Sold my old car

Before I bought my current car in 2006, I drove an Iswara Aeroback 1.3. I gave the car to my younger brother who hardly used the car, as he prefers to take the LRT to commute to work. My elder sister just bought a new car and since her old car is relatively newer than my Iswara, we decided to sell off my Iswara and give my brother her car instead.

I initially planned to sell the 15-year old car to a second hand car dealer, who offered me RM3k for that old junk. I was actually quite ready to sell it off to him but then it occurred to me to check the market value of my car. I realized that most second hand car dealers are selling the same car for 6.5 – 7k, so his offer of 3k was pretty low.

I decided to try my luck in selling the car myself though I knew there's the hassle of having to bring the car for an inspection at Puspakom, and having to go to JPJ for transfer of ownership. I went online and posted an advertisement in two websites which offer free advertisements for car sellers. My brother used to stay in an apartment without a covered car park, and since the car was exposed to the elements, the body of the car is in quite a bad shape. There are also several minor defects like the malfunctioning of one of the power window, and the spoilt odometer. Factoring in the repair costs that any potential buyer needs to fork out, I placed a price of RM4.8k for the car.

Within two days of the advertisement being posted, I received about 20 enquiries, which surprised me as I hadn’t expected such a good response. Few of them made arrangements to view the car but I was really lucky that the first person who did so called back two hours later and confirmed the deal. He asked for a discount, and since he was genuinely interested and seemed like a nice guy, I obliged. I hadn't even met other potential buyers as their appointments were all slightly later.

The next day, I was at Puspakom Glenmarie at 11.15am, and joined the queue of cars waiting for inspection. I was extremely lucky that my car was the last car they allowed into the inspection compound. That was about 12.30pm then, otherwise, I would have to wait till after lunch at 2pm. The inspection itself was pretty fast, and I got my report just before 1pm.

I called the buyer and asked him to go ahead and purchase his insurance, as the cover note is needed for the transfer process. He asked me to meet up at JPJ Sultan the next day at 1.30pm. I suggested that he should get his insurance ready before we go to JPJ and he promised he'll do it in the morning prior to going to JPJ so I reluctantly agreed. When I reached JPJ at 1.30pm the next day, he was nowhere to be seen. Few of my calls went unanswered and when he finally answered, he said he was on his way. He was still nowhere to be seen at 2.45pm when our number was called and I had to change with someone for a later number in the hope that he would arrive by the time the later number was called. I was getting really irritated at this point as our appointment with the dentist was at 3.30pm. I called him again and he said he would be there in 20 minutes. He finally called me again at 3.00pm and revealed that he was at Kurnia Insurans, and they needed to see the original car registration card and the Puspakom letter, which were with me. My blood was boiling at this point, as I knew this trip to JPJ was futile. If he had gone to purchase the insurance earlier, we would have been able to sort all these out before going to JPJ. He asked if I could go to Kurnia Insurans office then but I told him we'd need to arrange for another day as I had another appointment.

He smsed me at night and said that he would be away for the next few days but he'd ask his wife and brother to meet me and settle all the procedures. We agreed to meet near my house at 10.30am the next day to go to the insurance office, followed by JPJ. The next morning, 10.30am came and gone and there were still no signs of them! Luckily I had asked them to call me when they were near, otherwise I would have wasted time waiting again. At least this time, the waiting was within the comfort of my home. To cut a long story short, we only got to the insurance office at 12.30pm. After settling the insurance, we proceeded to JPJ again. When I went to take the queue number, a kind security guard told the man manning the counter to give me a special number since I had a baby with me (I was carrying Yan Yan in my sling). God bless the kind security guard! Since we didn't have to wait and was served immediately at one of the counters, we were done within 10 minutes. I passed over my car keys and got my cash! DONE!

Despite the senseless waiting the buyer put me through, I'm still glad I decided to try selling the car myself, as I ended up selling it at 50% above the value I had initially intended to settle for. Also, the whole process of getting the car inspected at Puspakom and transfer of ownership at JPJ was not as painful as I thought it would be. And oh, at last count, just before I took down my ad after completing the transfer of ownership, I'd had more than 40 enquiries.