How to Negotiate a Used Car Sale

To ensure you can negotiate from a position of strength, arm yourself with as much information as possible. Selling your car can be a rewarding experience when you transform your knowledge into negotiating power.

Negotiating 101

Build Urgency

The negotiation process begins the moment a potential buyer contacts you. Focus on building urgency. Let buyers know others are interested. Show potential buyers you’re serious about selling the car and reassure them you want to accommodate their needs.

Be Prepared to Haggle

It’s doubtful a buyer will pay your asking price, so be prepared to haggle. When you haggle, know how low you are willing to go, and don’t be afraid to walk away from the potential sale. Sometimes walking away is your best option if negotiations drag on unproductively.

Don’t Panic

It’s common for a potential buyer to hit you with a lowball offer. This is part of the negotiating process. Use the buyer’s offer as an opportunity to explain how you arrived at your price. Consider lowering your price some to show you’re willing to negotiate. If a buyer is serious, he should counter with a higher offer. A serious buyer wants to purchase a car, not negotiate endlessly.

Remain Objective

During the negotiation process, there’s no need to be overly emotional. If you’re concerned you might need to be more objective, bring someone with negotiating experience who isn’t invested in the sale.

Your first goal is to sell your vehicle for the best price that is fair to you and the buyer.

Know the Value of Your Vehicle

The key to good negotiating is knowing how to arrive at a price you and the buyer are happy with. Knowing the value of your vehicle and how flexible you’re willing to be on the final sale price is crucial.

There are many great tools to help. Autotrader.com’s pricing tool shows you the average price for similar vehicles in your area. If you haven’t already determined your vehicle’s value, read our pricing article to find out more.

When you know your car’s actual value, you’re less likely to be influenced by aggressive negotiation tactics from a potential buyer. Explaining that you’ve already factored those issues into the price allows you to refocus the conversation on the car’s overall value.

Understand Local Supply and Demand

You can get a sense of the demand for your make and model by checking ads for similar vehicles over a few weeks. You can search for used cars on Autotrader. If you notice cars like yours are selling quickly, it’s a sign that demand for your vehicle is high.

Conversely, if there are 10 other cars like yours and you see the same ads for them lingering, buyers have more options, which may affect how you negotiate. If you want to sell the vehicle quickly, you may have to stick to the lower end of your range.

Provide Paperwork

It’s essential to provide paperwork, including service records. Potential buyers may be skeptical your car has been adequately maintained without any paperwork to confirm and may lose interest in the vehicle. Or they may use that information to negotiate the price down. For more information, see our articles on Preparing a Used Car for Sale and Getting Your Paperwork Together. Fortunately, your buyer can download a vehicle history report free from Autotrader, one of the many benefits of selling on the platform. It won’t show all of the maintenance and repairs you’ve done, but it will prove your car doesn’t have a salvage title, hasn’t been totaled by an insurance company, and has been legally registered during your ownership. It has, hasn’t it?

Get an Inspection

A serious buyer may want your vehicle inspected by a mechanic, which is a good sign. It demonstrates that the buyer has a substantial interest. However, it’s also a good idea to have your car inspected by your mechanic before you even list it. This gives you a baseline understanding of the health of your vehicle, and you can use your mechanic’s report to refute any findings from another mechanic that you think are inaccurate or unreasonable.

If the buyer’s mechanic identifies problems with your vehicle that you think are reasonable, reduce the price appropriately. If specific requests seem unreasonable, it may be best to walk away from the deal rather than proceed.

With the power of knowledge, the negotiating process can go smoothly, and the buyer and seller can walk away knowing they both got a good deal.

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