Generally, people tend to advertise their cars for sale in the hopes that they will eventually get the price they want for it. The trouble is; there are some people that want to sell their cars as quickly as possible, and cannot afford to wait for a potential buyer to contact them with a view to buying their car.
The reasons why people might want to do this usually include wanting to raise the cash as a deposit for their new car (but not wishing to part-exchange it due to the lower price offered), and sometimes people just need to raise the money to pay some unexpected bills, for example.
If you need to sell your car in a hurry, here is how you can do so with a high chance of success!
Valet and prepare your car
There are two ways that you can valet your car; you can either do it yourself, or you can hire a professional car valeter to do it for you.
Doing it yourself can save you some money, but you will need to devote several hours to do a decent valeting job on your car, which is why some people prefer to just get someone else to do it for them.
When it comes to valeting, you should ensure that the following is done:
- Interior – remove all personal effects, throw away any rubbish, vacuum carpets and seats, clean seats, centre console and dashboard, remove any stickers and “pay and display” parking tickets from windows;
- Exterior – thoroughly wash all dirt including tar and bird droppings from the outside of the car, scrub alloy wheels or wheel trims clean, polish the bodywork to remove scratches and hazing including swirl marks from automatic car washes;
- Engine – make sure any excess dirt and grime is removed from visible parts of the engine bay, top up fluids such as engine oil, coolant and screen wash;
- Number plates – if they are broken, get new ones made up for you. This will show that you have taken the time to maintain your car.
Make it road legal
Once your car is looking like it’s just driven out of the factory when it was brand new, your next job is to make sure that it is ready to be driven away once it’s been bought. This means getting a full and valid MOT for it and putting at least 6 months worth of tax on it.
You must also ensure that you have all of the paperwork relating to the car, including the all-important V5C document (also known as the “log book”). Without the V5C, no sane person will buy your car from you!
Sell your car online
Forget about going to car dealers or advertising your car for sale in your local paper, if you want to really sell your car quickly you should do this online! Selling cars on the World Wide Web is so much easier and quicker these days; on many websites, you can simply enter your registration number, mileage and condition, and a provisional value is displayed.
You are likely to achieve this value because you have taken the time to valet your car and kept it road legal.
