When parents reach a certain age, their adult children often decide they’re too old to drive a car—and the battle over the car keys begins. I’m that age but my sons have never suggested that I should stop driving. Nope, I decided it for myself.
My decision was based on a number of factors. My beloved Beetle was 25 years old. It’s in great shape because I’ve taken good care of it and never had an accident. It’s a stick shift with only 68,000 miles. But…it’s 25 years old. There also are practical reasons why it’s inconvenient for me to keep on driving. I don’t like driving at night or on highways any more. And after you reach 87, you have to take a road test every year to renew your driver's license. The folks at the Dept of Motor Vehicles offices are kind and helpful to seniors, but it’s still a pain to have to drive out there to do it.
Other factors make it feasible for me to give up my car too. I live in a great city neighborhood where there’s public transit, taxis and ride-shares and it’s easy to get around.
First, I did some research on Edmunds, Kelly Blue Book and CarMax to see what my car might be worth in a private sale. I put in my VIN (vehicle information number) so the websites could check the car’s history. The suggested prices seemed high for a 25-year-old car. And the manual transmission is a positive if you learned to drive that way, but it can be a negative too.
So I took a glamour shot of the Beetle parked under the El tracks and made a sales flyer to put on the bulletin boards in my apartment building. Then I called the dealer where I bought the car so many years ago and asked if they would consider buying it back if I wasn’t buying a new car. They said yes, they'd look at it.
A few days later I drove the car in to the dealer to discuss a possible sale. By this time, my flyer had been up for a week on two bulletin boards with no interest from possible buyers. One person wanted to rent my parking space.
The people I met with at the dealer said that damage to the finish on the front bumpers decreased the price they could offer me. One of the sales managers came to talk with me—I think to make me feel better because I was disappointed in their price offer. We had a nice chat, about topics other than cars. He mentioned that his teenage daughter wanted to buy a car. She’d been working for a year or more in a restaurant to save money and had already paid for a parking permit at her high school.
When I got home, I started trying to figure out how I could “market” this car. A couple of friends were interested in selling it for me and I reached out to them, but they had no interest yet. I have time, I thought. I just need to sell it before my driver’s license and the license plates expire in October.
Later that day, I received a phone call from William, the manager that I had been talking with at the car dealer. He said, “Nancy, my daughter Rosalind is here. Would you mind talking to her?” I said, “I’d be happy to talk with her.”
So Rosalind got on the phone with her dad and me and said, “I hear you have a Beetle for sale. How much would it be?” And I said, “I do have a Beetle and I hate to sell it, but it‘s time for me to get rid of my car. Why don’t you make me an offer?”
So Rosalind made an acceptable offer and I said yes. The next day, William and Rosalind came over and we drove around in the Beetle for a while. Then we parked the car and William removed the license plates. We went inside to finalize the deal. I signed the title over. Rosalind handed me a roll of cash. And that was it.
This story of selling a 25-year-old car could have been long and dragged out. But it turns out to be a great story—because of Rosalind and her grit and determination to achieve her goal. That’s why I’m telling it here. I understand she already has had her first lesson in driving a stick shift. I have no doubt she’ll do well.
