Need help selling my car..2001 540/6

[oufyaba]

Hi All, last June,

As a former E34 owner, I need some advice. I bought my current car, 01 540i/6 last June, and now I need to sell it soon becuase I just accepted a job overseas and will be moving soon.

When I bought it last June, the market was competative and I had to look for a while for the right 540i/6. Back then, many went for KBB or above, and many went fast.

But now when you search for 01+ 540i/6s, there seems to be more of them, and the price is below KBB and sometimes much below.

The car is a joy to drive and I alwaus dreamed of having one, and now regret to sell, but I have to. It's also unfortunate becuase now it's not the best time to sell these kind of cars.

I have the car posted on cars.com and autotrader online.

I bought the car for $33.5/k with 42k miles, and now it has 55k miles, and is in mint condition. The only repair I did to the car is I painted the front and rear bumbers due to scratches and dings, beucase I wanted to sell it. Otherwise no acidents and I am the 3rd owner, and its originally a Florida car.

KBB for the car is listed betweek 32-27k..my intention was to list it for 32k, but the market is a wide range for the same car...so for now I have it listed for $29,750. Originally I listed it for $30,750, but I had no inquiries. Now I have it for $30,750.00, and still no interest, although I just had it listed for 2 days. I need to sell it by the end of the year, and one of the options I was looking at is carmax or a local BMW dealer, but only as a last option, but seems like I might do that. But at the same time, I really fear what price they will quote me.....I fear 26-28k or below for a trade-in excellant or very good condition car.

So for the long details and perhaps someone can shed some light on how best to sell this car. Worst case scenario, I can give my brother power of attorney to sell it for me while I am gone, and once the weather improves, but I still rather sell it before i leave. Any suggestion on how I can best sell it, either for private sale, dealer, carmax, auction, etc.

Here are the details:

6-speed manual. Sports package. Xneon lights. Angel/LED lights. Fold down rear seats. Sports bucket seats. Steel blue exterior. Gray interior. In-Dash CD.
Condition Description: Originally a florida car. I am the 3rd owner. I had the car since June 04 (42k), and now regret selling, but I am re-locating overseas for work and must sell soon. I have the previous owner's e-mail and info. Car is a joy to drive, and I am a BMW enthuaist and mainly work on my own BMWs. Extra clean. Non-smoker. Unique color combo that catches many eyes. Since I had it, I performed the following: 2 Mobil1 oil changes, air, cabin filters. Changed Manual gear and differential oil with Redline synthetic oil. KBB value 32-37k. Asking 29,750.00 OBO. MUST SELL! Located in Northern Virginia.
Additional phots at: http://photos.yahoo.com/oufyaba9

[DueyT]

Oufyaba, that is one clean car! I have always liked steel blue, second only to Black or DiamondBlack. I would not mind at all buying your car in 4-5 years...unfortunately for you, I'm not quite ready to say goodbye to The Beast for a E39...


The pisser is, a friend of mine (we're both about 2hr north of Syracuse, NY) bought an '01 530i/5 about 3 months ago...he really wanted a 540i/6...taking Cdn to US conversion into account (~1=0.835), he paid about $30,500 US for his 530.

I hope you are lucky enough to find a buyer to give you a fair price...your car is in beautiful condition. I hope you don't have to "give it away"...

Cheers,
Duey