A couple of months ago, I noticed a car with a “for sale” sign sitting in a driveway just a couple blocks from my house. It was an old Nissan Altima, with faded paint and a few missing hubcaps, wedged in the driveway between a pile of mulch and the garage door.
After biking more than a few times past this car (which never seemed to move from behind a mountain of mulch), I finally decided to ring the bell to see if I could learn more about the car to see if Carma Services could add value to their selling process. When no one answered, I called the number on the sign. Dale answered, and within a minute he was outside telling me about his car, which he had owned for more than a decade.

He let me know that overall it was in good shape, considering its age and the fact that it had over 200k on the odometer. There were, of course, a few issues to disclose. The first was the battery that would drain if left hooked up over night (very much like Local Mike’s Honda Odyssey). Dale had found a workaround by installing a device to the battery that could quickly disconnect and reconnect the battery with the turn of a dial.
He also let me know that the trunk would take on water in the event of hard rain, and the windshield had a good-sized crack that would need to be repaired. I told him that if it runs well, these should be easy issues to sell through in our strong used car market. He told me that he was looking to get about $750 for it; this seemed to be below market value if it was in good running condition. He said that I could take it to CarMax for an inspection and a wholesale value (which I figured would have been close to $500). If so, I knew that buying at his asking price would allow me to sell it quickly and easily make another donation in the hundreds of dollars to a local charity.

Since it had already been sitting idle for months, I figured Dale may be willing to hold on to it a bit longer (although I did notice that the license plates would be expiring at the end of the month, and I am sure he did not want to spend the money to renew them).
We exchanged contact info. I told him I would send him some material to review and he could contact me with any questions or if he would like to get this process started to contact me right away. This new contact was exciting, because if the car checked out and was showable, I knew we could add some value to him (and likely to the community by working together).

After introducing myself and Carma Services to Dale, I waited for him to contact me, or to see his Altima disappear as local Mike’s vehicle had earlier this summer.

When I biked the kids to the nearby park a couple of weeks later and saw that the Altima was still there (knowing that we were nearing the middle of the month and he only had 2 weeks until his plates would be expiring), I felt the need to reach out to him again with a text. In it, I offered to come take some pictures of his Altima and create an ad for both Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. I even offered to pay the advertising fees for the opportunity to tell his story. It wasn’t long before he responded with, “let’s do it.”

He had just started a new job, so we had to work around his schedule, which I was able to easily do. A couple nights later, after he got off work, we met in his driveway for about 10 minutes so that I could take several pictures of the vehicle, inside and out. This gave me a chance to more closely assess what we were working with here.

Thankfully, there were no major cosmetic issues, aside from normal wear on a car approaching a quarter century old. Of course, we hadn’t even started it or taken a ride in it yet, so I was still more than a little skeptical. After getting my pics, I asked Dale if we could start it up and he agreed, popping the hood to turn his “magic” dial on the battery. He also let me know that sometimes this connection becomes corroded and suggested that if we cleaned it, it may start better.

Sure enough, as he cranked the ignition, the engine tried to start in fits. For about a half-second, it would sound like we were going to be able to listen to the purr of the motor, but then it would cut out for a second or two. After several seconds of the painful-sounding process, it thankfully did finally catch, and we could hear a smooth engine without any reason for concern.

I would have liked to have taken it for a quick spin that night, but I had an appointment and I did not want to ask Dale to pull it out from behind its protective pile of mulch. Instead, I let him know that I had what I needed to get our ad put together, and I promised to send him the text the next day so that he would have an opportunity to review it and let me know what I may need to change anything before posting it.

Once I had some pictures and a better understanding of Dale’s Altima, I could put together an ad that would allow prospective buyers a chance to see what they could get at this low price point. This included the good news reported to me about how the car was still running well, but also included the minor issues that we felt were important to disclose to prospective buyers.

We wanted to be transparent, not only because it is the right thing to do when doing business, but because it would save us time showing the car to people who would ultimately lose interest upon learning that the windshield was cracked or other obvious defects were present. The battery and the trunk issue we could have hidden with a little preparation, but I appreciated Dale’s willingness to not try to get a few more dollars by duping someone about the condition of his vehicle.

After sending Dale what I had put together the day after my visit, he let me know that he liked what he saw. It was at this point that I requested to take the car for a test drive to ensure that me paying for the ad and beginning our search for a buyer made sense. He agreed to let me visit a couple of days later and we took it for a ride around the block.

To my surprise the car handheld incredibly well for its age and I felt confident that it was mechanically sound for test drives. Within hours of this hurdle being cleared we were able to get his ad up and began waiting to see how it would be received by those in the market for low-cost used cars in our area.

With Dale’s ad up, it took only a few minutes before the scammers started texting me, saying they wanted to buy this car and asking for my email address. (I’m never sure what the next steps would have been with those attempts, as they go ignored.) After the first wave of scammers, the airwaves went silent until the following morning, when I awoke to find a few lowball offers (even though in the ad I requested no offers sight unseen).
Before showing the car to any serious buyers, we wanted to prep the car by cleaning up a bit and making sure that it looked good. I asked Dale if I could stop by Friday after he got off work to vacuum it out and wipe down the dusty surfaces for a few minutes. He agreed and gave me access to the inside of the car a short while later.

During my cleaning, I asked him if he could remove any corrosion from the battery connection and he did. Following that 2 minutes of work, the car started much more smoothly. This was a relief, because any buyer that would have heard what I heard a couple days earlier upon starting the vehicle would have had more reason to walk away without making an offer.

Before leaving my quick detail session, I asked Dale to look inside the trunk with me as I noticed the spare tire was submerged in a few inches of water. After I cleaned the leaves and other debris in the weather stripping (which I hoped would remedy the leak), he pulled out the spare and found a plug at the base of the trunk.

After pulling the plug, water began to rush out of the trunk and onto the driveway. There had to be nearly 3 gallons of rusty water that was a vibrant orange color. I wish I had taken some pictures for you, because it was quite the sight to see. It solved our issue with standing water in the vehicle and felt much more confident setting up appointments for the weekend ahead.

Later that night, while I was watching “The Book of Life” with the kids, an email came through from Jose. He was interested in setting up a time the following day to come from Minooka to look at Dale’s Altima. He asked if we would consider $500 off our asking price of $1500 because he would need to replace the windshield.

I texted Dale to see if he would be available to provide me the keys for this potential showing. He got back to me right away in the affirmative and his prompt response was much appreciated. I replied to Jose immediately letting him know that he could come out at noon the following day to look at the car and that we would consider accepting as low as $1200 because we had just listed it for sale the day before. He let me know that he would come take a look and we exchanged information.

I double checked with Dale to make sure he was comfortable with our prospect coming to his home for the showing and he said he was, so I gave Jose his address and was happy to have someone interested in coming to check out our freshly listed ride!

Jose pulled up minutes later in Dale’s driveway. He arrived with his mother and father in his sporty Civic coupe that was immaculate. I came to learn that he worked at a detail shop in Lombard and he was interested in buying this car for the purpose of learning how to drive a stick shift.
I rang Dale’s doorbell looking to get the keys to his car, but there was no answer. After a minute or two of awkwardly standing on the front stoop as Jose and his family looked over our offering, I decided to give Dale a call on his cell. Much to my dismay he did not answer, so I left a message letting him know we were ready to move this process along for him.

Since Jose had arrived a few minutes early, I explained that maybe he wasn’t yet available and asked them to give us a few minutes to take it for a test drive. They were kind enough to let me know that it was not a problem and I began looking for clues to Dale’s whereabouts.

His garage door was open and his other cars were all accounted for, so where could he be? Before it got too uncomfortable, I noticed that from the park down the street Dale and his two young daughters were making their way towards the house. This was a huge relief!

After Dale arrived and answered a few questions about his car, he handed over the keys and Jose’s dad hopped in the driver’s seat to take his son and I for a trip that took maybe 5 minutes. During this time he shifted the gears like a pro (no stalling or grinding). This made me happy, because I did not know how much abuse the old girl could take after all these years.

We made it back to the driveway and they asked for a few minutes to discuss amongst themselves. I excused myself and went to sit on the front porch awaiting our fate. Up until this point, everything relating to the car had been spot on, but you never know. I was relieved to know that I had received a text from another prospective buyer that morning who wanted to come out right away should this deal fall through.

Before I could get too far on making contingency plans, Jose called for me to meet with him by the car. He and his father had come to the conclusion that they could offer $1000 right now to take home Dale’s car. I told them that I would have to run it by Dale before we could draw up any paperwork and I made my way back to Dale’s front door.
This time he answered right away and as quickly as he opened the door, he shot down their offer. I let him know that although we did have another interested party that wanted to take a look this afternoon, but also cautioned him that this would mean he would need to dedicate more time on his Saturday to this process and that while Jose’s father could drive stick like a champ, we did not know what future test drives may entail. I proposed we counter with $1100 and they could take it or leave it. After a brief pause, Dale agreed to this idea and I trekked back down the driveway to see if we could close this without any further ado. Jose hesitated for a moment and then agreed to our offer to get this done before anyone else could come to even take a look.

Once we had a consensus, I called my wife right away and provided her the final selling price, current mileage, as well as both Dale and Jose’s information to complete our bill of sale. About 15 minutes later she biked over with the kids and some papers so that we could begin signing paperwork, counting cash, and eventually providing our buyer and seller with notarized documentation of the transaction. Not long after, we all went our separate ways with another sale in the books.
The only missing piece to the puzzle was how much Dale would be willing to donate from the sale of his Altima with the assistance of Carma Services to his local nonprofit of choice.

The process of selling Dale’s car provided a great experience. While Carma Services may not have made any money from this transaction, this was never the goal. Rather, the ability to do what we enjoy, help out, and share a fresh story was payment enough.

Upon approaching Dale for this partnership, it was made clear that the only payment Carmas Services was considering was paying him for his selling story if he ended up doing the “work” of listing, showing and finally selling his car.

After our first meeting I sent Dale a link to our website with the available offers, to give him a chance to see what other options a seller could choose from and allowed him the flexibility to select from the buy-it now offer to the full-service option. I am glad he opted for full-service, because while this car was impressive for its age, it was still very long in the tooth and personally taking ownership of it could have been more risky than most used cars.

During my follow up visit, when asked what selling option he preferred, he replied for me to “do my thing.” Not being sure what he meant, I clarified by asking if that meant full-service (maybe because that is what I was hoping) and he said yes!

I reminded him that whichever option he chose, that he wouldn’t be responsible for any costs. From our services to his advertising fees, this would be a true pro bono gig. Since this was a real opportunity to tell a solid story, on a very local car, it was a big win for Carma. Dale was also a young father of two beautiful little girls and it was most satisfying to know that I could help him provide for his family by confidently getting him more than his opening offer of $750 during our first meeting just weeks earlier.

I suspect that, like many car sellers, Dale would have sat on his car until after his tags expired. Problems often arise when older vehicles sit idle and exposed in the elements for season after season. At that point, the only option is to call a towing company that may give you a couple hundred for the scrap value.

This waste is what Carma Services was allowed to avoid by Dale’s choice to take a chance on some random guy who rang his doorbell one evening. At this point the sole focus became to get Dale as much more than the $750 he was thinking about earlier in the month. At the same time, I wanted to be as “invisible” to Dale as possible, not interrupting his family time any more than was absolutely necessary. This meant being mindful and thinking ahead about how to minimize my outreach with questions or requests to come see/clean the car as we moved through the sales process together.

One part of the process that I skipped this time was the important step of taking his car to CarMax for a complimentary inspection and reports showing us (or any prospective buyers) what Dale’s car was about. This confidence can translate into hundreds of dollars in the selling price of a used car, but in this case, the trip may not have been worth the benefit. Early on, I was unsure about the road worthiness of this automotive artifact. In retrospect, had it not sold in less than two days from the time it was listed, perhaps it could have been a good talking point for the subsequent story?

Although we decided against this investigatory step in the selling process, I did look at KBB.com to get some rough numbers and found that a dealer would have likely have paid about the same as our scrap value (and we would have had to take the time and expense to bring it to them). Surprisingly, KBB.com reported that the private party value would have been under $800, bringing it about where Dale had put it when we originally spoke. While this was concerning as I laid out an expectation in excess of $1000 during our initial consultation, I knew that the used car market has been volatile and recent price spikes may not be fully represented in KBB.com’s data. I decided that in the worst case scenario, I get Dale what he is looking for and he has had to do none of the work. In addition to a story, Carma Services may have another promoter down the road?

If Carma Services provides impeccable service and value, the next time someone asks our seller how they sold their car (in this case, a long-held Altima), they can let them know to talk to us before moving too far along the process. Time will tell if this theory works out, but about halfway through the process before posting the ad, Dale did send a text letting me know that “This has been a good process so far, BTW.” This message may have been the highlight of the whole process (who am I kidding? Closing the deal was the highlight!)!

The best part was still to come as I was preparing to find out how much Dale was going to donate from the proceeds of his sale using our services. After emailing him with a breakdown of what a sale like this would have looked like financially speaking after using KBB.com to approximate a dealer offer. In his case, he would keep just over $700 and the remaining $400 dollars would be split between Carma Services and the local nonprofit of his choice.

These dollar amounts were not being requested, just used to help him decide what he was comfortable allocating to his cause from our work together. After reviewing my information, he let me know that we could expect $300 to go to The Milton Township Food Pantry in Wheaton!

This meant he did better than his original desire (win), we were able to share a story with you (win), and we were going to be able to meet and support a local charity that had somehow stayed off of our radar all this time (win). Beyond that, Jose saved huge by purchasing a mechanically sound car for just over $1000 in this red hot used car market (win).

This concludes Dale’s selling story, but there may be more value to be had from his 1997 Nissan Altima for you! Carma Services found inspiration in Dale’s story and his approach to having fun with his car throughout the years that he owned it.

We hope you will have some fun with us as we share what we learned and a contest to allow one of our followers to win a prize for sharing their creative approach to car ownership!

Over the summer, we had the opportunity to help sell Dale’s 1996 Nissan Altima. I could tell when Jose, our buyer, pulled up that he was a “car guy.” His souped-up Honda Civic was immaculate and he told me he worked at a local detail shop. Jose was the first person to look at this rare sedan with a manual gearbox. He told me he always wanted to learn how to drive stick and this car was an affordable way to accomplish this personal goal. His father helped by joining him on that warm Sunday morning and conducting the test drive on his behalf, not stalling or grinding the gears even once. After a quick transaction, we were able to free up some space in Dale’s driveway and Jose was the new owner of Vroomhilda.

I often wonder what happens to the cars we help sell with Carma Services. In this case, I was lucky enough to catch an update on Facebook and wanted to share it with you. This is what Vroomhilda looks like after several months under new ownership. Jose clearly invested some resources in this old girl!

The fact that Jose reached back out after the sale to share this transformation was a thoughtful gesture on his part. He clearly takes pride in his new ride, and because Carma Services was allowed to join along in this sales process, we were able to donate $300 to the hungry in our community through Dale’s selected food pantry.

Thanks, Jose, for keeping us posted on your ride and hopefully she will be good to you for years to come!