Before I listed it, I made sure I had the title readily available. I made sure the car could actually, you know, DRIVE. (I don't know too many people in the market for a 4-door manual transmission paperweight.) I cleared it out of 6 1/2 years' worth of backseat child debris. I ran it through kbb.com to get ideas on an asking price, and then knocked that down by $500 because it needs brakes and tires before it can pass inspection, unless you're a LOT friendlier with the inspector than I am. I delicately and sweetly asked my husband to vacuum it out. Okay, well, to be fair, I listed it first and then frantically called him today to squawk, "Ack! Someone wants to see the car today! Can you vacuum it for me, please, please, please?" All the basics.
So I thought. Apparently there's a problem with people randomly listing untitled cars, not cleaning them, not verifying the mobile-ness of their automobiles, and running a random number generator to pick a price with no sense of logic or reason. Because I have gotten some really weird emails from people who apparently didn't read the post they were replying to when they replied to my post about a car for sale.
Such as, "How many miles are on it?" Umm... a lot. 157,000. Like it says in the ad.
"Does it need any maintenance?" Yeah... new brakes and tires, and probably a muffler in the foreseeable future. Like it says in the ad.
"Does it need any body work?" No. Like it says in the ad.
And my personal favorite, the ubiquitous, "How firm are you on the price?" Well, it's been advertised for 2 days, so I'm not desperate yet. I know it has a lot of miles, but I'm still going by kbb.com, not The Whim of Kate. One guy offered me $500 yesterday, and then when I said no, I wasn't willing to go that low yet, he assumed I was insulted and explained that I was selling a piece of excrement (my word, not his.... his had fewer syllables) and I shouldn't expect to get that much money for it. Which makes me wonder, is he just naturally nasty, or has he somehow figured out where I live even though I didn't post it and there's not even a sign on the car yet, in which case he's both nasty AND creepy. Everyone else has asked, "How low are you willing to go?" Well... I ASKED $1000. Let's start there. Come see the car, and then if you can come up with a halfway decent argument then I'm wiling to negotiate... but let's go back to that original, "I'm not desperate" philosophy.
Bah. I want it to sell quickly, which is why I'm not bothering to plug the money into having it repaired myself, because I want to buy a really nice camera. A REALLY nice camera. And I'll tell you what, if I didn't have this unquenchable lust for that really nice camera, I'd have called the Association for the Blind to come pick up my car months ago... because I'm not that motivated, usually, and because the idea of selling a car to blind people just tickles me.
