[GTO]

I've bought or sold cars only on two platforms - our very own Team-BHP Classifieds or OLX. Sold the City on our classifieds, while the Civic was via OLX. Also found my 5-Series on OLX.

1. Which website did you successfully sell your car / bike on?

2. How was the experience?

3. Do tell us stories about the serious guys & timewasters.

4. How fast / slow did the sale happen? Did it take a lot of time to sell your car?

5. Did you pay for the listing, or free?

6. Did you get the expected price or did you have to go way below? For my Civic, I had to slash the price drastically as the model had poor demand in the used market (unlike the Corolla Altis).

7. Any tips or advice?

You can include your experience with the online startups, but please avoid posting about experiences with offline chaps (dealerships, used car brokers). Just online sources here please.

[VW2010]

Olx is the best site to deal directly with customers. My experience with our team Bhp classified ended up realising that sellers are over zealous and I am very sure no one will pick those cars at those prices. I always had success with olx as most initial conversations takes you to reasonable price estimate. The same even in this classified never worked as somehow sellers believe there is a premium to their cars than being realistic about market price, zero value for whatever accessories they have added and in general age and model of the car.

Cars.com will quotes 20% lower than what you can sell to an individual and so are the others. While they will quote higher to buy as well than directly buying.

If upgrading, the best option is to exchange as you lose at worst 10% of potential individual party sales.

My Endeavour I bought from OLX and it took a while. As long as you are ready to walk out of a deal and be ready with finance you can close a deal with individual buyer at a reasonable handshake.

I sold my Jetta on olx. Was very clear on let go price. Took some time and I was not in a rush. Once I found a buyer it all went very smooth and I am still in touch with the buyer. He is having a lot of fun and is a happy customer

[Mustang_Boss]

Tried to sell on CarWale, with no luck with my previous ride. Was able to sell it in office classifieds. Afterall, similar minds make things progress faster, i guess.

With Karizma, i was able to sell it on OLX after some days. Haggling the biggest problem. Even after agreeing on a price, at the time of delivery, the buyer usually hands over less amount and tries to use it sentimentally/emotionally after handing you cash.

The other problem i faced is they don't get the vehicle registered onto their name. you have to chase them. In my case, the buyer changed his mobile number after i chased him to get it registered. And now, the bike is stuck on my name. Thank god! its almost 10 years now and i need to wait a couple more to get rid of it from my name.

Spinny
The price quoted is less where as they are selling worse/similar condition cars with ~60-100K higher. Currently trying to sell my K10 and looking for an upgrade.

The complex RTO process in TG makes things much complex. As a Bike is already on my name, i end up paying much more in road tax on new car even if i get rid of my current car.
Thankfully, my car is in Mint condition and almost all cars i like have a significant waiting period. So, just pondering on what to do.

[amtak]

1. Which website did you successfully sell your car / bike on?

I recently sold two vehicles - My beloved Skoda Yeti and My spouse's Ford Figo DCT. I had posted ads on OLX and had horrific experience with them. They lower the price so much of a vehicle that is flawless by making out issues that don't exist.

For my Yeti, before the surveyor came, I had done a thorough walk through of the car and even checked the engine bay. The surveyor came and while taking the TD, put the vehicle in 4x4 mode and was accelerating hard. I told him not to do so, but he insisted that it is their process. I asked him not to do it again with a stern warning and he obliged.

While checking the engine bay, he removed the oil-dipstick and asked me to accelerate hard. when the hot oil came out and spilled on the engine compartment, he declared that the injectors are bad. Needless to say, he again had it from me.

Then came the call from OLX guys for the offer - your car has this and that issue, we can offer a max of 2L for it. I sold it to a gentleman who connected via OLX for 4.5L.

In the case of my Figo, I flatly refused to go with OLX guys but only with Ads. Again, I was getting low balled in Mumbai. It eventually went to a fellow Yeti owner at 60% of the original invoice price.

2. How was the experience? - I would not want to sell it to any sites, if we are getting low balled.

3. Do tell us stories about the serious guys & timewasters.

Kids messaging like I am a college student and this is my budget; Adults messaging like please sell it at 70% of quoted price. Legends asking 1000s of questions and then saying "Money Problem" give me at 40% of quoted price.

One important lesson is, when you are putting a price to your car, keep it as high as possible. If your car is good, people will come. You negotiate and close the deal.

4. How fast / slow did the sale happen? Did it take a lot of time to sell your car? Within a week of putting the ad.

5. Did you pay for the listing, or free? Free listing only.

6. Did you get the expected price or did you have to go way below? As per my expectations.

[AntPaul]

Sold my well loved 2006 Maruti Esteem on olx.in in June 2022. OLX had offered some auction type of system that I did not opt for. I have heard the auctions don't fetch good value. I got countless interests on the app, and 3 buyers who visited my house and the highest offer i got was 95% percent of the advertised value, all clearly indicating my asking price was (which was 3x the price Maruti dealer offered as exchange price), to put it mildly, very reasonable. I was lucky to find a genuine buyer who liked the car was planning to keep her for at least couple of year.

In summary,

1. Which website did you successfully sell your car / bike on?
Olx.in

2. How was the experience?
Vey good. But you have to dodge a lot of shady people. Car was sold within 24 hours of posting the ad.

3. Do tell us stories about the serious guys & timewasters.
I got around 20 responses on the app. I only responded to 3 of them providing my phone number (assuming they are genuine). 1 of the 3 turned out to be dealer. At it is a 15 year old car, i was not pestered much by timewasters much
In my experience the don't pursue the pushy guys . Go for people who respond fast, in gentlemanly manners while not being aggressive, even if the price offered is low. If the buyer likes your car, and your asking price is reasonable, the price can be negotiated. Insist of transfer of ownership. That will repel dealers.

4. How fast / slow did the sale happen? Did it take a lot of time to sell your car?
got really good offers within 12 hours of posting the ad. Car was sold in 24 hours.

5. Did you pay for the listing, or free?
No.

6. Did you get the expected price or did you have to go way below?
I got 90% of my asking price. My asking price was reasonable.

[abhishek46]

I sold my old Polo last year.
I attempted to first test-the-waters on Olx.

1. Which website did you successfully sell your car / bike on?

Tested the waters with Olx. Did not manage to sell it here.

2. How was the experience?

Horrible & Horrendous.

3. Do tell us stories about the serious guys & timewasters.

Hundreds & hundreds of fraudsters & scamsters.

4. How fast / slow did the sale happen? Did it take a lot of time to sell your car?

Olx is a platform infested by fraudsters. One should be prepared to filter through hundreds of these crap persons and find a genuine buyer.

5. Did you pay for the listing, or free?

Free

6. Did you get the expected price or did you have to go way below? For my Civic, I had to slash the price drastically as the model had poor demand in the used market (unlike the Corolla Altis).

Not applicable


After the disappointment above, I enquired with Spinny.com.

1. Which website did you successfully sell your car / bike on?

Spinny.com

2. How was the experience?

Fantastic

3. Do tell us stories about the serious guys & timewasters.

Spinny guys were professional.

4. How fast / slow did the sale happen? Did it take a lot of time to sell your car?

1 Day.

5. Did you pay for the listing, or free?

Not applicable

6. Did you get the expected price or did you have to go way below? For my Civic, I had to slash the price drastically as the model had poor demand in the used market (unlike the Corolla Altis).

I got way above the expected price.

[Grimlock]

OLX has worked the best for sales in the past. They allowed you to make a listing for free for a couple of times, but nowadays, it seems to be paid.

90 percent of the time it is just low balling dealers and people who are out to to give you only 50 percent of whatever price you have listed, but the 10 percent makes it worth it, you tend to meet some like minded people and come to an agreement.

It happens to be of one platform where things car/ bike / anything at all gets sold eventually because you end up getting responses within a couple of months.

But finding good deals nowadays has become difficult, everybody is marking up whatever they are selling by huge amounts.

I had used droom in the past too, but got no responses at all on that platform.

[Axe77]

For most part I’ve peddled them in exchange to the new car dealers, mostly for lack of patience in pursuing the sale personally.

2005 Swift:
Sold in 2009. Exchanged it with Honda dealership when I bought my Civic A/T.

Wife’s i20:
Sold in 2012 when we bought her the diesel Nissan Sunny. Exchange sold to Nissan.

Mum’s 2009 Honda City (bought used in 2010):
Exchange sold to Hyundai dealership in 2018 when we bought the Grand i10. They really sweetened the deal to make the Grand i10 sale and we got almost 50k more than any used car dealer was willing to offer.

2012 Nissan Sunny:
Exchange sold to BMW dealership when I picked up the 3GT.

2009 Civic:
Sold it in mid 2017 privately to a dealership in Thane since it was surplus to my needs at the time and I didn’t need a third car. I can’t recall the dealership name but the sale was done pursuant to my posting the details on CarWale.com.
I really hunted around for this one as I was in no rush to sell (wasn’t swapping for a new car) and he gave me the best deal by some distance compared to any other new car dealership. They were also reasonably prompt in sharing proof of ownership transfer at the time.

EDIT:
Based on my above experiences:

For most part, sales to dealerships are generally at a bit of a discount but its no worse than selling directly to any dealer per se. If you are keen to close the new car deal quickly and simultaneously its helpful but then it comes at a price of course. The exception was our City sale where Hyundai gave us a really good price. When cars are on discount, it also helps them tag other heads like “exchange bonus” etc in the new car deal, where that’s on offer from the company.

CarWale was a free listing IIRC. It did serve me reasonably well. Like any other medium of used car sales, of course it threw up its share of low ballers etc. But that to my mind is inherent in any used vehicle sale process. I tend to mostly gravitate to CarWale to browse listings as well on the rare occasion I’ve tried to sell a car outside of the new car swap deal.

My primary affinity to CarWale is the volume of listings combined with how easy and efficient it is to filter the results based on preferences. The latter in my limited experience while browsing used cars is the biggest pull to CarWale. Olx search results too are a bit of a mixed bag, there categorisation isn’t as “on point” as CarWale I feel. Just my personal experience.

[nomad47]

I have recently sold my 2016 i20.
I didn't want tons of people calling me and therefore I didn't put up an ad on OLX. I went with the new age startups and here is how it went

1. Cars24: Booked a home inspection from their website for next day. Technician was assigned in the morning and he arrived on the scheduled time. He did the basic checks, looked for accidental repair, clicked photos and took a test drive. Inspection took around 40 minutes. After completion of inspection, got a Relationship Manager assigned and received a quote within 2 hours. The price quoted was slightly lower than expectation and I requested for a higher price. They gave a revised price but as it was not matching with my expectations, deal didn't go through.
Over the course of next 15 days, I received calls from 3 different Cars24 representative promising the asked price, but none came through.

2. OLX: Booked the inspection on same day as Cars24. Technician was late. OLX's inspection was more rigorous than cars24. OLX even took paint thickness. During test drive, car was rear ended by another car while waiting to turn. Minor scratches on the rear bumper. Inspection took 2 hours.
Price quoted was 30% lower than cars24. Immediately rejected. However, the most disappointing and outrageous part was, OLX leaked my details. I started receiving calls from dealers from the state where the car was registered. This left a bad taste in the mouth.

All these aggregators wanted the car within 24 hours of inspection. As I needed the car for a trip, dropped the plan for 15 days. Started round 2 after 2 weeks

3. Spinny: Booked an appointment from the app. Got a slot for 1 day later. No technician was assigned till the slot timing. Called CC and they assigned a case agent. Received a call 1 hour later to book a slot in another 2 days. They tried to convince me the initial slot was to book an actual slot for inspection in future. Politely rejected them and told them, I am not interested anymore

4. Cars 24 (again): Booked another inspection on cars24. Inspection went as smoothly and timely as first time. They even took paint thickness this time. Within 2 hours received a price, similar to the previously offered price. Asked them for a higher price, which they confirmed after 2-3 hours. Finalised the deal, they sent documents for verification. Next day in the morning another technician came for inspection. It was a short inspection, and the technicial handed over the sell documentation. Pickup was scheduled for afternoon. A driver came, gave him the OTP received and within 2 minutes full payment was credited to my account. Took a photograph of the car and bid her adieu.

The best experience was with cars24. Extremely professional and punctual. Transparent in all conditions. Strangely, none of the aggregators asked for service history. I guess they got the information from other sources.

To sum up the original questions:
1. Which website did you successfully sell your car / bike on?

CARS24

2. How was the experience?

Described above.

3. Do tell us stories about the serious guys & timewasters.
OLX leaked my details and I started receiving call from dealers from the state where car was registered. As I lived in a different state, I was not interested with dealing with them. I didn't want hassle of RC transfer on own.

4. How fast / slow did the sale happen? Did it take a lot of time to sell your car?
Within 24 hours.

5. Did you pay for the listing, or free?
No money was paid by me. Even RC transfer is taken care of by Cars24

6. Did you get the expected price or did you have to go way below? For my Civic, I had to slash the price drastically as the model had poor demand in the used market (unlike the Corolla Altis).

I got my expected price. I would say I got higher price due to market condition. Recovered 70% of ex showroom price for a 6 year old car

[patron]

OLX: Sold my Vcross on OLX. There were some junk offers but also a few genuine ones. One of them instantly transferred an advance even before checking the vehicle and balance the same day. Incidently, I also posted an ad on TeamBhp Classifieds and the vehicle was sold even before the ad was approved on TeamBhp.

Spinny: Sold my MG Hector on Spinny. Got the best price with them by a margin. They paid a token amount on Day 1 of the evaluation and balance on Day 2 and picked up the car after completing the paper work. Was impressed by their professionalism in the entire transaction.

[condor]

Generally, have found olx to be fairly well organized as a portal for buying/selling, and even have some algorithm to flag suspicious users. One limitation, but then they are commercial website, is that they provide 1 free listing for one month. If we need additional time/listing, then the fees can be paid, though I felt it is a bit high. Another thing that Olx does is a thorough evaluation of the vehicle, but are quite pessimistic in their pricing. They put up some cars for bidding too, though the bids often return low bids. One such car I tried to sell through olx went for about 80% more than the highest bid.

Quikr is badly organized, so dont go there much. Cant even search properly.


My experiences:

Listed two cars on TBHP long back, sold one to a colleague and another to someone who was a TBHP follower. Both went thru without issues.

Another car I had listed on Olx, and the first two days I got a slew of offers - but most were flagged as suspicious. Olx did put this up for bidding, but highest bid was about half of my expected base price. Finally sold it to someone who saw the post on another user group I had posted on.


While buying,
1. RX100 listed by a TBHP reader (non-member). Fair listing, but didnt buy it.
One point that came up when talking to him was that he avoided posting on Olx & others due to the number of fake users/low-ballers who respond. He said TBHP classifieds reaches a limited number of people, and he'd rather deal with quality queries than the quantity and spam he would get in other places.

2. KB100: listed by a fellow member @schakravarthy. Got it, and happily riding it

I have searched for KB's on Olx, missed a good one that went quite cheap, while others were quite bad.

3. A Tatamobile listed on Olx & FB - "full condition" vehicle that turned out to be a dud. Had got a friend to travel with me about 100km one-way.

4. Another car coming up soon - posted by a TBHP reader (non-member).



Overall, a more public website like olx will need more effort to screen prospective buyers, or mis-representations by sellers. End of the day, one never knows where a buyer will come from, or where we will find the vehicle we like.

[sam264_2000]

In last 2 years, we have sold 2 cars on Cars24. Did not try selling them on OLX or any other classifieds.

1. 2012 Hyundai Verna SX (O) CRDi, sold in Feb 2020: We got the car evaluated in Jan 2020 and the 1st offer we received was too low. So we decided to wait until we get better offers either at dealerships or sell privately. Cars24 reached out to us again in 1st week of Feb 2020 with a better offer but still below our expected price. We went ahead with the sale since we wanted to write it off before close of FY (March 2020). Money was transferred swiftly in the bank the next business day because we sold end of business the earlier day. Apart from their standard charges for the paper work, no other additional charges were paid. RC transfer was done within 2 months.

2. 2014 Tata Zest, sold in Feb 2021: Again, got the car evaluated in Jan 2021 and they made a really low ball offer. I got the car evaluated by Tata, Hyundai and Honda since I was considering Harrier, Creta and City respectively. All 3 made reasonable good offers, better than Cars24. Eventually after 1.5 weeks of negotiation, Cars24 beat the best of the offer I received from dealers and I decided to go ahead with the sale. Money was transferred the next business day. RC transfer was done in July 2021. Cars24 provides a 180 day RC transfer guarantee. I followed up twice with them after the sale on status of RC transfer. But since 2nd Covid wave hit us April-May-June, RTO already had a backlog and I was told not to worry as the rules were relaxed a bit.

We had also evaluated our 2011 Tata Indica Vista in Dec 2018 and 2013 Tata Manza Club Class in Feb 2020 from Cars24. The offers we received were below our expectations and also lesser than the offers from private buyers and dealers. The negotiations lasted for about a week. In the end, they agreed to match the offer we had from dealer (Indica) and private buyer (Manza) but it was a bit too late. We did end up paying them at least for the evaluation though.

Primary motive to go with Cars24 was hassle-free paper work post the sale. My take away from dealing with Cars24 is that you have to hold to your asking price because they start too low and will definitely come back if your car is in top shape. They will call you multiple times a day or week to gauge your interest and with some fear tactics but if you stand your ground, you will get what you ask for. All our cars were well maintained and hence they matched our asking price (except Verna).

[VPJ74]

I sold our 2015 VW Vento TSI on Cars24.com



1. Which website did you successfully sell your car / bike on?
>> Cars24.com

2. How was the experience?

7/10

After entering the information, a Cars24 person came within 2-3 days. He evaluated the car in detail, took lots of pictures, checked the tires, documents etc.
Within 24 hours I got a quote which was 70% of my expected price. I refused and negotiated. They came back with another price of 85% of my expectation and I agreed.

They agreed to pay in 2 instalments but I refused. They e-transfered the amount and collected the car that day.

The dodgy part:
They made me sign a lot of documents, mostly RTO forms, indemnity, some blank documents etc. I tried to write the car registration #, owner details in some but they rush you and push you into signing a bunch of forms. I tried to take photos of some but in hindsight I will be wary of doing all this. I tried them to sign a few documents, Sale Agreement etc but they refused and made a lot of drama. They were in super hurry to get all the docs signed, take the keys and vroooom.
Once they make the payment, they wanted to take a lot of signatures and take the car.


4. How fast / slow did the sale happen? Did it take a lot of time to sell your car?

> The sale on Cars24 was very quick and efficient. Online listing, evaluator visit and offer in a day.

The OLX/Carwale listing process was painful. A lot of fake calls, speculators and low ballers.


5. Did you pay for the listing, or free?
I paid for Carwale etc, Cars24 come and pay YOU.

6. Did you get the expected price or did you have to go way below? For my Civic, I had to slash the price drastically as the model had poor demand in the used market (unlike the Corolla Altis).

> About 85% of my expectations. It helps to have a realistic expectation. I did get more than the new Car dealer exchange offer. The new car dealer top guy did mention to his team that "hmmm Guys we have to be quicker .. " after knowing about my sale to cars24.

[Silverfire]

Sold my Punto on Cardekho.
I approached both Cars24 and Cardekho who have a back end auction based model. The process is super convenient. Once you raise a request a home inspection is done and you get a quote within a few hours. You can negotiate a bit on the quote. Cars Dekho gave me a better quote finally so went with them.

Pro: Overall very easy process as far as selling goes. 2 days from start to finish with overall time spent not more than 3 hours on getting the sale done. The price I received was reasonable.

Downside: Cardekho has still not completed the RC transfer to the new customer, 12 months since the sale. They have stopped responding to follow-ups as well.

[naru80]

Originally Posted by GTO

1. Which website did you successfully sell your car / bike on?

Sold my 14-year-old i10 on Cars24 some time back.

Originally Posted by GTO

2. How was the experience?

It was a quick, hassle-free process. But it involved a lot of negotiation and luck.

Originally Posted by GTO

3. Do tell us stories about the serious guys & timewasters.

I tried OLX classifieds. But received hardly any queries since the car was near the end of its life. Spinny did not make an offer (If i remember correctly, they said they only buy cars that are less than 7 years old or with less than 70k on the odo). OLX Autos offer was ridiculously low and they were not interested in negotiating.

Originally Posted by GTO

4. How fast / slow did the sale happen? Did it take a lot of time to sell your car?

Called Cars24. They took initial details on phone. Appraiser came the very next day. Spent around 30 mins checking the car. The quote came in the evening.

Originally Posted by GTO

5. Did you pay for the listing, or free?

Did not pay for listing. But Cars24 took a 3k commission from the final price.

Originally Posted by GTO

6. Did you get the expected price or did you have to go way below?

Honestly, did not know the correct market value. The price discovery was after talking to my FNG, my local Carnation service centre, the exchange departments of various car dealers and checking the listings of similar cars on OLX, etc. I was happy with the price that i got.

Originally Posted by GTO

7. Any tips or advice?

The online startups always try to lure you in by showing a high valuation range for your car. But after the inspection, the quote is below the lower level of that range.

Didn't accept the first quote. They came back with a slightly higher quote. Rejected that also. They tried to pressure me by saying that the quote is valid only for X amount of time. I let that lapse. After a few days, a team lead called and reopened negotiations. After a LOT of back and forth, we agreed on a price that was 20% higher.

Since this was by far the best offer, I took it.

The good thing was i didn't have to lift a finger, or go anywhere. Everything happened on the phone. The car appraisal and pickup was from my house. The paperwork was also taken care of entirely by Cars24.

I was a little worried about RC transfer. But a couple of months after the sale I got an SMS stating that the car is now registered to a Punjab number. I think i was lucky in this regard because i have heard a lot of stories where sellers have got stuck.

Some weeks after the sale i received a 20k discount coupon for any used car purchase from Cars24. I did not avail of it.