Ltagg

I almost titled this..."The Bimmer That Won't Go Away"...I have a 2002 CPO BMW 525i that I'm trying to sell to free up cash to buy an '04 TL Auto/navi (sad to say 185 hp in the Bimmer is just not enough). I even have deals from 2 Acura different dealers for $1200 over invoice on the TL---not too bad a deal. Problem is, I can't seem to sell my dang car! Have had it in the local paper and on Autotrader for 3 weeks with NOT A SINGLE CALL/INQUIRY. I can't seem to figure out what's going on...It's a beautiful car that I purchased 12/31/03 from a BMW dealer in Nashville. It had 42k on it but has the BMW Certified Pre-Owned warranty which takes coverage out to 100k or 5/2008. I have a local luxury used car dealer here in OKC that will take it on consignment and give me $28k (best trade-in $$ I got was $26k). Frustrating thing is I paid nearly $35k 8 months ago. Yikes!

So.....I'm thinking of resorting to Ebay and putting a low Buy it Now price (probably $29,900) on it. Does Ebay work? All I ever see is "Reserve not met" and very few sales going thru....Can anyone offer any tips? I own the car outright..title is free and clear...How does transfering title work? Thanks. Help!!!! I'm trying to join the "TL Club" but the auto buy/sell gods are not cooperating...Here's the Bimmer link address on autotrader if anyone is interested...

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/vdp.js...lor=&cardist=0

Any help/input/advice would be greatly appreciated....

batting_cleanup

You may want to take the car by CarMax and see what they will offer you for it. Ebay will take a chunk out of your sales price when all is said and done. I looked at CarMax inventory and it looks like they are selling the 02 BMW 525I's for around $31,998 with similar mileage. Having done business with them before you can expect thay will offer you $29,000 for it if they can just run it through their inspection process and put it on the lot for sale.

leo221

when you buy a car you pay retail price + tax. when you sell your car to a dealer or trade in, you get whole sale price and you don't get the tax back. :'(

VTEC11

Ebaymotors has a flat fee for selling cars. THe last time i checked it was $40 to list, and $40 if it sells. So a total of $80. Not that bad compared to what they charge for selling other stuff.

Tripp11

As the above poster said, try out CarMax - you won't be disappointed.

AcuraVic

Try Carmax.

jime

I have used both Ebay and Yahoo Auto and would highly recommend Yahoo Auto.

Ebay was used to sell a Pontiac AM4 with a seized motor for my neighbor (to help get it off the street). The guy bought a trailer and drove from Eastern Canada to the San Francisco Bay area to pick up the car that he bought for $600. Very unique situation that we needed a unique buyer for.

I put my daughters Honda Civic on Yahoo Auto (that she had been trying to sell for 2 months) and sold it in 4 hours for $500 more that she was hopping for. She wanted $4000 and I got her $4500.

After I ordered my TL I listed my 95 Legend 6-speed coupe with 140,000 miles on Yahoo Auto. I sold it in 2 weeks for $1000 more than KBB Personal Sale price and $3,300 more than Edmonds Personal Sale price.

Good Luck

Ltagg

Unfortunately, I live in Oklahoma City and we do not have a CarMax here. Closest one is in Dallas. I looked on their website and it mentions that they buy cars outright. When it comes to pricing/valuing your car, they have a link to the Kelly Blue Book site. If they use Kelly Blue Book trade-in value, then I'm hosed...it's around $26k....Does anyone know if they go strictly by KBB? If they go by something else, then it may be worth a trip to Dallas...(2 Acura dealers I am dealing with are also in Dallas, by the way)

Don't know anything about Yahoo Autos but it sounds like a better deal than Ebay. Ebay is a fixed $40 fee. An additional $40 fee is charged if bidding hits your reserve price...

cpa4u

Ltagg,

I just recently traded for a TL and took my former car by CarMax for an appraisal before the trade. It was CarMax in Nashville (just down from where you bought your BMW). The blue book on my Infiniti was around $13,500 (good) and $14,700 (clean). I think those are the 2 choices you can select from. The car needed tires and brakes pretty badly. They offered $14,500 for it. The appraiser told me that blue book was a good indicator of value, but they have had many cars that appraised for more than that.

If you would like a good estimate of what the car might do at auction (what most dealers will give you on trade), go to Edmunds website. Look under forums for the one named "Real World Trade Values". There is a guy on there named Terry that is a dealer and is usually dead on when it comes to trade and retail values in the "Real World". He was great when I was trading. Hit it exactly on target.

poohlikeshunny

PM me...I make money off of ebay so often it's not even funny. For the first 2 years I started sellingon ebay, I started off with cars and electronics and I make enough monthly to pay all my bills and then some. There's a special trick to working with ebay, but they don't like it. PM me for details if you'd like, as I have had numerous experiences selling for myself and my father.

Ltagg

cpa4u: Thanks. I'm a little confused. On KBB.com, there are like 4-5 condition choices,not 2. Were you referring to this website when you said "blue book" or some other site. It appears that KBB is always lower, $ valuation-wise, than either NADAguides.com or Edmunds, sometimes substantially so... Was the price CarMax gave you close to this KBB website "trade-in" price or "private party" price? If they only pay somewhere around to the trade-in price, then I'll only get $25-26 for my car. If they somtimes pay more than that, then maybe there's hope....I wish there was one close by so I could easily "test the water" rather than having to drive 3 1/2 hrs only to find out I wasted my time...

I'll post on the Edmunds site and see if Terry responds. I suspect that if he does, he'll say on trade it's not worth more than $26-27 and then again, I'm hosed...($28k is looking pretty good at that point...) Maybe I can get $29-30k on yahoo auto...we'll see...Thanks.

Anybody else have good luck selling (quickly) on Yahoo Auto???

Mindcrime

I had pretty good luck with Yahoo Auto. I had my 2000 323i in the paper and on cars.com with almost no calls. I then posted it on Yahoo and started to get a fair number of calls. Several calls were from out of state which kind of made me nervous as they were from El Paso and Dallas, I live in Denver. Kind of wondered why they would want to travel to Denver for a car they can find in Texas. I ended up selling it to someone in Colorado who saw it online. The one thing I liked about Yahoo was that it gave you statistics on how many views of the car and how many views of your phone/email address so you can see if it is generating interest. Yahoo is a little more expensive in that after two weeks you have to renew it for more $$$. Some of the other sites allow free renewals. I looked at Ebay but it seemed like the only bids were for cars that had no reserve. Everyone was trying to get one cheap rather then looking for a good car at a good price. Also, most of the posts on ebay seemed to be from specialty used car dealers rather then individuals.
Either way, if you post online, expect some calls from other companies who will want you to list on their site for $200 or so for people who "are already qualified and looking for your exact car". Yeah right.

cpa4u

Ltagg,

CarMax told me that they pay what the going price is for the car at regional auctions. Normally, it will fall somewhere between the "good" and "excellent" ratings on Kelly Blue Book's trade in value.

cpa

Mike_TX

Hey, it won't cost much to give ebaymotors a try. I just sold a motorcycle there for $11,500 and it cost me a whopping $70 to do it. The guy flew in from Phoenix (to Dallas), I picked him up at the airport and he rode it home. Nary a hitch.

I didn't even try running it in the local papers, since I didn't want to have to deal with all the yahoos. It sold in 2 days on ebay for my buy-it-now price. Ebay gives you an audience your local papers and auto trader can't ... and all for 40 bucks. Sweet.

Mike