My sister has this 2003 Volvo XC70 (wagon) with about 54k miles which she replaced last year with a 2004 XC70. I foolishly left the business of selling the '03 up to her for about 9 months, during which time she did nothing.

Now I am having no luck selling this perfectly good, clean and useful car. Ads in the local paper are expensive and get no results. My AutoTrader ad has only attracted unsolicited "i'll sell it for you" brokers.

Any ideas of how I can find a buyer for this car? It's too nice to end being hawked between wholesalers and wind up on some odd lot. This car is essentially new and deserves to be bought with confidence by someone who will appreciate its amenities and utility.

If you aren't getting calls, it's almost certainly because of the price. My brother was in the used car business (actually the repairables business) and he also tells me that you need to just keep re-running the newspaper ads until it goes. That some cars take 10-12 weeks, then suddenly you'll get 5 calls all at once. According to him, you want to find the local newspaper that offers a "run it until it sells" policy, or find the cheapest local newspaper alternative. He swears that this, patience, and not pricing above the market are the keys. To determine if you're above the market, he recommends looking for other private-party advertised cars of the same make & year and seeing how they're priced.

FWIW,

Jim

depending on where you're at.. craigslist is the place.

I had a terrible time trying to sell my mums car. It sat on the drive for months while I put ads in papers, but its a Korean semi-obscure boring hatchback which most people don't know what it looks like.

I had previously been against eBay for cars, but Tax, Insurance was all going so it had to go now - I spent a little while washing it and cleaning it, took some photos and put up the auction on the link above.

590 views and it finally went for more than I expected. The buyer was nice and hassle-free, so I was lucky.

My dad had an X2 (1992, previous version to the Accent), it was very reliable, he did 70k in it (on top of the 40k when he bought it) and only the starter motor failed, and that was covered by a warranty. He wanted to get an Accent but we have a Micra which has been fantastically reliable so stuck with Nissan and got an Almera.

When he bought his latest car the salesman (a relative!) told him it wasn't worth anything and he would scrap it for free (!) and I said if he put in in the paper for £200 it would easily sell - sold it for £150 in the end but had several more calls.

Gareth

Thanks for the tips, all. Yes, my sister had it priced insanely high. I dropped the price nicely below the dealership competition in my area according to AutoTrader (and I don't have much lead on the private party competition for this car).

I am a patient man. We have driveway space for this car, and I sure don't mind offloading one commute per week on it. Plus, it was EXCELENT on the unpaved highways during the one snow storm we had this year; would have never made it in my front wheel drive 2000 V70.

Here's the AutoTrader ad if anyone's curious. I should write a much better description (because good descriptions get me hooked on AutoTrader). But come on, that photoshoot I did outshines every other private party seller I've ever seen by two orders of magnitude (1, because I actually have pictures, and 2, because I have all 9).

I should seriously stick it on the side of our busy traffic light highway. I still swear THAT is the way to sell. But I need to know someone with that real estate.....