Selling a Car to Family

^^Ooh, bonus points for accidental alliteration - awesome!

oldtin wrote: My experience is bad juju with swapping cars in the family.

I did it once, my brother bought an 88 Scirocco and we traded titles for my 97 Jetta. It went really smoothly and I got more "what's up with this" than "what are you gonna do about this" questions.

Even with that I realize my experince is like having a 6 way with a group of lesbians. Just because I pulled it off once doesn't mean I can pull it off again, and anyone else has an even lesser chance by at least a factor of 10.

neckromacr wrote: and anyone else has an even lesser chance by at least a factor of 10.

Is this referring to the cars or the lesbians?

The one time a vehicle I had owned went to a family member, it went as a gift. My brother knew I'd probably punch him in the face if he complained about something he got for free.

I've done it a few times. No problems. I bought a 95 Jetta off my sister at a point when money was super tight and I needed a car. A couple of years later, it had been sitting in front of my apartment, and mostly represented a potential uncomfortable talk with my landlord, when I heard my sister was again looking for something easy on gas. I rented a U-Haul, hitched it to the Jeep, pulled it across the state, and gave her the title. When she told me a month or two later she'd like to sell it instead of putting it to use, I told her no problem, and said it'd be nice to get the U-Haul money back. She was fine, and everyone was happy.

Sold a Samurai to my cousin. Told him up front that it was an old truck with lots of miles, and I was making a family deal. I told him about everything wrong with it. I made it clear that, if it broke that day, he owned both halves. Six months later, the ECM died, and he didn't complain at all. I only found out because I saw it parked in front of the shop.

My mother sold a car to my grandmother, and that went well. My father bought a car off my uncle.

It seems to just work in my family.

Good luck.

I sold a car to my cousin. When the dash caught fire several months later, somehow it was my fault, yet he had just put in a stereo the day before it burned.

Salanis wrote: Now, why she doesn't want to sell it directly to a buyer, but *only* wants to sell to me and then have me sell to someone else, I do not understand. She also feels more comfortable selling it to my sister than to another private party, so that is what will probably end up happening.

Is any of this going to be a problem when it meets the same fate as the car its replacing in a couple of months? Its still sounding like a bad idea to me. lol

News is the sister is all emotional about the potential of buying the car. Either she's crazy (most likely) or she got bothered when I told her, "If you're really stressed out about a test drive after I have vouched for the car and then drive it 500 miles to deliver it, maybe you're better off flying up here to pick it up. And I'll take it to a shop for a pre-purchase inspection if you cover the costs."

Either way, looks like it's probably off, but I'll know better for sure by Wednesday. In the meantime, I have two parents competing to buy it for their Teen/College-aged daugher(s).

Travis: My sister's car was killed by her moron ex-con boyfriend who was apparently tail-gaiting a semi with his thumb up is spincter. My sister will find an entirely new and interesting fate to destroy this car.

And I've decided that a 60k mile, single family, Camry/Accord for <$4k is a rare find, and tough cookies to her if she doesn't realize that.

At this point, the only person whose say I genuinely care about is my girlfriend's.

Well, I appreciate that you care about my say. My reason for being comfortable selling directly to you is this: I know that you know the car, including all of it's quirks. I know that you would be making an informed purchase and would NOT be coming back later to bug me when the car has problems (which of course will probably happen as soon as it's sold...Murphy's Law or something). I do NOT feel comfortable selling directly to someone who DOESN'T know the car, because that person is going to get very upset when the weather is cold and the key starts getting stuck in the ignition....you and I get a laugh about it...your sister (or whoever)will NOT be pleased and she'll be calling you about it, and then I get to hear about it. The purchaser will also NOT be happy about the grinding sound that the power locks are making these days, or about the fact that the key no longer locks ALL doors. Then you get bitched at and I get to hear about it, or I sell the car to someone else directly and I get to hear about it. If it weren't for my desire to help you out, I'd be selling to CARMAX.....I really didn't want to sell to a private party (other than you) to begin with.

Did I miss some thing in the above post?