Car excitement! Part 2: Selling the old car.

My previous car was a 2002 Chevrolet Cavalier which I had bought in October 2007. It had a rebuilt salvage title from having been in a front end crash, and part of the reason I had decided to get a new car is that the air conditioning was going. Quoth the guy at Midas, either the compressor or the fan on the compressor was going, or both, which would have cost multiple hundreds to fix. After the poor decision making of the transmission incident (I stupidly paid $1700 to have its transmission fixed, on a car that was not worth $1700 at the time) I had resolved that the next major thing that went wrong, I would not fix it and I would replace it. Well, this was the next major thing and so I started looking for a new car.

With all the car's body problems (I sideswiped a parked bus, swiped some ATM poles, backed it into the telephone pole behind the garage multiple times, hit the garage with the front bumper, etc etc etc etc. Let no one say I am a good driver) and with the A/C going and its transmission issues, I didn't think I could get much for the car. When I was at the dealership doing the paperwork for the new car, I jokingly asked if they were interested in a piece of shit Cavalier that drove well but looked like it'd been through a fence. (Because I think it had - it had many spots where the guy I bought it from appeared to have touched it up, but all those touchups came off the first time I took it through a high-powered car wash.) The dealer became very interested and asked a number of questions about it, and asked how much I wanted for it. I said I didn't know, probably $650 or $750, and the dealer said that I should put it up on Craigslist for $1900 and I'd probably get much more, but if I couldn't he'd buy it off me for $650. Apparently his daughter who was about to turn 16 had taken a shine to the car I bought, and was trying to get her father to give it to her instead of selling it, so I wonder if he thought that my Cavalier would be a better starting car! When I called to tell them to deposit the check, I thanked him for the advice and told him I'd sold it for much more than I thought and I appreciated that he was willing to tell me what he thought it was worth. (i.e., most car dealers would have told me it was worthless and that they would buy it for $500, then turn around and sell it for more than what I sold it for.)

After I had bought the new car (see part 1) I got the car cleaned (not a full detail, but washed outside and vacuumed and wiped down inside) and took some pictures. I put it up on Craigslist for $1500 at about 8PM on Monday and had 2 calls that night. I met with one man on Tuesday evening, who was looking at the car for his daughter. No calls or emails Wednesday so I reposted it. (Well, no useful calls - I had one person offer to trade me his $2500 motorcycle for the car, to which I wondered, if it was worth $2500, you should easily be able to get $1500 cash and buy the car that way! I declined to trade.) Thursday I got a few calls and set up an appointment with someone. I also got a call from someone who wanted to know if I could hold it for a few weeks till the middle of August, since she only had half the money at the moment. I was a little flabbergasted because it's not like there won't be other $1500 cars in three weeks! Maybe she thought that the paint on the sides from the ATM poles just matched her outfit or something. I don't know.

Anyway, so I met up with the second guy on Thursday evening - rather late, as the appointment was for 5:45 and he said that if he wasn't there by 6 to call him and remind him. Lo and behind he was not there at 6 so I called him and he eventually got there about 6:25. He did not say too much but poked around the car a lot, apparently he is a mechanic and buys cruddy cars like mine and fixes them up. This week he was looking for a car for his "girl", whom he told my boyfriend while I was walking home to get the title that he had bought and fixed up an Acura for her, but that she didn't want to learn stick and wanted an automatic. As Boyfriend told me later, he said "She bitching all the time!" So I hope this car passed muster. After the test drive he offered $1000 cash and I negotiated up to $1200. I tried to negotiate a little higher and he looked concerned, I found out later that he had only brought $1200 so it seemed he was afraid I wouldn't take it. But I took it, since I had decided early on that that was what I was trying to get for the car, and cash on the spot is always nice!

Since I had the title, I went home and got it and signed it over to him, and then promptly went and deposited the cash at an ATM since I really don't feel comfortable walking around with a huge wad of cash. When we bought Boyfriend's car, I had literally $5,000 in my purse in 20s and 100s and I felt like everyone knew it and was going to choose that day to steal my purse. Sheesh. We also forgot to take the plates off the car, and had to call the guy back and drive to his house to take the plates off once he got it home. So that's saving me another fifty bucks by not having to get brand new plates for the car, since I can transfer the old ones onto the new car.

My parents had lent me $2000 for the car, so now I can send back the proceeds from selling the old car and be able to pay that off pretty quickly. I felt a little bad about doing this since my parents have been helping me out from time to time during the past year of financial badness, but then it occurred to me that my grandparents had financed my family's cars up until I was in middle school, so I shouldn't feel too bad about the loan. =) I think my grandmother thought it was a better use than sticking it in a CD and I think she is right. After we sold the Cavalier, Boyfriend remarked that he was very glad that I had a nice reliable car now because he was constantly dreading getting a teary phone call from me that my car had died in the middle of the highway. He hadn't mentioned this fear to me before, probably to keep me from also getting paranoid about it, but I had already considered that possibility. So I am quite glad that it didn't take long to either find a new car or sell the old, and I am pleased that both transactions went relatively smoothly and with nary a ding to my credit! I feel like I should put a bumper sticker on the back of the Grand Am, "This car brought to you by working for the U.S. Census Bureau", since that is where I got the money to save up for the car. I am down to about $500 in savings now, but since I have been doing a ton of mystery shopping and other work (more details later) I should have a lot coming in this month to replenish it. Hooray!