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How To Sell Your Used Car

Everyone loves getting a new car – it’s such an exciting event, and there is endless enjoyment in playing with all the new features. Financing a new car can be difficult, though…cars depreciate fast, so buying new means you pay a premium over a used car. Deciding which to buy is usually quite simple – if you can afford to buy new, and do plenty of miles, a new car is definately worth it.

Once you’ve decided to change your car, you need to sell your old one. Fortunately, plenty of people buy used cars, and if it is in good condition, it’ll usually be easy to sell.

Take the car to a dealer. If you can, go to the dealer who has maintained the car. If you have always used the ‘brand’ garage, such as going to an official BMW garage for your BMW, your car is likely to be worth more. Tell them you are considering changing your car, and ask for a quote. Do not accept the quote straight away, but write it down so you don’t forget it.

Check online. You could use a car price guide, such as Parkers Price Guide, or look on websites such as Autotrader to see the average selling price. Keep in mind any alterations – things such as alloy wheels or above standard accessories will increase the price of your car, whereas bas condition and dents will reduce it.

If the car is very old, and not worth much, you might be interested in finding out the scrap value of the car. For most cars, this will be a few hundred dollars, and you can remove parts such as seats to sell as spares.

Finally, advertise! Use local messageboards as well as car forums and auction sites to show the car, and the price you want for it. Ensure this is above the dealers price – your car is worth more then this. If you can’t attract the price you want, or you have a time limit to sell the car within, consider accepting the quote from the dealer, or the scrap quote, whichever is highest.

Remember to always be honest about the condition of the car, and its maintainence – court is expensive!

Filed Under: Cars

Transporting Tourists: A Lucrative Business

If you happen to live in a tourist town and enjoy interacting with a wide variety of people, starting a tourist transportation business may be for you. You can start small and before you know it, you may be using a tool like kissinsights.com to gather customer feedback online about your services.

Getting Started

Whether you live in the Galapagos Islands or San Francisco, people are always looking for a friendly face when they travel. If you live in a small town that welcomes people from all over the world, you can start your own touring and transportation service. Start small by purchasing a mid-size vehicle that doesn’t waste too much gas. Check into your locality’s requirements about obtaining a taxi driver’s license and other permissions required for providing such a service. Once you’ve obtained the necessary permissions, you’re ready to start your tourist transportation service.

Marketing Your Transportation Service

People make plans for global travel using information on websites. Create a high-quality site that describes your services. Picking up tourists from the airport in the middle of the night, taking them to their hotels and answering their questions about the sights to see and where to eat can turn into a money-making business. Also, use kissinsights.com to gather feedback on your website about your services and any enhancements that clients would like to see to your transportation service.

Providing a service to tourists can be an engaging and exciting experience. If you enjoy meeting new people and learning about other cultures, running a touring and transportation service for tourists can be an ideal profession.

Filed Under: Modes of Transportation, Travel Tagged With: , ,

Buying a New Car

Buying a new car is a fun and exciting event, unless of course it is something that is an emergency. For the latter cases, many people find that they have a hard time with financing, or finding the money to put down. This is where having a backup plan comes in handy.

Creative Car Financing

Many people find that they have to be creative when it comes to finding the cash they need to get a car. Some use their investments that they have, like when using UFX Markets Trading, or another type of online or market exchange. Some have found that this made for a perfect plan B when needing a car fast.

Some of the other ways include using a co-signer, and if that is not enough, there are dealerships that offer sub prime lending on new cars. It is important to check out which brands offer this, as not all do.

Alternative Financing

Others have relied on the alternative financing options, especially if their credit is sub par, or there is not a lot of money to use for a down payment. These options include purchases from a dealer that holds that loan as the owner. This is a nice alternative because they are the ultimate decision makers on whether you will qualify.

Investigate all the options you have. This could be a great cost savings, especially is money is an issue. The upside is that the slow economy has forced companies to be more accepting of lower credit scores, so there are more options today than ever before for car financing.

 

Filed Under: Cars, Travel, Trucks Tagged With: , ,

How to Increase Your Car’s Fuel Efficiency

With gas prices so high and the likelihood of higher prices on the horizon, people are looking for ways to stretch their gas money and get as much out of a tank of gas as possible. While many of us probably can’t give up our petrol addiction all together, there are some things that can be done to make those tear-jerking trips to the gas station less frequent.

Watch your speed

A hefty fine shouldn’t be the only reason to observe the speed limit. As a car’s speed increases, so does the engine’s effort to maintain those speeds and fight against friction, drag, and other forces. The engine has to work harder at higher speeds and this uses more gas. Mileage decreases at higher speeds.

Remove excess weight

The more a car weighs the harder the engine has to work to move it. Avoid storing a bunch of stuff in the trunk or back or wherever. This affects smaller cars even more. An extra 100 pounds of stuff in the car can reduce mileage by around two percent. That’ll add up.

Avoid unnecessary idling

A car sitting still with the engine running gets zero miles per gallon. Idling burns gas and excessive idling burns a lot of it. Turn the engine off if the car is going to be immobile for a while. Maybe even at long stoplights if possible or road construction or stop-and-go traffic. If trying to save gas, excessive idling is just a waste.

Keep up on maintenance

A well-tuned car is a more fuel efficient car. Air and oil filters are important and should be changed regularly. Tires should be at proper inflation. Underinflated tires can increase drag and cause the engine to work harder.

Drive calmly

Aggressive driving, sudden stops and accelerations, uses more gas.

Any of these can improve fuel efficiency, but, ideally, they should all be done to boost efficiency as much as possible.

Filed Under: Advancements, Modes of Transportation Tagged With: , ,

The Top Alternatives to Gasoline

Gasoline gets a bad rap, and partly for good reason. It’s fairly reliable and still abundant and not likely to run out in the near future, but it pollutes, drilling for it can be messy, and it seems to get more and more expensive with each passing year or political hiccup in oil-producing nations. We need viable alternatives to gasoline. Here are a few.

  • Alcohol fuels. Ethanol, methanol, and biobutanol are all alcohol fuels. They are produced by fermenting grain, corn, straw, corn stalks or some other biomass into a combustible liquid that can be used in appropriate engines. They all burn cleaner than gas.
  • Electricity. Instead of getting power from an internal combustion, electric engines store power in battery. This power can come from coal burning plants (which, ideally, isn’t the cleanest option) or renewable sources like wind or solar power. Also: zero emissions.
  • Hydrogen. A pure hydrogen engine is an electric engine that gets it power from a chemical reaction called electrolysis. This power is stored in a special fuel cell. Such an engine has just one emission: water.
  • Biodiesel. Biodiesel engines can run on vegetable, animal, or even nut oils. Its energy output is comparable to gasoline and it burns cleaner with less emissions.
  • Biogas. Biogas is the gas given off by the breakdown of biological matter in a typically anaerobic (oxygenless) environment. Compressed biogas can take the place of compressed natural gas in natural gas engines.
  • Misc. Modified engines can run on liquid nitrogen, compressed air, and even ammonia. These engines are emission-less and fueled by renewable substances.

None of these alternatives can currently fill the role of gasoline. The technology doesn’t exist or it’s still in a very expensive or inefficient early stage of development or can’t feasibly be used on a large scale. With time and effort, we can wean ourselves off petroleum and onto something cleaner, cheaper, and renewable.

Filed Under: Advancements, Modes of Transportation Tagged With: , ,

The Failure of Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers – or CARS, the Car Allowance Rebate System – was, on its face, a good idea. It was meant to revitalize the auto industry, get people into newer, safer, and more fuel efficient vehicles, and get many of those exhaust belching clunkers off the road. Naturally, the program was hailed as a success by DC despite being a failure and an administrative and financial fiasco.

The program was expensive, costing three billion dollars. In the midst of an economic downturn, the government didn’t just have that kind of money on hand. They had to borrow it, increasing the nation’s debt. Individuals taking part in the program were likely giving up a paid-for car and getting a car that will take years to pay off. So, not only did CARS increase the national debt, but also the individual debt of many participants.

The program failed to stimulate the auto industry. Instead of increasing car sales, it simply concentrated sales that would have taken place later to the short time that the program lasted. This created a void in auto sales later in the year. Also, many Americans used the rebate to purchase Japanese and Korean cars, further decreasing any potential gain for American auto makers.

CARS took in over 100,000 used cars and scrapped them. This decreased the used car inventory in the country. Simple economics: decreased supply equals higher prices. People shopping for a used car post-CARS are forced to pay more for a vehicle that would have cost less pre-CARS.

Many auto dealers received no government reimbursement or were wildly under-reimbursed for the rebates they had to front to program participants. And in some cases, dealers simply gave up on seeking reimbursement due to the complex and difficult nature of the reimbursement process.

CARS just created more debt and didn’t stimulate the auto industry. It was an expensive waste of taxpayer money and an utter failure.

Filed Under: Modes of Transportation Tagged With: , ,

The Conscientious Person’s Guide to Selling a Used Car

The car that you’ve been driving for years may seem like junk to you, but it might be someone else’s perfect solution for a small budget and urgent transportation needs. If you are a conscientious person, you will very likely be concerned with how you go about selling your car. You don’t want to sell someone a vehicle that might get them into an accident or cause expenses for which they’re unprepared. Several strategies will help you to create a win-win outcome.

Sharing All of Your Knowledge About the Car

First, share everything you know about the car with the potential buyer. If you were the first owner of the car and have kept all of the maintenance paperwork and receipts, show them to the prospective buyer. If the buyer has done his homework, he probably has a car report that tells him about any prior accidents or if the car has been driven in a flood zone. In the event of a prior accident, do share all of the details you can think of so that the buyer can make a decision that feels right for him. Additionally, any strange sounds or characteristics of the car should be explained. This will help the new owner to determine which issues should be addressed by a mechanic and which problems are a result of ordinary wear and tear.

Encourage the Potential Buyer to Do His Homework

Your main responsibility is to share as much as you know about the car and its history. Beyond that, you cannot predict what will happen when the buyer drives off with the car. To assist the buyer in his decision-making, you can encourage him to take the car to a mechanic he trusts for a full evaluation. Once the buyer makes up his mind to purchase the car from you, be sure to write out a bill of sale that indicates the terms of the sale. In it, you’ll want to include that the car is being sold “as-is” to avail you of any responsibilities should an unexpected break-down occur immediately after purchase.

Filed Under: Cars, Modes of Transportation Tagged With: , ,

Purchasing a Used Car for a Long Distance Trip

Many reasons exist for purchasing a used car before a long distance trip. A high school graduate who is just starting college hundreds of miles away may want to buy a used car to drive to college. In other cases, a car may break down right before a planned vacation and needs to be replaced.  Whatever the case may be, here are some factors to consider carefully when purchasing a used car before a long distance trip.

The Risks of Traveling with a Newly Purchased Used Car

When you drive a newly purchased used car for your long distance trip, you endure greater risks. Anytime you are not familiar with a car, you will encounter questions and potential problems. An owner who has heard a recurring noise on his car, checked it out and knows that no real risk is present can drive the car with some measure of security. When you buy a used car and do not have this history, every new sound or odd occurrence can be a cause for alarm.

Additionally, unless you know and trust the previous owner of the used car, it’s difficult to have confidence that you’ve been informed of everything there is to know about the car. Car reports do exist indicating whether the car has been in an accident. In some cases, however, accidents go unreported and you might end up with a sour deal.

Ways to Protect Yourself With a Used Car Purchase

To protect yourself with a used car purchase, do order a car report to examine if any accidents have been reported and avoid buying a car with prior accidents. Next, take the used car to a trusted mechanic for a full evaluation before purchase. If you get a good report from the mechanic, you can have greater confidence in your purchase. As an extra safety measure, be sure to drive the car locally for as long as possible, to see if any issues come up, before taking off on your long distance trip.

Filed Under: Cars, Modes of Transportation, Travel Tagged With: , ,

Should You Buy a New or Used Car?

Most people, when given the choice, would choose a brand new car over a used one. The only exception might be a car collector who has endless funds to surround himself with his favorite car models. If you can’t decide between purchasing a new car and a used one, here are a few factors to consider.

Buying a New Car

Maybe your existing car is breaking down repeatedly and it’s time to replace it. Everyone knows that when you buy a brand new car, its value drops immediately upon driving off the dealer’s lot. If you have the money for a new car or good enough credit to buy one, this may be one consideration that prevents you from running out and making a new purchase.  The obvious advantage of a new car purchase is reliability. You can also purchase a warranty that relieves you of financial obligations and provides for maintenance and repairs. Because of the reliability, many people opt for a new car purchase.

When Does Buying a Used Car Make Sense?

If you’re low on cash or consider the purchase of a brand new car a waste of money, there may be scenarios where a used car makes good sense. For one, if you can find a reliable used car that will endure many more years of driving without breaking down, you might have a perfect situation on your hands. Do your research for the best car brands and models. Read consumer reviews. Some cars really do last longer than others, so doing your research will make a big difference.

Additionally, it may be that you have a short daily commute. In this case, a reliable used car might do the job. A person with a heavy daily commute would run a used car into the ground. In your case, it may be years before you need repairs.

Filed Under: Cars, Modes of Transportation Tagged With: , ,

Examining Alternative Options for Your Daily Commute

Driving to work day in and day out can sometimes become boring and frustrating. If you’re looking to live a less sedentary lifestyle or to change your commuting routine, here are a few options.

Take Public Transportation

In many cities and localities, public transportation is a viable alternative to driving to work. Some public transit systems may actually save you money. In addition, by taking public transportation, you are helping the environment. Anytime you decrease the number of cars on the road, you prevent unnecessary pollution and fuel consumption. Riding the bus or train can often create a more relaxing commute than struggling through heavy traffic. You can sit back and read a book or just rest your eyes.

Ride a Bicycle

Riding a bicycle to work is an option if the weather permits and your work is within a reasonable distance from your home. If you can get into a regular habit of biking to work, even just one day a week, you’ll diversify your commuting routine and get great exercise in the process.

Walk to Work

Walking to your job is also an option if you live within a few miles. A nice long walk in the mornings and evenings can help to clear your mind and provide much-needed relaxation.

Organize a Carpool

If your office is too far away from your home, consider organizing a carpool. Ask your co-workers who live near you if they want to take turns driving to work. The more people you get involved, the less driving each person has to do. Carpooling is effective for saving gas and is good for the environment.

Telecommute to Work

Another alternative to a daily commute is to telecommute. Even if you work from home only one or two days a week, you’ll get the benefit of less daily driving and more time to devote to your work and family.

Filed Under: Modes of Transportation Tagged With: , ,
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