One Sunday afternoon, Matt contacted me for my help to sell his wife’s 2005 Civic. Since the car had been sitting since November (which our post from last year advised against), he knew the car would need at least a jump. I explained that it would not be uncommon for the car to also need other attention, as is often the case after a prolonged storage.

Matt also disclosed that he still needed to locate the title. This potentially posed a problem in selling quickly, as buyers prefer titles in hand at the time of sale and it was not unreasonable to expect that it could take weeks to receive a replacement from the State of Illinois if the original was not found. I did not want to put pressure on him, so I asked Matt to try his best to get the car started ASAP so we could at least see if it needed to visit a shop before putting it on the market.

The next day, he let me know that not only was he able to start the Civic, he also drove it for a full 30 minutes to recharge the battery. Our last obstacle to getting the car ready to show and ultimately sell was to find the missing title or make the decision to contact the Secretary of State for an expedited replacement title at an additional cost.

The following day, my wife had some business to tend to about 30 minutes away from our house, which was mere minutes from Matt’s house. I reached out to him right away to let him know that we could come out during her trip if the Civic was ready to go. He was excited to get the process started. Just hours later, I received another text letting me know that “the title fairy had paid them a visit,” and we were fully ready to roll.

When we arrived at Matt’s house on Wednesday evening, he asked if I would be willing to take possession of the Civic during our sales process. (I think he wanted to retain his privacy from potential buyers even more than wanting to free up some space in his garage.) Either way, I was happy not to have to drive over a half hour each way to meet with (potentially multiple) prospects while we had it advertised.

As I drove away from his house, I was marveling at it having only been driven a mere 70,000 miles (a definite selling point), when I noticed the check engine light glaring at me from the dash. Matt had made no mention of this inconvenience, but I recalled that the same issue had surfaced on Mike’s Accord from last summer, which had also been put back into service after months sitting idle.

I called Matt immediately to see if he was aware of this potential problem. I also shared with him that although I didn’t remember what the exact cause was for Mike’s check engine light issue, I did remember that it ended up being a relatively insignificant hiccup in the process, and would likely be an easy fix. I told him that after I finished having the Civic appraised at CarMax to get a base value and history report, I would stop by my local AutoZone for their complimentary Check Engine Diagnosis for him. During my less-than-5-minute visit at AutoZone, I learned it was most likely a part that cost less than $40.

When I relayed my findings to him later that evening, Matt was relieved that it was such a small problem. Since he wanted it sold fairly quickly and it was being stored in my driveway, we agreed to factor that into our pricing and disclose the issue to any prospective buyers. With the car ready to show, I took some pictures and posted on both Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. Within hours, we had our first low-baller offers at or near our dealer offer, but before the week was over, we had scheduled our first showing for Saturday morning.

In full disclosure, I am NOT a morning person. However, I woke up Saturday morning with excitement, after having gotten a really good vibe when I spoke with my prospect. He seemed eager to come see the Civic and was willing to come before anyone else would have a chance to come to look at it later that day. He arrived on time, we took a quick test drive, and after a couple of hard accelerations and some fancy brake/cornering maneuvers, we were back at my house, talking numbers.

I explained that I knew my friend had some flexibility, but I did not know how much. So I asked if I could step away and give Matt a quick call to discuss the potential buyer’s opening offer of $3,800. Since I had already told Matt about this appointment in advance, I was confident that he would answer right away (which he did).

During our initial conversation, Matt had thought that, based primarily on its age, he might expect the Civic to sell for about $1,000. (At that point, I was glad that he called me as opposed to taking it to CarMax and dumping it for so little, which is what he had done with used cars in the past.) Speaking to him now, he seemed very pleased that we would be able to get so much more than he had originally thought, and so quickly. I explained to him that $3,800 was still less than I thought we could get, and I reminded him we had another person interested in coming out later that day (although I really did not want to have to alter my Saturday routine much more to possibly sell this car).

I suggested that we counter with $4,300 and take it from there. He agreed, and our buyer accepted without any pushback. The buyer then shared with me that he did not have the required cash on hand, but would run to the bank and be back in an hour or so. He offered to give me a couple hundred to hold it, but I just asked him to let me know when he was on his way back.

About an hour after our test drive, our buyer returned as planned, and we began the process of signing the necessary documents and counting the cash. At this point in the process, I always do one last sweep of the car being sold, just to check for any forgotten discs left in the CD player or other personal items that needed to be collected and transferred back to my client. In this case, I did find an IPASS and an extra set of plates on the passenger seat.

The plates on the car still needed to be removed, and I shuddered knowing that this was one of those vehicles that met the criteria for a car that would likely put up a fight in releasing rusted-on bolts. When I was working at the big-box dealer, one of my least favorite tasks was having to take a car back to the shop so they could cut crusty, old bolts so that the plates could go home with the customer after a trade-in. This happened all the time with older Hondas and Toyotas, especially if the plates had been on for quite some time. The same thing had happened with our Honda Fit sale over the summer, and getting the plates off of Mike’s Honda Accord proved so difficult that we had to make arrangements to have them removed and returned by the buyer at a later date, after the sale.

In this case, however, I’d planned ahead and made sure to soak the bolts overnight in WD-40. Although this is not a guarantee for success, this time it paid off, and the plates peeled off with reassuring ease. At this point, I was walking on a cloud – not only because of the plate situation, but more so because we had captured $1,300 over the offer that the dealer had presented just a couple of days earlier. Matt, too, was pleasantly surprised, and he readily agreed to complete the post-sale Experience Survey on my website to share with me his thoughts and opinions on the process.

This experience would have been a slam dunk, but for the fact that I much prefer to get over $2000 above the dealer offer with my services, as was the case with the modified Accord Mike shared with us last summer. In the end, I guess it all averages out, and once we start doing more sales like these, more frequent donations will mean more than the occasional slightly-larger one.

Because Matt is a great guy, he rejected my offer to give him $1000 over our dealer offer, in favor of only $650 which is half of the $1300 we netted above our dealer offer (per our usual “full service” offer). This allowed us to make a larger donation of $500 to PADS to honor his request to find an organization that serves our homeless community.

In the end, Matt was happy with the service and the opportunity to give back, while getting an extra chunk of change sent through Venmo on Monday following the sale. Our buyer saved thousands buying this car through us as opposed to finding it on a dealer’s lot. Finally, I was happy because after my expenses and the increased donation to charity, I had about $100 remaining to do something special for my family. As a thank you to my wife, I am waiting for her to tell me where I can pick up a nice dinner or another treat for us to enjoy after this recent success story!