Does the plethora of car selling services locally make getting rid of one’s old car a piece of cake?
To those who are probably looking to offload their current car these days, it probably wouldn’t have gone unnoticed to you that there have been several new car selling services that have popped up in recent time willing to take your pride and joy in with minimal hassle. In fact, some of these companies might even have reached out when the ‘for sale’ ad of one’s motor has made its way to the wider world.
With all the fancy marketing promos and what feels like never-ending online advertisements too, it would be unsurprising for even the average Joe to have not at least heard of the bigger players in this business, like MyTukar and Carsome, before in recent time. Though ever wondered how it would be like to use any of these services, and are they really as convenient as they make it out to be?
Well for those who have pondered that, you’ve then certainly come to the right place. That is as the words below will be the tale of my (rather pleasant) experience in having dealt with this relatively new car selling medium locally recently.
Just a little bit of background first on what precipitated this event however, the family had decided that it was time to let the faithful old family servant out to pasture and downsize to a household with one less car to upkeep. With it being an 8-year-old Hyundai Tucson though, there wasn’t exactly many buyers out there in the current climate looking for an aged Kimchi SUV, no matter how low milage (115,000 km) and well-maintained (only one lady owner from new, serviced religiously at the dealership) an example it was.
The ongoing covid crisis too had compounded the issues with moving a car on during this time, with the hassle of buyers not being able to come over and view the car, as well as the JPJ not being open, further adding to the complications of the sale. So all this therefore culminated in the matriarch of the house deciding to just call up one of these car selling sites and see what they will offer, and hence the began our dive into this oft-underreported sector of the local automotive industry.
Now upon making the first couple of calls, immediately clear to us was that it was indeed going to really be that easy to offload the Tucson as what was advertised by these companies. MUV for example was already ready and waiting to take the car off my hands, just by going off the information on the advert that I’ve previously posted for it on Mudah.my and Carousell.
Rather unsurprisingly too, the offers made on the Tucson were predictably at bottom-tier wholesale level, with both MUV and Carsome offering only a rather low RM 20,000 upon an at-home hour-long inspection of the car. There are nevertheless a few (rather obvious) ways that I’ve used to get this price up a bit, not to mention also a tip or two for those who are planning to use these car selling services in the future:
1. Remember to have photos of the geran and of the car at the ready on your phone
That is all in preparation of the inevitable questions that will be posed by these car selling services. General information about the car being sold — like the make, model and rather importantly, variant, as well milage— should also be at hand too, to ease the filling in of the various forms and questionnaires received during this process.
2. Shop around and don’t just accept the first company that returns with a tentative offer.
A very obvious trick for sure, but it is still one of the most important to reiterate nonetheless. Advice which is especially pertinent when the rather tempting offers from these companies start rolling in, with the obligatory proviso that it will only be valid for a short period of time.
Remember that competition (almost) always benefits the consumer, and in this case it was MyTukar that came back with the best initial offer of RM 25,000 for the Tucson. Even that though was however still a bit low for my liking, so…
3. It never hurts to ask if the initial asking price can be bettered.
This was especially true when it came to dealing with Carsome, which eventually put the Tucson on its auction site with a reserve of RM 25,000 after we initially rejected their RM 20,000 offer. This service however came with the proviso of a RM 1,000 payment upon a successful sale on the block, which the Hyundai unfortunately didn’t even meet that price anyway, so that was the end of that.
In returning to MyTukar meanwhile, a bit of back and forth eventually saw them raise their offer to their offer to a slightly more palatable RM 26,500. Though this was on condition that we agree to sell the Tucson to them within 24 hours, which was what we did eventually end up doing.
4. Be prepared for the speed of the transaction upon agreeing to a sale
And it was this short period between the agreement of the sale and waving goodbye to the Tucson one last time was probably the most (pleasantly) shocking experience of this entire process, which was totally different to the typically long drawn out bureaucratic process that is usually to come after finalising a deal. So to those who are considering utilising these car selling services then, it is probably best to clear out the car and say your last emotional farewells before actually contacting these companies.
As for the details on the actual procedure for handing over the car on the other hand, these companies do live up to their name of simplifying the car selling procedure, as all it took man arriving at our door with a laptop to transfer the title over and have the money arrive at the bank account specified the following day. No more having to wait in line for hours at either the JPJ or Puspakom, which could be more than well worth the expense of settling for a lower sale price in most people’s eyes.
All in all therefore, these are one of those rare cases where they do exactly as what they claim to do. So while there are inevitably some drawbacks to be wary about, those who are looking for a hassle-free way to offload an old car should really perhaps at least look into what is currently being offered by these car selling sites, as opposed to just being chewed up by a local used car lot instead.
