Used cars and trucks by private seller

I'm in the market for a small used vehicle for daily driving. Does anyone sell private anymore? My go to used to be Autotrader.com but they have a very limited selection now. Craigslist was pitiful. I can find 100's from the dealers. Any ideas are appreciated.

 

Having just recently bought a used car and scouring everything within a 50 mile radius, it seems like Facebook marketplace is now the go-to. It’s not great, but that’s where I found most of the private sales.

Carfax now has used car listings as well, generally dealers, and was a great compilation of vehicles versus poking around a bunch of sites. They also all come with a free carfax.

 

Check out the banks in your area for a repo. The bank employees get some really good deals on many of them.

 

FBM did not occur to me. I'll take a look

 

Unfortunately, Facebook Marketplace seems to be your best option these days. That's where we bought our travel trailer and where I sold my car.

Interestingly, I had my car listed on Autotrader and Kijiji (Canadian version of Craigslist) and got no action other than scammers until I listed it on Marketplace, then suddenly started getting hits on all 3 sites.

ETA: Guess I should read the whole thread before posting.

 

You can find the best deals from private sale, but you have to be willing to check the new listings often and you be willing to waste time driving around looking at the ones that don’t match what the seller described in the ad until you get a good score. And it goes without saying to give it a thorough inspection.

 

Farcebook Marketplace has a bad design. Results that have been up for weeks do not show up in every search when they should have.

There are the sellers that don't post the pics they promise to, lie about condition, don't reply to questions, etc. I have noticed a lot of just dirty and trash filled trucks! Why would anyone, hoping to sell, not clean the thing up? SMH

Not very many people use Craigslist these days and it's a pity as it's a much better site plus FB has a history of abusing and descriminating against users.

However, the dump truck we plan to buy Friday we found on FB Marketplace. Excellent communication, seems to be a top shelf guy. He even offered to let us drive the truck home (3 hours one-way) using his plate, registration, and insurance and us mail that back. NICE.

Then there was the truck listed "everything works" that had such little braking ability I wouldn't even make an offer on it. How did I know about the brakes? On the test drive I tried to use the brakes.

 

Last car I bought (2024) for 12k was on Craigslist and was definitely a gem in the rough situation. Last car I sold successfully (2022) for 6k was on OfferUp. Autotrader seems to be more for 20k+ dealer listings and occasionally premium private party listings. I think OfferUp and Facebook marketplace are the new sub 20k private party go tos but have alot of garbage to sift through.

 

I still look on Craigs List, just click only Owner only to get rid of all the dealers. But then you have to weed thru all the scams, mostly way underpriced vehicles with pics grabbed from honest sellers. FBM is fair but the search for models and years is poor. Where I live NorCal FBM is the place, nobody uses offer up and people don't want to pay for CL.

 

"pay for CL." I think that's what really pushed users over to Farcebook Marketplace. CL was so full of fake ads, as mentioned above, pics from other sellers, that they felt they had to do something. That "something" pushed most people over to FB.

CL had it's own serial killer for a while, if I recall correctly, and there are many documented cases of ambush robberies via CL. I've only bought one thing via CL and that was a used lawn mower. That was one of the most useful things I've ever bought used and it changed how my mowing biz operated. I also got it at half-price of a new one.