The Difficult way to sell a car.

I am sure that you are thinking that this blog has turned out to be Tanya’s blog…Well, I have decided to post something. The “Little” story of me selling my car.

So I have been trying to sell my car since April. Put the sign in the car window…parked in WalMart parking lot…nothing. Posted it on Craigslist…one potential but nothing came of it. Put it on Cars.com and in the Boston Globe - $70 and not even one lead!! Finally, receive an e-mail from eBay saying that they are having a $1 automobile listing fee (instead of the normal $40), so I jump on the chance and post it on eBay for $19,000. Within 3 days, the listing has received over 300 hits and probably 5 questions or leads. Finally one guy (from Canada) makes me an offer of $18,300 and I accept. He puts in a PayPal deposit of $500, but they take $20 of that for “fees” – jerks since they are owned by eBay now and eBay is soaking me for $50 for actually selling the car… So, we start talking on a daily basis trying to finalize everything. There is A LOT of paperwork and stuff needed to import a vehicle into Canada. What I needed to give:

1.) 3 Copies of the Deposit Bill of Sale and 3 Copies of the Title at the Customs office 3 days before he planned on going through.
2.) Need Recall Maintenance Letter from Subaru stating all recalls have been done.
3.) DRL – I had to reenable for him.

That was the easy part ;). We try to decide on the most secure way to get me money. I figure cashier’s check, but I tell him that he needs to fax me a copy so I can verify the funds. He does so and I call the bank he created it on…They tell me “it appears to be a valid check”…Hmm. So I call the issuing bank and they say that it is a valid account but can’t tell me anymore information…Hmm. So I bring it to my bank and they tell me it can take up to 9 days to clear and the bank can put a stop payment…NO DICE. I call him back and tell him what I have done and that I will need CASH in hand to complete the sale as that it the only way to guarantee. So he says, let me check on what I can do since I don’t want to carry a huge amount of cash over the border (claim it at customs and all that). I say, Cash in hand or no dice. He would have title and car and I would have bupkiss…So he calls me back and says that because of the exchange rate change, it is going to cost him $350 to get the cashier’s check converted to traveler’s checks. We decide to split the difference as an escrow service would cost $200 and either party could cause the money to be stuck in Escrow…no thanks.

He is an honest guy because when we meet finally he says that they didn’t charge him to convert the check so I don’t owe him $175…nice guy. In the meantime, I have recently noticed that the car steering wheel vibrated when braking, so I mention that I need to replace the rotors because they are warped. I tell him I can do cross-drilled or OEM and that from experience cross-drilled rotors make a minor humming noise at high speeds from the air going through. He says OEM (which is fine because he would be arriving within a week and it is cutting it close to order the cross-drilled off of eBay and get them here and installed in time).
I go to Pepboys, AutoZone, VIP, etc…nobody has them!!! So I have to go to the dealer to purchase them at $90/each!!! I purchase front and rears just in case replacing the fronts doesn’t fix the problem. I pick up new front pads at PepBoys and new rear pads at AutoZone (neither had both sets J)…So he is scheduled to arrive on July 5th and so on June 22nd, Hip and I start the process of replacing the rotors. We take off the wheel and put the new rotor up to the old rotor and NO DICE…wrong one…SUBARU gave me the wrong one!! So I have to wait until Saturday to go to Subaru and get the right rotors… After getting the right rotors, we start working on replacing them again. We replace the rotor on the passenger side and 30 minutes later, new pads and rotors on that side. We move to the driver’s side…get the wheel off, the caliper off…but we can’t get the bolt off the caliper bracket…someone torque it to like 200-300 ft lbs (spec is 65 ft lbs!!). Mike and I are jumping on the breaker bar and nothing and then FINALLY it moves, but alas, the bolt has broken off!!! WTF…so luckily we can still get the bracket off and head to the dealer for a new bolt and hopefully a new bracket.

Dealer charges $5/bolt for a 1.25x12mm bolt with a lock washer!!! Get 2 just in case, Dealer says that there are 0 brackets in the country…NOOOO, so Mike and I decide that we will drill out the old bolt as close to the old threads as possible and tap out the old thread and hopefully it will work. We are able to get the threads out this way and the new bolt works like a champ…put the thing back together 4 hours later and the car no longer vibrates. Replace the rear pads and the car brakes like a sports car. Return the rotors to Subaru who says that they normally charge 15% restocking but since they screwed up, they won’t charge us. I am like, “Thank you” buddy because nowhere on any paper does it say that there is a restocking fee!!

Well when I was picking up the rotors at Subaru, I noticed that they had a hail team there to take care of the cars with hail damage on them. We had hail on June 2nd. I didn’t think I had hail damage, but after seeing this team here, I decide to take a second look (closer) and found hundreds of marks on the roof and sides of the car from it (nothing major, but annoying none the less). I figured that I should get it taken care of because the guy I am selling the car to is picking it up next Friday and this is a week and a half before he arrives.

So, I called Progressive on Monday since it is covered under comprehensive. They told me to bring it to Dobles so they can get an estimate and timeframe. When I brought it to Dobles, knowing that I needed the car back by next week, I said that if they couldn’t get it done in a wednesday to let me know since I NEED the car next week and maybe we can reschedule or whatever (figuring to myself that I would just let it be since the guy was getting such a good price anyway) and the insurance company could just cut me a check. Well, on Tuesday, the appraiser calls me back and says there is $3500 (I have a $100 deductible) in damage from the hail and that it won’t be done until the 12th. I say that is unacceptable as I NEED the car next week and I told Dobles this. He tells me that they have already started on the work. I tell him if they can’t guarantee it by next Wednesday then I need the car back, will pay Dobles for work finished and we can figure out the rest of the payment or another location or whatnot. He calls them and then calls me back and says they have a dedicated guy working on it but can’t guarantee anything. I say no…I NEED it by next Wednesday…this is not negotiable and I told them. He tells me they don’t remember me telling them. I say, they can say I didn’t but I know that I did because I NEED it by next Wednesday. He calls them back and then calls me back and says that they are guaranteeing it for next Tuesday.

Now I am SCARED because I NEED the car back to give to the guy on Thursday (he is coming in Thursday evening to look at the car and we will complete transaction on Friday). This is not negotiable! The guy bought his plane ticket already. I don’t want to lose this large sale…I have heard guarantee’s before and they can mean nothing. So I ask Matt Forest because his dad works at Dobles. His dad checks on it and says it will be done in time and the guy working on it is the best they have there.

So I get the car back on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I inspect the work done and verify everything is in order for when the guy arrives. Overall very well done for the time constraint. Of course, because I am a perfectionist, I have some complaints. I could tell that he had to rush through the job and probably would have complained if I wasn't selling the car because it wasn't perfect.
1- He clear coated Over the clear bra on the fenders – this is probably the worst of all. If the whole car had a clear bra, then it would be super strong, but it looked kind of weird having just this section (Fenders with a clear bra) and then running your hand over it and noticing that it was clear coated over.
2- When he sprayed over the scuff on the bumper, it looked like he just quickly went over the spot with the paint sprayer because it was a little rough and different color than the rest of the bumper.
3- I can tell they took off the front bumper, because it didn't line up like it had previously as I could see where the bumper should have clipped in near the headlights.
4- They took off the rear bumper and when they put it back on, they couldn't get it as snug because it was not forming as tightly to the body of the vehicle.
5- When they painted the rear bumper, they over sprayed on to the muffler.
6- The spoiler light was loose (I tightened it with a Phillips screwdriver in 2 seconds, but come on).
7- There was a nut rolling around in the trunk lid that I was able to remove. It made a clinking sound when opening/closing the trunk which is not good when trying to sell the vehicle.. 8- They took off the trunk rug because it was sitting kind of loose in the back. I pulled it tight and put some of the clips back in.
9- The driver's side door had some bumps on it below the paint and clear coat (as it felt smooth) when you looked at it in the light.
10- The places he painted had noticeable orange peel – worse than from factory.
11- The rear glass must have been removed because there was glue visible when the trunk was open.

But because these were minor and they detailed the car, the car sale went really well (Also because the car was in such good condition). It took us from 8:30AM to 1:30PM to complete the whole thing. We went to Meineke on Elm St. (he chose the place) to have them look at the car. They REALLY liked the car and said there was absolutely nothing wrong with the vehicle. Although they did notice that the caliper bracket had a new bolt in it. I told them that the front rotors were replaced because there was vibration in the steering wheel while braking and that when we tried taking the bolt out of the driver side bracket, it was so torqued down that it broke off and we had to drill out the pieces and tap the threads to clean them out and that we purchased the bolt from Subaru. Then after leaving the mechanics, we went to TD BankNorth with his 178 traveler's checks so he could cash them. We waited about 3 hours there for them to cash all of the checks after he signed them all. Then we went to my bank with the Cash and deposited it. Then we went to the DMV for the 20-day in-transit plates and we were done.

So that is my vehicle sale story ;)