kickaha

For various business reasons, I need to sell my 4th-gen 4Runner.

Does anyone have any experiences (pros, cons) on selling through EBay? I can think of a few reasons NOT to (EBay gets a percentage cut, people bidding and not paying and having to deal with EBay afterwards, etc.). But a lot of people do seem to buy and sell that way. Wondering if anyone here has actually completed a transaction and what your experiences were?

uboatcmndr

I have bought about 20 items on ebay with great expieriences but I have never sold anything on it. My sis sold here Benz wagon to a guy from Jersey who won the bid then flew in to pick it up then drive it back. I feel you have to go with their whole buyer/seller reputation thing...look at the buyers score next to their name. Just go with it and trust. Their are disreputable people on their I am sure(deadbeats).

Bob_98SR5

kickaha,

sorry to hear that you have to sell your 4th gen!

the advantage to selling on ebay is the "reach" that ebay has on the internet. the downsides are exactly what you mentioned in your post. not only that, dealing with people across the country can be a pain in the butt vs a local buyer.

personally, id try selling it through the classified or a specialty auto classifieds such as the recycler or autotrader (if you live in so cal, for example).

oh, never meet a person at your house. always meet in a neutral place.

thats all i can think of at the moment. fyi: i bought my 4runner from a local seller through ebay. but i limited my search to LA area 4runners only.

bob

Ilovemountains

I have bought and sold many items on Ebay and have sold 1 car and 2 motorcycles on Ebaymotors! The one thing that always bugged me is the listing fee, it will cost you around $100 just to list the car and if it doesn’t sell your out of the $$. Ebay does give you a lot of exposure though. Be honest in your listing and make sure you list all of the payment details and whether or not you are willing to ship or deliver it. Now another option that I think may work better is autotrader.com. For $65 you can list your truck till it sells, and you can link your ad to any photo service to add more photos to it. Just another thought!

r0cky

my brother sold his truck on ebay -- got a lot of assholes replying, but in the end everything worked out just fine.

BT17R

kick, I've bought and sold a few vehicles on eBay now. For the exposure, it's dirt cheap. A few thoughts:

- Don't accept credit cards or escrow for any part of the payment. Too great a risk for chargebacks. Of course the same goes for personal checks and Western Union type scams. I even call the issuing bank on the Cashier's Check to verify funds. PayPal is OK.

- Do take at least 35 pictures showing everything close up. Describe in detail every aspect of the rig. Buy a Carfax and include a hot link to it in the ad, it increases your credibility enormously. Buy one of the dozens of templates from andale.com. They charge $12 and will suggest when to start/stop the ad for best price based on historic research. Keep it to 7 days duration, almost always ending on a Sunday night at 9:00PT. Return all emails and calls quickly.

Pump up your feedback to at least 10, preferably 50 100% positives. Offer free airport pickup if there's a hub nearby, otherwise say "pickup available" and charge $50. Specify that inspections must be completed before auction end, but do offer the buyer right of refusal if they aren't happy at delivery. That doesn't mean adjust your price at delivery, you don't want that, just offer them the chance to walk away (because you won't drive them back to the airport for under $100 ).

Expect to get somewhere between high wholesale and low retail. Timing is everything, so selling before a new MY or after a price increase (and rumors are rampant of a January '05 bump), but before a new bi-monthly KBB-type guide is published is best for the seller.

My experience is good, but I sell only specialty cars on eBay that my research shows get higher prices than others on eBay Motors. Bob has a good point, for a "volume unit" like 4th Gens are, you might be better off with a 3-line classified, or run both with the right to end the auction early. BTW, I sold my 4th Gen in two days for more than I paid through a 3-line classified using the guidelines in the previous paragraph.

Go to eBay Motors, filter to 4Runners, sort by year, look at completed auctions and see which got the most bids and price. Make your ad look the same. That tip alone consistently makes me an additional $1,000 more than the competition there. Good luck, send me a link if you write an auction, I'll be happy to critique.

the_supernerd

I usually use craigslist.org to sell things. It is free to advertise and you can advertise in a local region. Check to see if at town close to you is listed. I have also sold and bought a few things on eBay. Most of the time it is good, but every now and then there is a bad transaction.

kickaha

Wow, a LOT of great information there. Thanks to everyone!

The only time I've had any trouble on EBay was with a high-dollar item (~$1000). A lot of people with zero feedback bidding on it, people from outside the USA bidding on it (yes, it said USA only), etc. I had to list it three times before it sold. While I eventually got my money back from the previous EBay listings, doing that is a pain in the neck. So that made me even more cautious about selling a car. But since others seem to do it all the time, maybe there's a secret. Is it possible to put more (REAL!) restrictions on EBay cars? For instance, I don't want anyone with zero feedback to be able to bid AT ALL. I don't want anyone from outside the USA to be able to bid AT ALL (don't have anything against them, but don't want to take the extra time/trouble/risk to do this). Maybe they give more options to car sellers since they make more $$?

I've previously had good luck with AutoTrader and see that they currently have only 5 used 4th-gen 4x4 V8s available within 100 miles of me. All of them at dealers. And all of them priced pretty darn high. So maybe that's good news.

BTW, I won't be leaving the Toyota/YotaTech family. Actually, I'll still have a 4th-gen. Just a 2005. The circumstances work out such that I'll be able to sell my 2004 and buy a 2005 for effectively zero dollars out of pocket after all things considered. My 2004 is running perfect and I've had no problems at all, but this deal is too good to pass up.

Thanks again for all the help!

lee

say in the ad "if you have zero or under 10 positive feedbacks, please e-mail me before bidding".

also, my sister sold her honda crv through autotrader... she got about 5 interested parties to respond, and ended up selling at a great price to a very nice guy with two young kids.

ebay has an impersonal touch to it that i just cant trust. i would never buy or sell on it, but according to these guys its doable and can be very safe and profitable.

id say use autotrader and (as someone else said) craigslist first.

kickaha

Yeah, it'll definately go into AutoTrader and, thanks to SuperNerd, CraigsList.

The problem with putting messages like that in the ad is that people either don't read or don't care. Sometimes people on EBay will create a false ID in order to bid up your item because they have a competing item. It seems like for a high-ticket item like a car, the seller should be allowed to set a switch which would simply prevent anyone with 10 or under positive feedbacks to bid at all. I know people could easily get around that, but it would be better than the current situation.

lee

yea, but at least that justifies you canceling their bid if they have under 10 feedback.

Mudfreak

Ive bought several items and only sold one and havnt had any problems at all.

kickaha

Okay, the EBay fees are more reasonable than I thought. It's a $40 flat fee to list it and an additional $40 if you receive a bid at or above your reserve price. No percentages. So $40 to list and $80 total if it sells. It'll probably go up on AutoTrader first though to hopefully make the whole process easier.