Describe it accurately, and describe it first
The instinct is to soften the description and hope the buyer does not look too hard. It reliably backfires. Every dealer offer is subject to inspection, so undisclosed damage does not disappear, it just surfaces later when you have already mentally committed to the sale and have less leverage.
An accurate description produces an offer that holds. An optimistic one produces an offer that gets revised in your driveway, which is a worse outcome and a wasted afternoon.
What to disclose
- Panel damage: dents, scratches, scuffed bumpers, hail, kerbed wheels
- Glass: windscreen chips and cracks, which are a mandatory repair before retail
- Mechanical faults: warning lights, oil leaks, gearbox behaviour, air conditioning that no longer works
- Accident history: repaired damage, whether an insurer was involved, and whether it was recorded
- Interior: tears, burns, odours, smoke or pet damage, all of which cost real money to remediate
- Tyres: tread depth and whether they are a matched set
- Service gaps: a two year hole in the history is better disclosed than discovered
Photograph each item. A clear photo of a dent usually results in a smaller deduction than an imagined one, because the buyer is pricing what they can see rather than the worst case.
High kilometres are not the problem people assume
A 200,000 km vehicle with complete service history and no faults is often an easier car to price than a 90,000 km one with no records at all. Dealers price risk, not the odometer alone. Highway kilometres on a diesel with documented servicing are a genuinely different proposition from short trip city kilometres with skipped intervals.
If your car is high kilometre, lead with the history. It is the strongest asset you have in the conversation.
Write off status
This is the one hard line. A statutory write off cannot be re-registered for road use in Australia and has no ordinary resale path. A repairable write off can be re-registered in some states after inspection, but the record stays with the vehicle permanently and materially affects value. Both will appear on a PPSR check, so disclose either upfront.
Unregistered or unroadworthy cars
Both are sellable. Unregistered vehicles need to be inspected where they sit and transported rather than driven, which the buyer factors into the offer. If the car does not run at all, say so clearly, because a tow adds real cost and a buyer who arrives expecting to drive it away will simply reprice on the spot.
When repairing first makes sense
Rarely, and only when the repair is cheap relative to the deduction it prevents. A windscreen chip repair is usually worth doing. A new set of tyres, a paint respray or a major mechanical repair almost never is, because dealers recondition at trade rates you cannot access and will not reimburse you at retail rates for work you commissioned.
The exception is anything that stops the car being driven or inspected safely. Getting it drivable can widen the pool of buyers willing to look at it.