There's a motor trade saying that a good car sells itself. If it's on a dealer's forecourt, perhaps. But a private seller needs to write an ad that grabs the attention of potential buyers and tells them enough about the car to get them interested.
Once you've decided where to advertise, check out the ad rate per word or per space - this will influence how detailed you make your description of the car.
If the ad deal includes a picture (e.g. Auto Trader), it's worth taking digital pics of your (shiny clean) car against an uncluttered background in good daylight.
When writing your ad, use abbreviated 'car-speak' to save space. Go to our CAR-SPEAK PHRASEBOOK for the correct terms.
The golden rules for a successful classified ad are CLARITY, BREVITY, ACCURACY and HONESTY. Don't use empty phrases like 'lovely runner', and include as much of the following information as appropriate:
- Make, model, engine size and badge of car; e.g. Ford Focus 1.6 LX
- Number of doors and body style; e.g 5-door estate
- State if it's AUTO - important to some buyers
- Year registered and identifying letter/number; e.g. 99/V, 01/Y, 02/52 etc
- Mileage of car - but only if you're sure it's genuine
- Length of unexpired MoT and road tax
- Colour; if it's a metallic or pearlescent, say so
- Number of previous owners - but only if low
- Full service history
- Key equipment and extras (see phrasebook)
- Significant faults if the price is low
- Asking price for your car
- Phone number, location and times to call
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