Craigslist will charge for car listings.

[redpoint5]

The easier the platform the more dirtbag the people. OfferUp has the worst people because anyone can aim a phone in the general direction of something and take a crummy photo, and inadequately describe something.

The dirtbags on there want you to deliver free items, or offer a fraction of the asking price and then get mad when you end up selling for the asking price to someone else, because it was a good deal to begin with and they are lazy dirtbags.

[darcane]

Originally Posted by JSH

Charging $5 to sell a car is really cheap. I sold a vehicle on EBay 5 years ago it was $50. Today Ebay charges $125.

Hopefully this will weed out a lot of the junk that clogs up Craigslist.

All the crazy junk is what I love about Craigslist. My "new" daily driver probably would have been hauled off to a junkyard if they couldn't place a free ad on Craigslist to get rid of it.

I'll happily sift through piles of crap to find the gems on there. I find Facebook Marketplace impossible to adequately search for anything.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by darcane

All the crazy junk is what I love about Craigslist. My "new" daily driver probably would have been hauled off to a junkyard if they couldn't place a free ad on Craigslist to get rid of it.

I'll happily sift through piles of crap to find the gems on there. I find Facebook Marketplace impossible to adequately search for anything.

I wasn't referring to the actual stuff for sale as "junk". I was talking mostly about the scammers and fake listings.

I doubt $5 is going to keep many people from listing a real car for sale on Craig's List.

[Xist]

If an old car has a bad head gasket, people may sell it for $500 to $1,000. Five dollars is, at most, 1% of that, but I am sure that people would rather post on Facebook or OfferUp for free.

Meanwhile, I looked to see if anyone posted a Honda today. That is it, my only criterion was "Honda."

The top two results on Facebook Marketplace were Chryslers, not because "Honda" appeared anywhere in the post, but apparently Facebook has a difference of opinion about what I want to see--like most of the posts in my feed.

Nobody cares that you ate a bagel!

[oil pan 4]

I think they should charge a $ for everything else. It will eliminate a lot of the fake crap.
Then if a $ is too much the fb yard sales are usually closed groups and are free. You just have to appear to not be fake.

[Xist]

Thanks for reminding me! I just joined the local Facebook yard sale group. Sixteen thousand members for a town of 10,000. At least ten posts a day.

Let's see how annoying this is.

[Xist]

I easily set up notifications for Craigslist, but it is dead now, or at least dead to me. I set notifications for HXes, Insights, and Prii, and all that ever showed up were Prii, usually a 2016 or 2017, when I specified a limit of $2,000 or $2,500.

Have any of you successfully set up notifications for OfferUp or Facebook? I found instructions, but could not follow them successfully.

I lost interest in purchasing a Prius, but this showed up locally: https://www.facebook.com/search/mark...filters=e30%3D

2006 Prius with 207,000 miles and engine knock. I found a post on Prius Chat that most Prii with engine knock had faulty coilpacks, but wouldn't any competent mechanic properly diagnose that, and wouldn't almost anyone take one of their most valuable assets to a qualified mechanic?

Sure, there are always stories of cheap cars with cheaper fixes, but I think the only chance of me being involved in a situation like that is if I give up on a car, sell it as-is, and someone profits off me!

Here is a 2003 Insight for $5,200 a year ago: https://offerup.com/item/detail/301508985/

Why is this still here?

"Quickly recoup your investment with high mpg/low gas expense."
"Mpg: 45 lifetime"

I paid $2,850 for my Civic and had a lifetime 44 MPG, so at $3.00 a gallon, I would need to drive 3,432,000 miles to recover my investment.

What about my 30 MPG Accord? Sure, I am getting 34 MPG, but shhh.

156,000 miles.

A 15 MPG pickup?

39,000 miles.

[redpoint5]

Probably pretty easy to diagnose a bad coil pack. Maybe a 10mm wrench, and move the suspect pack (Prius uses individual ones) to a cylinder that is firing correctly. If the problem cylinder follows the pack, then it's bad.

Asking prices can safely be ignored unless someone says "firm". I tend to put in a lowball offer on anything that I might want to own to start a negotiation, then I work up until either agreeing on price, or moving on. All of this contingent on inspection (by me) of course.

My new theory is you might get a better price by negotiating with someone with an unreasonably high ask. People that don't like to negotiate just pass up those ads, so the person that asks too much ends up generating less interest. Your potential rivals for the car then is drastically reduced, and your offer may go uncontested by others leading the seller to think they better take yours.

The more I think about it, the less the asking price matters. The only thing that matters is what you're willing to pay, and if the seller agrees on that price.

As a datapoint, one ad said "Blowout sale till Oct 31st! $8,500". That was for a 2013 Ford C-Max SEL. I offered $6,500 and the counter was $8,000. I was late replying, and the guy went down to $7,000 without me even rejecting the $8k.

So my lowball got the price from $8,500 down to $7,000. Picked up the car the same day for my friend who was buying.

[Fat Charlie]

It costs nothing to play.

It feels like it does, but the time you spend thinking "what would I really pay for that, what do I think he'll accept?" can easily be followed by an email or call that doesn't add much time at all. The seller may bite.

[redpoint5]

Man, OfferUp people are the dregs of society. Nobody, and I mean nobody, offers pertinent information about the item they are selling.

I'm looking for a washer and dryer, and zero people list what model it is they are selling. Some offer a photo from across the room so you can tell that they have a washer and dryer in their living room, and that it's white, but nothing else.

Then, when I ask the make and model, the idiots reply "Duet". That's like me saying I'm selling a Corvette. Doesn't tell me what year, doesn't tell me what generation...

These idiots. I'm not sure playing 20 questions is worth the savings sometimes. As I always say, if people can't bother to sell their items, then I won't bother offering much to purchase it.

...then thinking from their perspective, do they really like answering the same dozen questions 45 times when they could have just put all that info in the ad?