What I Learned: Selling a vehicle

1. Consult the Black Book as a starting spot for pricing.

2. Check out used vehicle listings to see what comparable vehicles are available and what they are selling for.

3. Know what you are selling. Get the specs sheets and have them handy when you are taking calls from prospective buyers.

4. Having a declaration of repair on your vehicle is like a kiss of death for your selling price. Dealers have an immediate standard deduction off what they will offer if there is a dec, and it's large.

5. Getting a dealer offer is sobering news. They will tell you that their dealer worked extremely hard to bring the offer up to what you would like to receive, but it will still be low.

6. Be ready for a lot of enquiries, but don't expect many of them to translate into true opportunities to sell.

For Sale by owner: 1999 Sonoma 2WD, 4.3 L Vortec V6. 5-speed manual transmission. Extended cab (3rd door). Sportside body, sport suspension. Black with grey interior. Single owner. 65,000 km mileage. (Update: SOLD on September 22.)

My Fast cost me $113

Volkswagon promotes the GTI as a car that likes to go fast. It ships with a toy, named the Fast, which reminds its driver to treat it with high speeds and lots of road time. The marketing that they've come up with is hilarious.


The police promote safe defenisve driving and let me know that it is not alright to be driving 85 kph in a 50 zone. An officer hit me last weekend with my first speeding ticket ever in this province! It took me 10 years of driving in the city, but only two trips driving the GTI, before my first traffic offense.

After delivering my ticket and while walking back to his radar hiding spot behind a parked truck, the officer commented that the GTI has huge brakes for a small car. "All the better to stop fast with," I replied. He chuckled, but I wasn't sure if he correctly heard what I said.