How I Got Rid of my 96 Neon

Now that I had my 05 Elantra, the next step was to get rid of my Neon. It had about 120,000 miles on it, well, that's what the odometer said, but since it only worked about 1/2 the time, there were probably several thousand more miles on it. A friend from out of town said he would ask some people from work if they were interested in it. He said I shouldn't expect to get much, $500 if I was lucky.

I wanted to kinda speed things up, not only to have some extra money in my pocket, but also so the car wasn't sitting out in the driveway indefinitely (Neons hate spending their evenings sitting on driveways!). I thought of putting an ad in the paper, but that could be quite costly. Ah-ha! I found my car through findcars.com. Why not try to sell mine the same way?

So I went on their website. It cost $25 to place an ad, but it would stay on their website until the car sold. I entered the relevant data and priced the puppy to sell ($750 or best offer). I knew that people were more inclined to respond to the ad if I posted a pic of it. However, I didn't have one and sure as hell didn't want to mess with taking a pic, having some photo place put it on a disc, download it to the website, etc. I was able to find a pic of a Neon on the internet that looked quite a bit like mine:

The pic was so small that if someone came out to actually see the vehicle, they wouldn't know the difference.

I went to bed, content that I would get a buyer in the near future. The next morning, I went to work and got an email from a guy who said he was interested in the car. His email name was lucky freiheit08 (wonder why they call him Lucky?). Here is what he had to say:

"What is the lowest you would go on the price how are the tires and the transmission can you send more pictures"

I told him I didn't have any other pics, but described the vehicle and the issues it had in great detail. I wasn't prepared for the commotion that occurred that evening. I had 3 or 4 voice mails from people who were interested in the car (I had quite underestimated the demand a "beater" might have). This young dude from out of town said he would come take a look at it that evening. Another guy, interested in purchasing a first car for his teenage daughter, said he would also stop by. This other lady said she might as well.

The father came by first and took the car for a test drive with his daughter. He offered me $500. I declined, saying that another guy was stopping by later to take a look. He then asked what it would take for him to take the car off my hands. I said I'd let my sweet Neon go for $675. He then gave the car keys (which he still had in his hands from the test drive) to his daughter and a big smile broke across her face. He asked about writing a check out, but I said I preferred a cashier's check. So they headed to their bank.

Now I just had to tell that young dude that the vehicle was no longer available. I called him on his cell and told him what happened. He said he was just coming into town with $650 cash. I said I was sincerely sorry and to make up for it, I would give him $25 cash and a couple movie passes. He said that would help ease his pain.

Next, the father came back and instead of a cashiers' check, gave me $675 cash. I transferred the title to him and all was well. About a half hour later, the young fella stopped by in his mom's white Impala and took the gifts I had for him. He asked that I call him if I heard of any people who were selling a car for under a grand. Four months later, I pray he found a beater he could be happy with.