Have you ever sold a car with "issues"?

[Kellydelly]

If you trade it in to a dealer they will just sell it at auction, so I wouldn't tell them what problems you have with it. We traded in a 1997 Avenger 2 yrs ago on a 2008 Aspen and we got a whopping $500 for it, then saw it a week later on a private used car lot for $2500 . The blue book was only like $1400. The dealership only asked us if it ran and if the AC was cold.

 

[Southernmiss]

Only if they specifically ask if the car needs a repair. Typically large dealers will send their used car manager to the car, he'll look it over real quick, check galves, and give the salesman the number. You are under no obligation to tell them every little thing wrong with the car.

Upon trading the car you will sign a notice that to "the best of your knowledge" the odometer represents the correct miles, and the car does not have branded title. Not about the functionality of all the parts.

Trade it in.

This is what we did with our Dodge Grand Caravan when it was having transmission issues at 140,000 miles--after spending lots on other repairs.

Within a couple of weeks, I saw that old van riding around town...apparently the dealer resold it right away--have no way to know if they did any repairs on the van or not.

 

[4GoofyCrew]

I would only sell a car outright if it were free of mechanical issues. If I suspected a problem I would trade it in. They do a mechanical check anyway so they will know and adjust the trade value accordingly. And if they re-sell it they have the means to repair what might be found to be wrong.

 

[ruadisneyfan2]

Whenever we've traded a car in, we also mention (and they always ask) if there's any issues. Mention the current issues, not every little past problem that led you to the point of disgust. If something malfunctioned and you had it repaired/replaced it's done and no longer an issue.
Our good friends wanted to buy dh's old p/u truck when he was ready for a new one. It was 10yrs old and close to 100k miles but they wanted it for their son. Dh felt it had too many problems and he'd feel guilty to hear about future repairs even though he was honest about everything and they were still ok with it and were glad to at least know its previous owners didn't beat it to death, total it, smoke, etc. I felt bad but we ended up trading it in.

 

[luvdisney00]

I just bought a used car last weekend and I ended up buying from a dealer, but looked quite extensively on Craigslist. DH was afraid of buying from a private person because of this very issue. As it turned out, we got the car home and opened the hood and the hood latch broke and there was also a problem with the keyless entry. We went right back to the dealer and they fixed it all and said to call if there were any more problems.
I think If I were going to sell a car to a person I'd have to disclose everything. It just doesn't seem right not to.

 

[Colleen27]

We've sold a couple of cars that were beyond what we were willing to put into repairs. We've always been up-front about all known problems, wrote the bill of sale as "as-is", and priced accordingly. There's a market in my area for pretty much anything that starts and runs; DH's truck needed a heater core, an ignition switch (it started, but any key would do thanks to an incompetent attempted car thief), and a handful of more minor repairs. We priced it low and it sold within a couple days.

We've always bought "fixer" houses because DH is in construction and major repairs are much less major when you are only dealing with the cost of materials. The last two cars we sold went to people doing the same with their cars. What is too much to fix when you're paying a shop to do it often isn't a big deal to someone who can do the work themselves.

 

[seashoreCM]

Note that if you trade in a car at a dealer, you don't get much of (or any) wheel and deal discount on top of their trade in offer. In other words, the offer for your trade in comes off of sticker price and you pay what is left.

If you make your best deal with no announced trade in and then say "by the way I would like to trade in my ..." then you will get a very low offer or maybe even an "it's worthless" comment.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

If you trade it in to a dealer they will just sell it at auction, so I wouldn't tell them what problems you have with it. We traded in a 1997 Avenger 2 yrs ago on a 2008 Aspen and we got a whopping $500 for it, then saw it a week later on a private used car lot for $2500 . The blue book was only like $1400. The dealership only asked us if it ran and if the AC was cold.

We traded in an old Dodge Caravan that was leaking fluids everywhere (oil and antifreeze), paint damage, and like 150,000 miles.....the fact that it was junk was painfully obvious, you could see puddles where you parked (and the fact you had to add antifreeze every time you had to go somewhere). It also had odd issues where the turn signals would stop working, and the wipers would come on at random times. But anyhoo... we got $350 trade-in.

I looked on the dealer website a couple weeks later, they had the stupid thing listed for $2995.