Selling a car online has come a long way over the past few years. Not so long ago, your options were limited to listing on websites like Craigslist, Kijiji, or Facebook Marketplace, and crossing your fingers you ended up making a solid deal with an honest buyer. That route is still there if you want it, but today there are many more options, including online-only auto retailers who will offer you a fair price right away and pick up your car directly from the location of your choice, with little more legwork required.
Here's a detailed look at your options for selling your car online in Canada.
How to Sell Your Car Online in Canada
- Why Sell Your Car Online in Canada?
- Drawbacks to Selling Your Car Online
- Preparing to Sell Your Car Online
- Choosing the Right Platform to Sell Your Car
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Why Sell Your Car Online
With the old way of doing things, you had two options. One was to drive your car to a dealership and have them tell you how much they would give you if you sell it or trade it in for a new car. The other was to post a listing on a classified website and sell your car privately.
Going through a dealer is more convenient than dealing with a private listing, but it’s almost always less profitable for you as the seller. You’d make more money by selling your car on your own, but this means you have to create a listing and take photos, respond to inquiries, arrange test drives and safety inspections, take steps to protect your safety and privacy, and manage the final paperwork on your own. And if you’re really unlucky, you might have to deal with scams, dishonest buyers, and broken deals, too.
A new way to sell a car online has emerged in recent years that provides an alternative to these two options: selling directly to an online-only used car retailer. The primary benefit of this method is convenience: these companies will offer you a fair deal right away based on reputable used vehicle pricing benchmarks, come to your home to photograph the car and set up the listing, assist with the paperwork, and arrive to pay you and pick the vehicle up when the deal is done. There’s no need to sift through emails, arrange multiple appointments, or even leave the house if you don’t want to.
Plus, if you sell through an online-only retailer, your listing will reach a wider audience of car buyers: it’s in your selling partner’s best interest to get your car in front of as many potential buyers as possible, which results in broader distribution and, in the end, a better deal for you.
Drawbacks to Selling Your Car Online
There aren’t many downsides to selling your car online, but the truth remains that you could potentially demand a higher asking price if you decide to list your car on your own through a classified ad and complete a fully private sale. This is because the buyers you’ll attract through online-only retailers, or sometimes those companies themselves, plan to resell your vehicle themselves and make a profit, which means they’ll offer you less than what they think an eventual buyer will pay. It will take a lot more extra work on your part, but if your highest priority is extracting every dollar possible from the transaction, completing a private sale on your own may be worth the extra effort.
Preparing to Sell Your Car Online
No matter how you decide to sell your car, you’ll need to take a few important steps to get the process under way.
The first is to thoroughly clean and detail your car. If you’ve got a space where you can do this and a few simple tools like rags and a vacuum, you may wish to save yourself some money and do this on your own. But if you don’t have an appropriate place or if you’re short on time, you might prefer to hire someone to do this for you. A classic full-service in-and-out car wash is an option, or you may be able to find a detailing service that comes to you.
If you have any outstanding warranty work, recall work, or repairs that may be a barrier to the sale or significantly reduce the value of your vehicle, this is the time to have those addressed. On the other hand, if it will cost more to complete those repairs than you’re likely to recoup and the safety of the vehicle isn’t affected, you may prefer to skip the work and highlight those issues with potential buyers instead. If you choose this route, you should expect to receive lower offers.
You’ll also need to track down some of your car details documentation and such as your vehicle ownership certificate displaying your Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), your current odometer reading, and your car’s service records. (The latter is not mandatory, but potential buyers are very likely to ask for them.) In Ontario, you’ll also need to purchase a Used Vehicle Information Package (UVIP), which you can order from any ServiceOntario location or online. In some provinces you’re required to submit a Safety Standard Certificate when you transfer the ownership, so you may wish to secure this before you begin the selling process to save time and avoid uncomfortable surprises. You’ll also eventually need a Bill of Sale and/or a Transfer of Ownership form, depending on the requirements of the province where you live. You may also wish to order a vehicle history report from a provider such as CARFAX to check the results for yourself, but this is entirely optional. If you work with an online-only vehicle retailer, their experts will assist you with some of these steps.
Unless you live in Newfoundland and Labrador where licence plate numbers follow their vehicles, don’t forget to remove any licence plates from your vehicle before it goes to its new owner.
Choosing the Right Platform to Sell Your Car
If you go the classified route, you can create your own listing on sites such as Facebook Marketplace, Kijiji, Craigslist, or autoTRADER.ca. You’ll need to write your own sales pitch, upload your photos, sort through inquiries, arrange test drives, potentially pay to boost your listing to get it seen by more people, and work with the eventual buyer to complete the ownership transfer process. This can be a profitable way to sell a car, but it is a lot of work.
If you’d rather proceed with an online-only partner, consider the CarGurus Sell My Car service, which requires only a few simple steps. Here’s how it works: first, enter some details about your car into our instant estimate calculator, and you’ll immediately receive a quote in the form of a price range. You can then book an appointment to have one of our experts come to the location of your choice to inspect the vehicle, take some photos, and collect a few final details from you. The listing is then created for you and sent to our network of dealer partners. A few days later, we inform you of the best price we received for your car and arrange to pay you and pick your old car up. You go from instant valuation estimate to empty driveway with no haggling, a minimum of hassle, and zero cost to you.
Conclusion
Selling a vehicle online today means you have plenty of options. If you’re looking for speed, selling your car to a dealership or offering it as a trade-in on a new vehicle can net quick results. If you don’t mind investing a lot of time and effort into getting the most money possible from your used car sale, consider going the private sale route and creating your own listing on an online classified website. And then there’s the newer option of offering your vehicle to a service that will arrange the sale for you, such as the CarGurus Sell My Car service. Going this route strikes a great balance between price, convenience, and trust.
Looking for more information on how to sell your car online? Consult our online reference guides, which you can find here.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
How much does it cost to sell a car on CarGurus?
When you sell your car using the CarGurus Sell My Car feature, there’s zero cost to you. The CarGurus Sell My Car feature is available in select markets across Canada.
Can I sell a car that is not registered in my name?
Generally speaking, you cannot sell a car in Canada that is not registered in your own name. Exceptions exist for when an estate sells a vehicle that belonged to a deceased person, or where an individual has legal power of attorney. You can assist someone else with selling a vehicle, but that person will need to be involved in many steps of the process, such as signing the Bill of Sale and Transfer of Ownership.
Is it safe to meet with potential buyers in person?
In a private sale, experts advise protecting your privacy for as long as possible by meeting for test drives or vehicle inspections in a public place. However, at some point a potential buyer will want to verify that you are who you say you are, i.e. the registered owner of the vehicle you’re trying to sell. If you sell through a dealer or an online marketplace such as CarGurus, you won’t need to meet with potential buyers in person.