Pre-sale car inspection: How to know if you need one.

By Chad Lückhoff

Having your car appraised is a valuable step in the selling process. AutoTrader takes the guesswork out of this by offering a handy online tool.

A pre-sale inspection to boost profit

Selling your car can be somewhat daunting. There's a fair amount to consider. You need to think of the paperwork, the transaction and advertising, amongst others. In many cases this is enough to scare a seller into trading the car in at a dealership, leaving the dealership to handle things like listing, screening, negotiations and the dreaded paperwork.

This will often result in the seller settling for a lower price or a lower trade-in value, with the reasoning being that it's the price you pay for convenience. Fact is, you can get considerably more for your vehicle just by being willing to do a little of the work yourself, often tens of thousands of Rands.

Should you opt to go the route of a private sale, you will be faced with evaluating your car to decide on a selling price. This can be rather tricky as pricing it too high will leave your vehicle unsold for too long. That's fine if you are in no rush to get into a new vehicle but bad news if the new-car-itch is particularly bad. Price it too low and you'll be fending off calls left, right, and centre, and end up walking away with less than the effort is worth.

AutoTrader offers a handy web-based tool to help you get an idea of the pricing of your car based on make, model and year. This will give you an indication of the average price and give you a place to get started. The value of your car will largely depend on factors such as mileage, condition and service history. This is a good place to start, and the more you have to offer such as lower mileage, trim level, full service history, and so forth, will give you the opportunity to ask for a little more.

Head on over to Autotrader.co.za and click on the “Sell a Car” tab. Here you will find “What's it worth?”. Clicking on that will open up a new window that will offer you drop-down menus for make, model and year of manufacture and provide you with a market-related price. You can delve deeper into the individual adverts to find vehicles with similar mileage and spec levels.

Click here for the “What's it Worth?” tool: What's it Worth? [Link= https://www.autotrader.co.za/what-worth]

Be aware that private sale buyers will usually want to negotiate on the price. Depending on the list price of the vehicle, this can vary from a few thousand Rand to a sizeable amount. Buyers will want to deduct money from the list price for things that are not correct or need replacing, such as tyres, cracked windscreens etc. Know what the minimum is you are prepared to accept and work from there.

If you are wondering about a mechanical inspection, it's not essential but it is helpful. While it is not the seller's responsibility to have a mechanical inspection carried out, it will go a long way in placing a potential buyer's mind at ease and this will allow you to charge that little bit extra (or at least recoup the costs of the inspection itself). Usually, the cost of this inspection is carried by the buyer.