Everyone knows a private sale gets a higher price on paper. What people forget is everything that price costs. Here's the honest breakdown for drivers around Abbotsford.
The time cost nobody counts
Take a typical private sale: photograph the car, write the ad, answer forty messages, book six viewings, survive four no-shows, and eventually let a stranger test-drive your uninsured vehicle. Even when it all works, you've spent two weekends. When it doesn't work, the car sits for another month — still uninsured, still losing value.
When a private sale still makes sense
If the vehicle is newer, drivable, insured and genuinely clean, sell it privately — or trade it in. That's a used car, not a scrap car, and you deserve the extra money. We'll happily tell you so when you describe it to us.
When it doesn't
- It doesn't run, and every buyer wants a discount for that fact.
- It needs a repair you'd have to complete just to sell it.
- It has cosmetic damage, high kilometres, or a story you don't want to keep explaining.
- You need it gone this week, not sometime before winter.
“The question isn't just what the car sells for — it's what it costs you to sell it.”
