How Long Does It Take To Sell a Car?

The time has come, and you've decided that it's time to sell your car. You had a good run with your vehicle. It served its purpose and got you where you needed to go for many years. But you may be curious about the more advanced infotainment features available in newer cars or the great driver-assist technologies available in current models. In order to buy a new car, you'll likely want to sell the car you currently have. While you might be eager to start looking at your next vehicle purchase, it is important to know that it might take a moment to get your current car off your hands. In fact, it often takes a month or two to sell a car privately, so you could have some work cut out for you.

In order to sell your car privately, you'll have to get some appraisals to figure out what it's worth. You'll also need to advertise it, schedule test drives, handle negotiations with potential buyers, and much more. All of this can take time and money. That's why many people prefer to sell their cars to a dealership like LA Mazda. We aim to make the sale of your vehicle a quick and painless process. We know you're excited to get on with shopping for your next car, and the sooner you can get the old one off your hands, the sooner you can start planning for your next ride. Here's a look at exactly why it takes so long to sell a car privately and why selling to a dealer is a more efficient option.

Repairs and Patch Jobs

If you sell your car yourself, there are several things you'll have to do before you can begin scheduling test drives with potential buyers. First, you're going to have to handle any necessary repairs. This involves the big stuff, like bad brakes or a broken air conditioner, but it also means fixing little dents, dings, and scratches. Curb appeal matters when selling a car, and potential buyers might try to talk you down significantly if they notice cosmetic issues like these.

When you sell your car to LA Mazda, we're willing to forgive some of these issues and not mark down the price as much as an individual buyer would. That's because we have a dedicated service team on-site, so getting a car ready for sale just won't be as time-consuming or costly for us as it is for you when you take your vehicle to a mechanic or body shop. If you're worried that damage to your car means a significant loss in value, consider selling to us. We're happy to negotiate on matters like these.

Creating a Listing

A private sale means you will have to create a listing for your vehicle, if not several listings. There are some free places to list your car. However, they're not going to come with the security and assurances that selling to a dealership does. On the other hand, there are places you can pay to list your vehicle, but, as we just stated, you'll have to pay. Depending on how long it takes to sell your car and how often the platform charges its listing fees (weekly? monthly?), you could be stuck with a bill to advertise your vehicle for quite some time. If you're starting to sweat paying to list your car, you could find yourself in a rush to get rid of it. Then, you might begin entertaining offers that aren't that great.

When you sell your car to a dealership, you can forget about creating a listing, managing multiple listings, dealing with scammers and tire kickers, and paying to advertise your vehicle. We have our systems in place for all that, so sell to us, a premier Mazda dealer in Leduc, and we'll take it from there. Then you can move on to shopping for your next vehicle instead of spending hours a day fielding calls and emails from potential buyers.

Handling Test Drives

In all likelihood, you probably have a job, and it probably doesn't involve selling cars. That means that you'll have to squeeze test drives and meetings with potential buyers into your rare free time, like on weekends and at night. You don't know how many of these buyers you'll have to go through until you make the deal, so you could be sacrificing most of your precious free time for months. Plus, handing the keys of your car to a stranger is never a good feeling. No matter how hard you try to vet potential buyers, meeting them always poses risks.

At a dealership, selling cars is our business. It's what we do. That also means that buying cars is our business. If you come in to show us your vehicle, we want to make a deal, and we'll be glad to work with you to settle on a fair price. You can skip the hours taking buyers for test drives and handling negotiations in random parking lots. Meet with us once in our comfortable showroom and be done with it, so you can return to enjoying your life.

Storing Your Car

If you've already purchased your next car, you could find no place to store the old one (at least no place that's free). Maybe you needed the features of a new car as soon as possible and didn't sell the old one in time. Now you're stuck paying to store it somewhere, or you're playing the game of parking it on the street, setting alarms and moving it just in time for street sweeping or snow plowing.

Paying to store a car as an individual is expensive. It can quickly eat away at the profits you would have earned from selling the vehicle. It's just one of the unexpected expenses of trying to sell a car to individual buyers. We have plenty of space on our lot for your vehicle and are ready to take it, so you can stop getting up at 6:00 AM on Thursdays to move your old car before you get a ticket.

Sell to Us and Get On With Your Life

You have to ask yourself what your time is worth because selling a car privately requires a lot of time. While your first thought might be, "I'll make the maximum profit with a private sale," the reality is that you'll take on quite a few expenses to do so. Plus, you'll have to give up your precious free time to meet with buyers. Depending on the nature of your work, you might have to give up time that you could be monetizing, losing even more money while trying to sell your car.

At LA Mazda, we have systems that make it easy for us to store, fix, and sell vehicles, so we are happy to make the process of selling to us simple. It's a win-win situation. We get to add inventory to our used car lineup, and you get cash in hand to go shopping for your next vehicle. Selling a car privately can take months. Maybe those are months you're not willing to waste. So don't. Sell to LA Mazda, and let us handle the hard work for you. Contact us today to get started.