I've reluctantly put my MINI up for sale. I'm going to be returning to grad school in the near future. Selling the MINI will allow me to save quite a bit of $. I've had the car listed on yahoo and cars.com for almost two weeks. The Blue Book is $22, 750, but that doesn't include some of the options and the few mods I've added. I'm asking $21,950...is this too high? I might have held on to the car longer than I should have, but I really didn't want to get rid of it. I'm wondering if the value has gone down significantly. I started considering selling the MINI this past summer. I went into a dealership in September, and they offered me $20,000 for it. Has the value of my MINI dropped a lot since then? Is it just a bad time of year to be selling a car? Do I need to drop the price to sell it? Thank you for any advice.

Seth

 

uhhhh
what year
miles..
location
s or non s

lots of factors to fill in here.

any car is worth what someone will pay for it.

these things hold their value GREAT.. a mini dealer won't give you much for it.. since the entry level price of a non S is what 19 ? they won't put much in it.. my dealer told me that carmax would give 2k more than they would on trade.

good luck with the sale

 

My Dealer told me the same thing, and CarMax offered ~$2500 over what the dealer would have given (ridiculously low miles + daily pampering + lowballing dealers). I ended up selling it to a private party for even more! I think a visit to Carmax wouldn't hurt, if only to assess the current market value of your MINI.

But to address the original post, I've read time and time again where providing some stats and info to the NAM community allowed for pretty good feedback.

Good luck with that and congrats on the decision to take the Grad School Challenge!

 

You might actually do better to remove the mods and sell them seperately here on NAM or eBay. You might make more money and you won't have to worry about potential buyers being scared of a modded car.

 

I've had my truck up for sale on Carsoup.com for almost 16 months now for under trade in. I've had one call on it. The only place I put it up was on carsoup. The truck is spotless and has great photos. I just put it up there for kicks not really caring if it sold or not.

I put my Miata up for sale on Craigslist in February last year for $1,000 more than KBB private party. I sold it 4 weeks after I posted it for the asking price. The guy never bickered.

My point is that you may have to try a few different places along with assessing the price. May not be a great time to sell a Mini, although I thought the same thing about my Miata and look how that turned out.

I think it's pie in the sky thinking that you'll have a flooded email box just using the two places that you listed it. You really need to get out there and pimp your ad to a lot of places. There are a lot of Mini's for people to choose from, and not too many buyers are comfortable handing over $20k to a private party.
If your car is modded it will narrow the pool of potential buyers down significantly. Look at the demographic of Mini buyers in your area and try to appeal to that.
I would suggest having a free CarFax available and also list all service that was done. List any warranty that is left and if there is a chance to get an extended warranty from a dealer (if applicable)

 

Sorry about the lack of info. It's a 2006 MCS with 22,800 miles. The mods are pretty minor. I haven't installed any risky performance mods. Those were in the long term plans, but I wasn't going to do anything like that until I paid it off. It has an m7 Strut Tower Brace, painted interior, stubby antenna, and other similar mods. (It has a Whalen, but I’m planning to keep it. ) I'm not expecting these type of mods to improve the value of the car. I was, however, hoping these type of mods might sale the car a little faster. The interior is Astro Black and Silver, which I really like...and is pretty unique. There are pics on NAM someplace. And the m7 Strut Tower Brace protects from mushrooming, so I was hoping this type of thing might give a buyer a little more confidence. That along with the remaining warranty. On the other hand, like chpsk8 said, that is a lot of money to shell out to a private seller. I'm tempted to see what CarMax will give me. I was planning to list it other places, but I wanted to make sure my asking price was fair before doing so. I'm below Blue Book right now...does anyone know how accurate Kelley Blue Book is? Are they usually right on? Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Sorry, I have lots of questions. Does anyone know if it's possible to buy the extended warranty after the fact? If it is possible, does anyone know how much the extended warranty would cost on an 2006? That way I can inform any potential buyers about this possibility. Thank you so much for you help!

Seth

 

Think of it from a buyers perspective though: they see "Modifications" and immediately think track/performance junkie...not exactly the easiest on cars. I myself generally discount a car immediately upon seeing extras...too many variables I would have to research, not including the individuals mechanical and installer skill.

Not sure if you're listing that it's been modified, but regardless of that I would strip out the extras you've added...minor or not.

- Matt