The old one is still in the driveway
and it’s costing you every month

This is the most common version of a car sitting still: you bought something new, kept the old one because the trade offer was poor or you hadn't decided, and six months later it's still there. Nobody plans this. It happens because there's never a deadline on it, and a depreciating asset with no deadline on it is an expensive habit.

Add it up once and the decision usually makes itself. These are the ongoing costs of a vehicle nobody is driving.

If the reason you still have it is that the dealership's number felt insulting, that's worth understanding rather than resenting.

A trade-in figure is one of four numbers in a deal — trade allowance, sale price, financing and add-ons all move against each other, and the trade is the one that moves most easily. The dealership also has to recondition the car, floor it while it sits, and price in the real chance it goes to auction rather than the front line.

And they knew you were emotionally committed to the new car. That's the hardest moment to negotiate about the old one.

None of that makes them villains. It does mean the trade figure and the market value of your car are different numbers, and you're now free to go and find the second one.

You're not buying anything. That changes the entire dynamic and it's worth being explicit about.

There's no new car to protect, no four-square, no financing to arrange, no salesperson with a reason to move one number to fix another. You have a car, we buy cars, and that's the whole transaction.

You're also not under time pressure. The car is already replaced, so nothing depends on selling it today — which means you can get a number, think about it, get another number, and decide. That's the strongest position anyone can be in when selling a vehicle, and almost nobody is in it.

Use it. Get an offer here, get one somewhere else, and take the better one. If ours is second, bring us the written one dated within seven days and we'll beat it or hand you $250.

Being straight about the trade-off, because private sale genuinely does pay more on paper.

A private buyer pays more than any dealer, and that gap is real. What it costs you is listings, messages from people who never turn up, strangers at your house, test drives with someone you've never met, and the paperwork. Then the buyer's financing falls through and you start again.

The one that catches people out is a lien. If there's still a loan on the old car, a private buyer generally can't pay your lender directly, and the title can't transfer until the lien clears. That's the single most common reason a private sale collapses at the last step.

Our number sits between trade-in and private party. Higher than the dealership offered, because we're not protecting a sale on the other side. Lower than a private buyer, because you're not doing any of the work.

Quick but important, because it turns a one-visit sale into a two-visit one more often than anything else.

Ohio issues titles with the conjunction "and", never "or". Where two names appear, every owner signs, and the signatures have to be notarized in person. There's no version where one of you can handle it alone with a phone call.

So if the old car is in both your names, both of you come, both bring ID. Worth checking the actual document before you make the trip rather than assuming.

Send the year, make, model and mileage, and mention there's no rush — it doesn't change the number and it means we won't chase you.

You'll have a figure within 24 hours. Bring the car in and you can be paid the same day, or we'll collect it free anywhere in Ohio and across five neighbouring states.

If it hasn't moved in months, mention that too. A car that's been sitting sometimes needs a jump or a tow, and it's better to know before someone turns up expecting to drive it away. One thing to be clear about: the vehicle does need to run and the title needs to be clean. If it won't start, it's often a battery, and that's a cheap fix relative to what the car is worth running.