As I mentioned last week, I put my Jeep Wrangler up for sale. It was the first time I’ve ever tried to sell a vehicle on the open market.
I wasn’t prepared for what happened when my ads went live on Craig’s List and Facebook Marketplace. Nothing, that is. I was prepared for about everything, but not at all prepared for nothing.
After more than a week posted in our metro area, not one person contacted me wanting to buy it. I double-checked my listings and double-checked my math. I was priced right, my pictures were good, and I had my CarFax in order.
You tell me if it looks like I mis-marketed it in some way … 2021 Jeep Wrangler, 17K Miles
So, I went on Carvana, got an offer for just $1K less than I wanted, and am selling it to them. They come on Monday morning to pick it up.
If I find another vehicle on Carvana I’d like, I can use this as trade-in $ and save about $2.1K in sales tax on the one I buy. That would be the financial icing on the cake for this project.
Anyone else failed as miserably as I did in selling a car?
Image: (c) MrFireStation.com
MrFireStation 
Hey Mr. Firestation, I had similar success with Carvana. Although I never published on the open market, I did shop around the sale of my old car to several dealers and Carvana had the best price by $1500. I also bought a car from them for my Mom and have been very impressed.
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Good to hear! I’ll tell you … it was odd. I got a bid of $30K from them, but it expired after a few days. I went in and did it again – and it was $32K. A $2K improvement for some reason!
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My experience selling my cars privately has gone well in the past. I think I have sold 2 over the last 15-20 years and both sold within 3-4 weeks of posting the listing.
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Maybe I simply didn’t give it enough time. I posted it 9 days ago. I expected to get a few contacts in the first few days / initial weekend.
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I think you have a guardian angel, that no one responded from Craig’s list or Facebook is a good thing. It is recommended if you do business off of these public places that you do it at your local police station. It’s quite dangerous. I don’t know much about Carvana, if it is a public space you should probably call your local police and see what they have to say about it. The Mills Champion page would be a safer place to post things for sale.
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Yes – there are certainly scammers out there. I put our neighborhood park as my address in the ad rather than our actual house. Carvana takes all of those concerns out of the equation. That said, I have sold a good number of things from my house on FB Marketplace. I just tag most ads “Porch Pick-Up, Venmo Only”. Then I don’t even need to be home for it.
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I wonder if due to the higher prices on vehicles and the need for many to borrow money has an impact on selling vehicles on Craigs List or Marketplace? A car pick up service which buys and sells vehicles likely makes most profit through financing sales, thus selling a vehicle valued over $10,000 might be easier in the manner in which you ended up with.
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Yeah – vehicle affordability is pretty low right now. High interest rates and the UAW strike at the Jeep Wrangler plant in Toledo makes a difference. I think CL and FB might be better for older used cars. This one was pretty new / pricey compared with others I see on there.
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