Sell or Trade Your Car Westerville OH

What’s the Difference Between Selling and Trading Your Vehicle?

Selling and trading in your vehicle to a dealership have similar processes, but a few key differences.

When you sell your vehicle to a dealership, that’s all you’re doing. Selling a car to a dealership is pretty easy, too; you won’t have to worry about advertising your vehicle or meeting up with strangers. Selling your vehicle means you meet with our team, they’ll make an offer, you can accept it, and you can walk away with some cash or a check in your pocket.

Trading in your vehicle means the money you would make on your car goes toward the down payment on your lease or the purchase of another car at the dealership, rather than taking the money home with you. Trading a vehicle also means you might have lower sales tax.  

How to Trade in/Sell Your Vehicle

Before you trade in or sell your vehicle, find out how much it’s worth via our trade appraisal tool.

Trading in your vehicle has a few extra steps. When you come to the dealership, you might also be test driving some cars and deciding on your next ride. You’ll likely be doing the trade-in paperwork with the other financial paperwork you’ll have to do for your new purchase or lease.

Selling and trading in a vehicle can begin the same way. After you arrive at our dealership, our team will take a look at your car and determine how much it’s worth. Someone from our team might test drive it to see how well it performs. Then, you’ll receive an offer, which you can accept. From there, if you’re selling, you’ll go do some paperwork. If you’re trading in, you might have some test drives to do yourself.

Tips for Boosting Your Car’s Value

There are a few things you can do to boost your car’s selling or trade-in value. Many of these tips are part of making sure your vehicle is in better condition because cars in better condition are generally worth more. To boost your car’s value:

• Clean the inside and outside of your vehicle
• Complete any recalls
• Repair minor dents and burned-out lights

The time of year you sell or trade in a car has an impact on its value too. If you trade in during the first quarter of the year, you may make more money. That’s because many dealerships sell a lot of their inventory during the holidays and need to increase their inventory again in the new year.