Craigslist and Cars

Craigslist, if used in the right ways, can feel as good as if you just won the lottery. That might be an exaggeration, but in some cases you have the potential to save thousands of dollars and end up with a fun project.

You can always go to Craigslist.com on any computer to search for local deals in your specified area. A Smartphone is great to finding the extreme deals. With multiple apps available for all phone operating systems, you will be able to check for deals wherever and whenever. Some apps have the function to search across multiple cities, which is great for hard to find items.

The early bird gets the best worms. One of my personal best scores has come from finding an item (or a car in this example) within the first 15 minutes of it posting. This does not mean you have to live on Craigslist or be obsessed with checking. Take a minute or two a couple times a day to check on what you are looking for, and you might get lucky. If you check more than 5 times a day and have an app that displays what time of day the post was made, you sometimes are able to get a general idea of when people make their postings. For vehicles and car parts, my personal experiences have shown that between the 9am-5pm generic work hours is when you see a great volume of good listings. Don't get me wrong, I have found great deals being listed outside of those times as well.

Haggling is also necessary to find good deals, but be careful on how you go about doing this. People are not going to give away their stuff for pennies on the dollar. Also remember that these sellers are real people as well. People skills can make the difference between getting a good deal and a great deal. Pay close attention to similar listings around the area, and use Kelley Blue Book prices as a point of reference when looking at cars for sale. Some items can be well below regular value, due to the car or part needing some work done to make it better. Go in with a realistic approach on how skillful you are and/or how much money you have to put towards the item at hand. I had never painted a car before, but knew how much money I was willing to put towards getting it done or learning the skill myself for one of my Craigslist finds.

You could make a decent living working within the automotive field, just by learning the Craigslist trade.



Have any other tips? Look out for more Craigslist automotive discussion in the future from Club Dirty Auto