What do you do to get a car ready to sell?

[Daox]

I started getting the Sunfire ready to sell last night. I just did normal maintenance items like the air filter, oil change, and tire rotation. I'm also planning on washing, waxing, polishing the headlights, and cleaning up the interior.

I'm wondering what else you guys do to get a car ready to sell?

[nemo]

AC would be a big selling point here, Wisconsin?

[mcrews]

roll back the mileage!!

[user removed]

Make it look as good as you can. Always helps me, in a purchase, to see a car that looks like someone cared for it. I keep mine that way. Even it it's wrecked, it's still nice to see it clean inside anyway.

regards
mech

[tvbd56]

enough gas to make the gauge on F

[MetroMPG]

Originally Posted by mcrews

roll back the mileage!!

Friend of mine just discovered a pickup he was looking at was rolled back almost 150k kms! (Through Carfax)

[Xist]

Oh, find a list of the one hundred most popular cars and add each of them to the bottom of your page, because everybody who looks for Prii on Craigslist secretly wants to find Hummers, ice cream trucks, and the odd bookmobile.

[digital rules]

A clean trunk always helps, so pay extra attention to making it sparkle.

[cowmeat]

Beyond the obvious items like washing, waxing, cleaning out the interior, etc . . .

#1 - Clean up the engine bay. It doesn't matter how many miles the car has on it. If it looks good under the hood, that makes a big impression with your average car shopper. It will give the impression that you took good care of it. They make cheap, easy to use engine de-greasers, and you can just wipe down most of the components so they look presentable

#2 - Make the interior smell good. I use Tuff Stuff to clean the interior and carpets, then let it dry real good with the windows down. A clean interior means nothing if a potential buyer gets in and it smells like smoke, dog, mildew, etc . . .

#3 - Buff out those headlights and tail lights! Nothing gives a worse first impression than brown hazy headlights or dulled up taillights (reference my how-to in the DIY section for a quickie fix)

#4 - Pull off any aftermarket crap you added unless you're selling it cheap to a kid (in which case you might want to add more)

#5 - make sure ALL the lights work, inside and out! That's another turn-off for a potential buyer. Again, if you're not trying to sell it to a kid, replace those blue-white hid's and the smoke tint on the headlights and taillights you couldn't live without for oem lights, or you'll you'll pigeonhole yourself down into a small market

#6 - If it's not a straight-up hooptie, pull a carfax and have it available.

[Cobb]

I think these MEME sums it up.