures, and uploaded them to my computer. I've put the car up for sale on carsforsale.com and craigslist.com. The car has been on carsforsale.com for a month now, and on Craigslist for 2 days. I've had no contacts or offers. I think the price is too high at $7,250. The car was worth $8,400 back in April, so it has probably depreciated to $8000 or below by now. Can you imagine an 8 year old luxury car that orginally sold for $37,000, going for under $8k? Although my pricing on carsforsale.com is one of the lowest, the larger selection of 2000 S80's on Autotrader shows them going for as low as $5,500.
Further action steps to complete this goal:
- Reprice the car competively for a quicker sale.
- Retrieve all paperwork from my filing cabinet left at my parent's house.
- Spreadsheet a maintenance & repair history.
- Learn how to get my title back from the bank while completing the sale.
- List car on Vehix.com
- Optional: pay $75 for unlimited listing on Autotrader
- Optional: Get $900 timing belt & thermostat maintenance done to enhance value.
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10/9/08
Well, I did reprice the car and undercut most all the others at $5750.00. I found out my car's NADA retail value has dropped to only $6675.00. With the substantial drop in value, I don't think I can afford a timing chain repair. I think I will negotiate with my dealership to get the check engine light to turn off, since I've paid for 2 $103.00 diagnostics that failed to get the light to turn off. Also, my girlfriend has offered to repair the leather on the center console, since she is a seamstress. Since dropping the price last Thursday, I received one contact, and showed the car yesterday! They'll contact me today or tomorrow if they want to get it over their mechanic. I'm not counting on them to purchase, so I'll continue some more action steps. I attempted to retrieve my maintenance records from my parents house, but was not able to locate them. I've moved twice this year, and maybe I mislabeled them. As far as my title is concerned, I guess I can't deliver the title to the buyer without first paying off the loan, so they'll have to wait for it. And I found out I definately need to retrieve my license plate and save it for my next car. (I just paid the registration fees for next year.) I did list the car for free on Vehix.com, and that is where this buyer found me. I'm going to add another new site soon.
Action Steps:
1. Locate maintenance paperwork & spreadsheet it.
2. Get oil/filter change at dealership, negotiate turn-off of check engine light, and request a back history of maintenance before I owned the car.
3. Add car to cars4jax.com at $29.95 unlimited.
4. Get girlfriend to repair leather center console.
5. Find a body shop to do touch up work.
6. Print For Sale signs for the windows.
7. Send an email out at work to the 45 people in my dept.
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10/19/08
The car sold!
I was still not able to locate my maintenance paperwork, but the dealership printed the car's whole history including that of the former owner. I did get a filler & oil change before selling the car. The dealership turned off the Check Engine light, but it went back on again the next day. Other than that, none of my other further action steps were completed. I'm considering this goal 90% complete until the loan is paid off and the title is retrieved and delivered to the new owner. I also bought my dad's 2006 Toyota Matrix already as my replacement vehicle.
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11/4/08
Well I finally completed the transaction of selling the car! As soon as the funds of the purchaser were available, I paid off the loan. I was able to locate some maintenance records outside of the trips to the dealership, which I passed on to the new owner. I also found the original clean carfax report that I pulled before I bought that car, and also passed that on to the new owner. My lending company actually lost my title, so I had to request a duplicate title. It took 7 days to get a Release of Lien document from my lender. But the purchaser and I were able to go to the Tax Collector's office and transfer the duplicate title directly into his name. I learned the different between the Florida Highway Safety Motoring Department, and the Tax Colletors's Office. I also changed my address on my driver's license while I was at it. So now I know more about title transactions, and I'm ready to transfer my dad's title this weekend. Today I also canceled my insurance of the old car. So, my first goal on LifeTango is complete!!!