I swear, it shouldn't be this hard to sell tires on craigslist (UPDATE)

"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
03/23/2015 at 17:31 • Filed to: None

I've been trying for over a month to sell the Goodyear Fortera HL tires I took off my Grand Cherokee and replaced with General Grabber AT2s. I have a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! with several pictures, and plenty of information. But over and over again, I keep having people waste my time.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

The biggest irritant in all this is, so many people on craigslist, when they want to buy something, ask the following:

C.L. Schmuckface: do u still have ur tires available???
Me: Yes, they're still available.
C.L. Schmuckface: wat is ur lowest price u will take???
Me: I'd like to get as close to the asking price as possible. If you want to pay less than that, make me an offer and I'll let you know if it's acceptable.

Half the time, they stop responding. The other half the time, they offer $50-75 less than the asking price on the post. Then it moves on to trying to schedule a time to meet up with them, and everyone who wants to buy these damn tires is apparently incapable of picking a time to meet up and buy some tires.

Yesterday, I had a new experience. I was on my way to the gym, and through a long, drawn-out series of text messages, a person asked if I could meet them ASAP since they were just passing through town. They wanted to meet so soon, it required cutting 5 minutes off my cardio, going home, grabbing the key to my storage unit, getting the tires out of the storage unit, and meeting them at the agreed-upon spot: a police station, so nobody gets murdered.

They also said they were in a blue Toyota Highlander, which gave me pause, because while I hadn't looked up the tire size of a Highlander, I had a feeling it wasn't the same as a Grand Cherokee.

When I arrived at the police station and pulled up next to their blue '05-ish Highlander, and I started showing him the tires. He was all excited about how much money he'd save buying these tires instead of new ones. Then he asked me,

"So these are 16s right?"

No, no they are not, you stupid fucking moron with a tattoo of a spiral on your Adam's apple, who didn't read my CL post which clearly says they're 245/65-17s in both the subject line and the first paragraph, but insisted I meet you ASA-fucking-P. They're 17s.

Then I left, and went home, with the tires still in my damn possession.

UPDATE: The CL post I liked to at the top here is actually my latest repost. Shortly after making the post here, someone who flaked out on my back on March 3 texted me asking when they can pick up the tires. It's not quite nailed down yet, but maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe I'm meeting up with them today.

DISCUSSION (36)

Takuro Spirit > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 16:38

Fuck Craigslist. Sell 'em on eBay. Shipping is a hassle, but you're pandering to a much wider audience and you don't have to meet shit heads face to face.

That reminds me, I have two sets of tires I need to offload here soon. They're not 16's either.

Pixel > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 16:41

If someone asks me via email/text what my lowest price is, I respond one of two ways, depending on my mood.

"I only negotiate with people in person, not via text/email."

"My best price for someone who's asking that question via text/email and hasn't bothered to make any effort to come look at [thing I'm selling]? Its the price in the ad."

But then I've wasted way too much time with assholes who negotiated via email, settled on a price, and then either told me they "don't have the money right now" and disappeared, or who showed up and tried to use the agreed on price as the new number to negotiate down from in person.

Have you gotten any asinine trade offers yet?

DailyTurismo > Takuro Spirit
03/23/2015 at 16:44

I hate ebay and craigslist so much that I just throw away perfectly good stuff all the time. Seriously.

Jcarr > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 16:47

This gives me high hopes for the wheels and tires from my Envoy (incidentally the same size) that I just listed on CL over the weekend.

Takuro Spirit > DailyTurismo
03/23/2015 at 16:48

Don't have a Goodwill nearby?

Sam > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 16:52

He's lucky you're a nice guy, otherwise he would have found out when he got home that they were 17s.

Textured Soy Protein > Sam
03/23/2015 at 16:53

Well, he could easily have looked at the size marking on the tire itself and seen they're 17s. Then again, with his lack of reading comprehension of my CL post, maybe he would've missed it.

Tripper > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 16:53

That really is the best CL post that I have seen for a set of tires/wheels. You left no question unanswered. People are idiots!

uofime > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 16:55

one of the guys on here went to the trouble of listing all the cars that their wheels (iirc) would fit on in order to avoid some of that, looks pretty spammy in a CL post with 50 vehicles randomly isted, but effective for helping clueless people find them

Textured Soy Protein > uofime
03/23/2015 at 16:57

You may actually be thinking of me, because I did that (and posted about it ) when I was selling the stock wheels and snow tires from my old Mazdaspeed 6.

uofime > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:00

oh, it WAS you!

Textured Soy Protein > uofime
03/23/2015 at 17:06

Yeah, I did that because I was selling tires mounted on wheels, and figured I'd list a bunch of cars with similar bolt pattern & offset. But with tires, there's so many different vehicles out there that take a given tire size, I dunno if I felt like researching all that. Then again, with how much hassle it's been up to this point, I may well make a list and update the post.

uofime > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:11

Tire sizes are super confusing you know, that's probably why you see so many kids driving around with theirs all stretched out...

obviously for this case just pick whatever the most common cars are that these would fit on, probably no reason to be as elaborate as you were with your wheel post.

maybe explain how to look at your current tires and tell if these will fit, honestly that's probably to complicated for CL though

Textured Soy Protein > uofime
03/23/2015 at 17:13

The funny thing about that list was, after all the research, a guy with another Mazdaspeed 6 bought them.

uofime > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:15

oh, that is frustrating. Maybe you should just listen to Takuro and ebay them haha

450X_FTW > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:22

I hate it when I get an email saying "are the tires still for sale? What is your phone number?". If you had read the actual ad then you would have seen my damn phone number on it.

E92M3 > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:25

Sounds about right. At least he showed up. I have a no meet policy because of getting burned by no shows 3 times. I'm not wasting gas. If you want whatever I'm selling, you're gonna have to come to me.

Textured Soy Protein > E92M3
03/23/2015 at 17:31

The police station I tell people to meet me at is 0.4 miles from my house. ;)

I have in the past had people come to my house to pick stuff up, but with all these craigslist horror stories that keep happening, I'm doing it at the cop shop from now on.

BarryDanger > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:36

Yup. I'm getting the same crap for my GTO wheels .

Twingo Tamer - About to descend into project car hell. > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:43

Even my mother, who knows fuck all about cars, learned how tire measurements work when I wasn't there to go pick them out for her. It's not hard people.

Racescort666 > uofime
03/23/2015 at 17:49

lol@stance

Racescort666 > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:50

Wisconsin's got concealed carry, c'mon. Actually, craigslist is the #1 reason why I like having a CCW, you just never know.

Jayhawk Jake > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:50

I had a similar sort of thing happen. Had a set of wheels for sale. Tons of pictures, made very clear its a 4 x 100 bolt pattern, etc.

Guy shows up and asks if they'll fit on a Grand Prix. I don't know, why would I know?!

Birddog > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 17:53

Selling anything on CL is more of a pain than it should be.

I had a light duty engine stand up for $20 recently. The eighth emailer got it. Even with "no trades" in the ad I still got dumb offers.

No, I will not take $7 and a bag of Skittles.. Keep your Wallyworld gift cards too.

The Jeep 4.0 cylinder head I just traded off is a favorite. I had it up for $160 rebuilt and ready to run with reciepts. This guy calls me and wants me to bring it to his buddy's shop in a seriously sketchy part of town to be "inspected". If they say it's "good to go" he'll pay me.

Uhm, I'm not the brightest bulb on the tree but I'm not a f#$@ing fool.

I wish there was a better way.

E92M3 > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 18:03

The last time I sold something a guy called at 10:30pm and wanted to know if there was anyway he could buy it "tonight" BECAUSE he had court the next morning.

Textured Soy Protein > Racescort666
03/23/2015 at 18:04

I'm a gun-hating liberal who disagrees with the existence of CCW so I'm not about to go out and get one.

(But let's not actually argue about that please...just stating my opinion.)

Matsayz > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 18:12

Been there dude! People call or text, want to pay you 1/4 of what you're asking. Never show up... Then they do show and keep low-balling you even though they verbally argree'd to the price over the phone. I'll never sell tires/wheels again.

Why are people so stupid?!?!!

LuczOr > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 18:18

Craigslist.

Where you spend $400 worth of your own labor time to sell some crap for $200. I find it nearly impossible to sell a full Camaro exhaust.

signintoburnerlol > Textured Soy Protein
03/23/2015 at 18:22

Fuck that bullshit, i just take it to a local tire place and sell it to them. Sure, i get crap money but i don't have time to deal with other people unless it's over $1000.

Textured Soy Protein > signintoburnerlol
03/23/2015 at 18:29

That's my backup plan.