Selling a used car is trickier than you think

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday May 10, 2022 06:03

Or sometimes you attend an event like the Mascom Derby and everyone is driving a GD6 when you are rolling in a rickety jalopy. You take out the abacus and calculate that if you sell the car you are currently driving then you should be able to pay a hefty deposit on your next baby.

The first thing to do is to get it into a sellable state and this involves working on the dents and paintwork. Care must, however, be taken not to spend too much on this part of the fix so you avoid the big panel beaters and go to the ones with questionable competence with a tagline like ‘Satisfaction guaranteed or your dent back’. These are usually found in residential areas where they are constantly in fights with residents and council bye-law officers.

After the dents have been attended to they'd put the car on a little paved slab, and they'd start spraying one side, then they'd walk around the car and attempt, relying on memory, to make the other side of the car look similar. Which of course they could never quite do, so they would head on back around to take a quick spray on Side One again, and they'd keep this up for some time. When they are done the paintwork has little dark shades of paint and you try to prepare a little mitigation for prospective buyers. Something like - ‘that is the part that was exposed to the sun more than the other parts’. At the back of your mind the reprise ‘shoulda taken it to the pros’ keeps echoing incessantly like a stuck record. The vehicle will now be at sellable state or merchantable quality as they’d call it on Consumer Watchdog - funny spots and all.

You will then place an ad on Facebook with the following information make, year, price, mileage on the odometer and things like accident free etc. Something like White Toyota Corolla 2.0L (this type is always on sale). Mileage 76,000, Price P55,000, Call 76767676

An ad on Facebook usually invites all sorts of creatures. There will be a deluge of responses from the Facebook club

Facebook response 1: How much?

Facebook response 2: What is the mileage

Facebook response 3: What is the price if you remove your troubles

Facebook response 4: Your contacts please

Facebook response 5: Don’t you have a pink one

This is the first line of drivel, the first line of baloney basically. There’s usually more to come. Next is the callback brigade. Ever since the genesis of callback, half of the population seems to think this has vested on them the privilege to speak to you without spending a thebe. This is the local cheat code but you will never ever hear politicians saying what they would do to deal with this vice. After responding to a few you stop calling callback numbers.

There’s usually a well-groomed man with a little briefcase who looks more important than he really is who comes through to check out the vehicle. Glistening hair, shiny suit, pointed shoes and gunslinger type arrogance. Everything about him screams ‘false prophet’. He would have a pen and a little writing pad, which he will whisk out and start writing as soon as you introduce yourself. That gunslinger type arrogance trait means he’s quickly going to trash your vehicle and asking price and when he leaves your foemetre (which is a counter for the number of enemies you collect along the way) would have moved one notch up.

Then there’s the Test Drive Tag Team. All sorts of people would want to drive your vehicle. People without even learner’s licenses, people who cannot even afford bicycles, people who didn’t do well at school will all want to come and check out your car.

If you are not selling a Honda Fit, an Alteeza or that BMW 3 series that is referred to as G-String in street lingo, any youth that is still eligible for YDF is wasting your time if they ask for a test drive. Nicely decline with ‘there’s somebody who has put a down payment for this car and he is picking it later’. The best you’d to for them is to let them sit on the driver’s seat, start the vehicle and a little nudge on the foot pedals.

This is a rite of passage in selling your car. When the real, proper buyer comes along, it would be an unassuming person who looks bland and seems like he’s asking for directions. Their visit is preceded by a phone call (not a callback or a furtive call that takes 10s with a refrain ‘airtime is getting finished’). They’d want to get a few details that are not covered in the ad and come over with a mechanic who will have a look at the car. He will start haggling (in Africa we never buy from individuals and Chinese shops without haggling first) and then voila you are singing that Abba song ‘Money, money, money’.

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