Why will no one buy my car?

Here at carsales we pride ourselves on delivering a great experience buying or selling a car.

Selling online is usually a fast and cost-effective means of moving on from your old car, and there's no shortage of advice available to speed up the process.

But despite the best efforts of the vehicle owner, some cars just don't get a nibble, and it may be for the following reasons...

This appears obvious, but it's amazing how many owners cannot see the forest for the trees.

You may love your car; it may be the best thing since sliced bread in your eyes. It's been garaged every night, low kilometres, properly maintained in accordance with the logbook and maybe you're only selling it because it's time for a change.

Unfortunately, your passion for your car may not be shared with others. If it's a car known for reliability issues or it's an unknown quantity as a brand, a price that's perceived to be too high will make it poisonous.

It may be a pristine example, but even buyers who are open-minded about your car can't be expected to know that it's worth the money if there are plenty of other examples listed at carsales offering a similar deal for a lower price.

What can you do?

Make sure the car is priced as realistically as possible from the moment it's first listed. This will require around 10 minutes of your time spent on market research. If you've used half an hour detailing the car and another half hour photographing it, 10 minutes isn't too much to ask.

Photographs are important. You want to convey to buyers that your car is as honest as the day is long and as appealing as a poodle in a tutu.

If you snap a pic of your car with your smartphone, in the driveway, with the car poorly positioned for anything other than a wide-angle shot – while the sun is setting – you'll end up with a photo of the headlight cluster and one corner of the front bumper cover in the photo, with the rest of the car out of focus and in shadow.

To some prospective buyers, if that's the only photo you've taken, the message is that the seller is a noob, or has something to hide.

Do submit your ad with more than one photo of the car. At least use two – a three-quarter front and three-quarter rear – but ideally snap a profile shot as well, plus full front and full rear. Don't neglect the interior and also grab a pic of the engine bay, boot and other details (badges, wheels, optional extras fitted, et cetera). Make sure these are all presentable first, of course.

If the car has sustained panel damage or faded paint, you'll win brownie points for photographing the damage so the prospective buyer knows more about the car. And that will ensure they have no bargaining chip there – buyers can't expect you to lower the price of the car if the extent of the damage is known in advance from the pictures posted with the advertisement.

Take the five minutes to drive to a local park for a pleasing backdrop in the picture. Don't park the car in front of the kids' playground, because all the brightly-coloured swings, roundabouts and monkey bars will distract buyers. Look for a pleasant but reasonably bland background. The car, rather than the background, should be the subject of the photo.

A smartphone can do the job, but use the same principles as you would with a conventional camera. Try to arrange for the car to be photographed when a cloud has passed across the face of the sun. This will reduce direct light, shadows and reflected glare on the car's bodywork. Position the car so that the sun is shining on it from behind you, rather than behind the car. Otherwise the car will appear completely in shadow.

Try to colour-coordinate and avoid a contrasting background. If the car is white, try to set it up against a white or light-painted wall for the right sort of exposure. A darker colour of car will stand out better against a darker background. More detail will show up in the pictures if the car is photographed against a background that broadly equates to the car's colour and tone.

Keep clear of trees and other overhanging objects that will reflect in the car's paintwork, making it look mottled, especially if the car is dark in colour. Make sure too that your own shadow doesn't appear in the picture, nor your reflection in headlight lenses or shiny paint. That can be distracting.

And finally, consider taking the ad to the next level by filming a brief video (about 30 seconds) with your smartphone. It could make all the difference and set your ad apart from thousands of others advertising the same type of vehicle.

Get it right in the specifications and in your 'spiel' (the description).

There are plenty of cases where a model is upgraded halfway through a calendar year, and if you mislead buyers to think that your car is the one that was fitted with stability control, but the pictures reveal it to be the pre-facelift model, that will work against you selling the car.

Buyers will be naturally suspicious of your motives, even if it's an honest mistake. If you don't know precisely which model or variant your car is, ask your friendly or familial automotive influencer (knowledgeable parent, friend, partner, neighbour or colleague) to help you construct the ad.

Writing a description about the car to go with the ad is a bit of an art form. If you accept that the car is perhaps not everyone's cup of tea, try a little humour, but be aware that inappropriate humour may not pay off.

By all means promote the car's features, its value, its style or its low running costs, but don't over-hype the description. Whatever works in the car's favour, but leave out the superlatives and over-inflated prose. As soon as you write of your Mitsubishi Mirage that it "handles and accelerates like an F1 driver's dream machine" people will immediately move to the next ad, unless your comment is clearly written with tongue in cheek. Even then, not everyone will get the joke...

Ideally, the comment should read like it has been written by someone still in love with the car and is 'regretful' to be selling it.

So you've had someone break into your high-end German prestige car and nick the owner's manual. That's a problem, but one you can overcome by buying a new manual through the dealer's parts department. If the car has been serviced through the selling dealer's network, it is possible to have the new manual updated with the servicing information for your car.

If you've had the car serviced by aftermarket providers, however, that service history is likely gone for good. There's no easy way to recover that information.

When it comes time to sell the car, it's best to be upfront about it and highlight in the ad that the car has been properly serviced in accordance with the logbook, but there are no records to that effect, since the logbook has been stolen.

If your car's service history is spotty for various reasons, it's better to admit that than lie about it. You might argue that the car is a 'country car' that has notched up plenty of open-road kilometres and has only needed servicing once a year, rather than twice a year as the service schedule demands.

People will understand that you may not want to drive 150km each way to the nearest servicing dealer more than once a year if you monitor tyre pressures and oil and water levels throughout the rest of the year.

Be prepared for some hard haggling on price however, if that's the case. At least you stand a better chance of attracting prospective buyers in the first place if you don't try to conceal the car's patchy service history.

You may feel that the yellow Nissan JUKE with the fluoro lime-green aftermarket alloys and body kit looked 'da bomb' in the new-car showroom, but now that you're trying to sell it on the used-car market that look is actually limiting the field of prospective buyers.

Your best option is to highlight the car's 'exclusive' style, or focus attention on everything the car has going for it other than its look.

Similarly, your car may be from a brand that has fallen out of favour over time and the car is consequently harder to sell in the used-car market than when you purchased it new.

Drawing a line under the car's potential as a future collectible (possibly for all the wrong reasons!) may be one way of attracting buyers. Otherwise, unfortunately, if the car you're selling is unappealing to buyers, you might just have to take a bath on the transaction price.

There's a story doing the rounds of an owner trying to sell his Mazda MX-5 and learning that serious buyers were vastly outnumbered by tyre-kickers – the sort of people who, with nothing better to do on a rainy day go looking at desirable cars of the type they might purchase "one day".

On the other hand, you also hear of MX-5 buyers who have fielded serious enquiries right from the start.

What's the difference? We don't know for sure, but if you're being bombarded by enquiries and the car still isn't selling, maybe you've priced it too low?

Picture this: spotty youth has sorted MX-5s in order of lowest to highest price and yours is right at the top of the list. Said youth contacts you to see your car... "because..."

A serious buyer is looking for your carefully maintained NA model, but is put off by the low asking price.

"What's wrong with it?" he or she ponders – without making any further enquiry.

Once again, the moral of this story is to do your research and determine what is a realistic price before you advertise your car. Price it slightly higher than the median price if you expect the buyer to haggle, but moderate that wriggle room for a car that's more desirable.

If you live in a small town that's at least an hour's drive from the big smoke, that will narrow the number of prospective buyers for your car. Buyers from all over Australia will often travel far and wide for the right sort of car, but many will draw the line at a two-hour flight followed by an hour-long drive in a rental car to inspect a high-mileage Camry.

If you know and trust someone who lives closer to town, ask them whether you can leave the car in their driveway for a week or two while it's advertised for sale. Make sure to state in the comment that the car can be inspected at a closer location.

It goes without saying that buyers will give up buying your car if you happen to be overseas for business or out of phone/internet range on a camping trip with the family. Timing can be crucial when it comes to selling a car. Unless it's urgent you sell the car as soon as possible, hold off listing the car until you have at least a couple of weeks free from other commitments that may conflict with the selling process.

As a final (anecdotal) note, work with the first serious enquiry offered. You may not get a better chance to sell your car. Haggle with the prospective buyer if they start the negotiating process. Don't turn away the first buyer to make you an offer in the expectation that another buyer will necessarily enter the picture in a week's time and take the car off your hands at the advertised price.

Remember that saying about a bird in the hand? Well sometimes the two in the bush are wood ducks – and tracking them down isn't easy.