Hi Karen,

I’m glad you like the site and hope you can put some of the information to good use.

I would recommend against trading the car in, because car dealers make a large profit from their used car sales. The way it works is this: they buy them at low prices at trade-in, then clean them up for a handsome profit when they sell them as used cars.

I would recommend staying away from new cars (see the “New vs. Used” section in the right-hand column), selling your car privately, and purchasing your next car from a private seller as well.

I am planning to post on how best to create an attractive classified ad tomorrow, so stay tuned for that.