Selling a car privately in Toronto, Ontario has its own downsides and benefits. For one, you will make more money from your car and probably some satisfaction doing it. Downside is, you will have to put up the work and effort realizing that profit and that is not easy sometimes.
CLEANING
Start with most important requirement, it has to be clean. Take your car to a clean up shop or clean it yourself, either way it has to be done. It is very hard to sell a dirty car.
RECORDS
Every maintenance or past repairs records/receipts will help, more the better. Also, getting a Carfax history for your car is advisable. It will set you back $40 or so but it will pay off in the end. People like to know the history of the car they are trying to buy and will even pay more for a car with a clean record.
PRICING
Price is what most people look at first when buying a used car (as anything else mostly). In order to sell your car privately, you need to answer the question: How much my car is worth? That question needs to be answered before you start dreaming about big numbers. Check online sites like VRMCanada or Red Book to see how much is your vehicle worth. Do not assume your car is better than theirs, as some people do and put an unrealistic price for it. You will never sell your car privately if you are asking way over what real value is. All you will do is, lose your time.
Do not try to match professional dealers in price. There is a lot of work done by professional dealers to prepare a vehicle for sale. Professional cleaning and inspections, also dealers will continue to keep responsibility even after the sale for a reasonable amount of time.
Private sales have zero responsibility after a sales, it’s all about a handshake. People generally feel much safer buying from a dealer that private and rightly so. You will need to keep your price reasonably lower than that of dealers, after all private sales are about good deals.
LISTING
Listing your car for sale is pretty easy. Use Carpages or Kijiji, both sites are free. Make plenty pictures of exterior/interior and engine bay. Make sure listing is short, informative and includes all details of your car. If your car has extra options (Navigation, Bluetooth etc) make sure those are included in listing, people like that stuff.
DOCUMENTS
In order to sell your car privately, you will need the ownership of the vehicle and Used Information Package. Used information package can be obtained from any Ontario Ministry of Transportation Office for $30. It contains information of previous owners, mileage and present Liens of your car and will latter serve as a bill of sale too.
EDUCATE
Be prepared to get questioned quite a bit or quite a lot, more likely. Most common are: “any accidents”, “why are you selling it”, “what wrong with it” “what’s your last price” “what does it needs for safety” “can I take it to my mechanic”…etc. Make sure your answers are short and informative, don’t go on long explanations. After all you can’t sell your car over the phone, they will need to look at it and reach a deal with you.
PAYMENT
Once you have reached a deal for selling your car privately, best payments options you should accept are cash or bank draft, or if they agree a bank transfer but you need to clear the funds in that case before proceeding with the sale.
FINISH THE DEAL
You need to complete the transfer of ownership portion and record the mileage, the buyers name and address and both must sign/date the transfer of ownership. Keep the plate portion and give to buyer the ownership portion. Also, you and the buyer must sign the Vehicle Information Package.
As a last point, when you sell your car privately be careful of scammers. Anything that involves “shipping” or money sent to you by someone who never seen your car are all scamming methods.
Alternatively, you can follow a faster and safer route with online car buying services or trade your car in if you are buying a new vehicle. It is much faster and safer but you will have to compromise with a somewhat lower price.