Advance Auto Zone

Deadly Sin 1 — Not doing research

This is the actual source of much of the difficulty with selling your own car.
Research is the reason the car dealer has the advantage. He knows his business. The
private seller usually has little to do with car prices until they want to sell their car.
The main benefit of research is that you will know a realistic price that you can
charge for your vehicle. This means that you will most likely sell it more quickly and
easily. A dealer sets his price by charging whatever the market will bear. Proper
research will allow you to quickly estimate the market for your vehicle in a private
sale.

Deadly Sin 2 — Listening to unfounded advice

This follows on a little bit from No. 1. There’s often financial pressure at the time of
selling a car - which leads others around the seller to give their opinions as to the
price or the desperation to sell. It is often given with the best intentions. If someone
is giving you advice as to the value of your car you shouldn’t necessarily ignore it
but it is best to do your own assessment. If you do your own quality research you
will find that you are less likely to be concerned about doomsayers.

Deadly Sin 3 — Not preparing your car for sale

It is amazing, but some people will try to sell a car with a full ashtray of cigarette
butts. At the very minimum you should vacuum the car and give it a wash. If you
really want to maximise your price putting some time into the presentation of the
vehicle is essential. The best way to approach this is to imagine you are the buyer.
See yourself viewing the car for the first time. What impression does it give you?
Now make a list of things that you can inexpensively fix or handle and attend to
them. Properly detailing your car is highly recommended.

Deadly Sin 4 — Trying to hide known faults from a buyer

Well it’s fairly clear that this is dishonest and should not be done. Some states
actually have laws which hold you liable if it is found that you sold a car with known
faults. A used car may have some faults. The best way to handle this situation is to
know exactly what the fault is and how much it will cost to fix it. You can then
reflect that in the price you ask for the vehicle. The principle is to repair only what
will be paid back in the sale price.

Deadly Sin 5 — Selling to a professional buyer

There are people that make their living buying cars at bargain prices. For this reason
you should learn to recognize them. They will make you a very low offer. The best
way to protect yourself is to do the research step thoroughly and be prepared to say
no. They are basically trading off the fact that most people don’t really know the
market and are sometimes just desperate to sell.

Deadly Sin 6 — Not doing your paperwork

You absolutely must complete all the DMV or vehicle authority paperwork to fully
transfer the title. Otherwise you may receive parking tickets or other nasties from
the other party.

Deadly Sin 7 — Letting yourself be bullied by tyre-kickers

Many buyers will make a list of all the things they have found wrong with the car
and then tell you the price that all this costs to repair. Don’t assume that their
figures are correct because they appear to be an expert. It is often the case that if
they are truly an expert they know how to get the repair done themselves for a
much cheaper price. You will find that two of these experts have two totally different
ideas about the price. As you can see, it gets back to research again — if you have
priced your car correctly — you won’t be overly disturbed by tyre-kickers.

Graeme Sprigge is the webmaster of SellMyCarForCash.Com, a website dedicated to enlightening you on how to get the most for your car in a private sale. The site is is constantly expanding and includes more great articles, some of which are available for reprinting in your ezine. There is a lack of unbiased information on the net in this are so this site aims to fill the gap.

For more cool articles, cool car selling tips, car finance tips visit sellmycarforcash.com sellmycarforcash.com

Copyright 2005 Graeme Sprigge. Please feel free to pass this
article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or
newsletter. It’s a shareware article.

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Most people do not realize how important their headlights are and actually take them for granted. Headlights are what allows you to see at night and, according to the National Institute for Highway Safety, are the number one reason for night time accidents. Dim, cloudy, ineffective and improperly aimed headlight lenses in need of varying degrees of repair are the culprit. An average of 9 out of every 10 cars on the road today has dirty or yellowed headlights that greatly reduce vision and need to be replaced, repaired or professionally cleaned, AAA Foundation for traffic safety.

Not only does this make it difficult for you to see, but it also makes it difficult for other drivers to see you. This greatly multiplies the risks of an accident and is just not safe. Cars or trucks with bad headlights in need of repair are simply down right dangerous. These same headlights can easily be fixed with a little headlight repair. This same headlight repair can also help avoid numerous accs and make for greater driving safety.

How does one go about headlight repair for their car? First off and the easiest of the repairs is to restore cloudy headlights. 90% of cars have some degree of cloudiness and damage to the lenses which will diminish light output. This can easily be fixed with a headlight repair kit. The headlight repair kit has been proven so effective that it is backed by numerous government agencies and it even earned a federal patent. It is a very economical alternative to replacing the headlights which can cost as much as $300 each. “Clean the headlights or have them professionally restored and repaired (our department uses headlight repair on all our police cruisers and department vehicles. Dirty headlights will decrease visibility by as much as 90%,” New York Police Traffic Division’s Traffic Safety Team. Headlight repair works to restore your cloudy headlights to new again and will increase your safety at the same time.

A second important item is to have your headlights properly aimed. Headlights that are improperly aimed can throw off depth perception, make it harder to see, and increase night time glare. Glare from oncoming cars is also a big factor in night time crashes. Even if your lenses are only slightly off the mark it can still greatly reduce your ability to see and greatly increase night time glare. A quick inspection can reveal whether your lenses are correctly aimed or not. For a small fee they can quickly calibrate and correct your lenses. Proper aiming and calibration of your headlights is an essential part of headlight repair.

Brighter bulbs should be made standard on all cars and an essential part of headlight repair. After removing the cloudiness and correctly aiming your lenses, you should look into some of the brighter replacement bulbs that have greater illumination fields and have higher light output. With recent advances, xeon bulbs and similar are not very expensive and can greatly increase your field of vision and your safety at night. They normally start at around $5-$10 a piece and will increase your light brightness by as much as 35% or more. Brighter bulbs add a nice finishing touch to a proper headlight repair. It not only looks better but will be that much safer.

There you have it, headlight repair made simple. If enough people realize how important this is maybe they would follow these steps to fix and repair improperly lit, broken and cloudy headlights and they would no longer be the number one cause of night time accidents. And hopefully many unnecessary car accidents and fatalities would be avoided.

For more great information, tips, safety and money saving products please visit:

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