Questions About Selling Your Car
Selling Your Car To Us
South OC Autos buys vehicles from private sellers across Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire, Ventura and Palm Springs. We are a licensed California dealer, license number 94258, and we hold a wholesale license, which means we buy cars from the public but do not sell to the public. Payment is always by cashier’s check, usually within 15 to 20 minutes of meeting you. These are the questions sellers ask us most.
Yes, and we tell you that up front. We are a licensed California dealer, license number 94258. That means a real paper trail and we handle the DMV side for you. We buy from private sellers. We are not a private buyer pretending to be a business, and we are not a retail lot trying to trade you into something else.
By cashier’s check. We can meet at the bank and have it issued in front of you if you would rather see it happen. There is no waiting on a wire to clear, no payment plan, and nobody holds your title while money moves around.
About 15 to 20 minutes from the time we meet you to the time you are paid. Meet us at the bank and that window covers all of it: looking the vehicle over, issuing your payment, and the DMV paperwork. You are not handing over the car and then waiting days on a check.
We buy regularly in Orange County, San Diego, the Inland Empire, Ventura and Palm Springs. We have gone as far as Santa Barbara and Bakersfield, and that is about our limit. Once a drive runs past a couple of hours it has to make sense for the vehicle, so those longer trips are usually for trucks and SUVs that are in high demand. Tell us where you are and what you have and we will tell you straight whether we can come to you.
We are a local dealer that makes its money on volume rather than on a big margin per car. The margins we work on are thinner than most people expect, and that is what lets us put a competitive number on your vehicle instead of a lowball one. You are also dealing with the same people from the first call through to the payment, not a call center and then a stranger in your driveway.
No. Getting an offer costs you nothing and does not commit you to anything. Send us the year, make, model and mileage and we will come back with a number. If it does not work for you, that is the end of it.
No. We hold a wholesale dealer license, which means we are licensed to buy vehicles from private parties but not to sell them to the public. There is no inventory here and nothing on this site is for sale. If you are looking to buy a car, a retail dealer is who you want.
Title, Paperwork And Smog
No. When you sell to a licensed California dealer, the smog certificate becomes the dealer’s responsibility rather than yours. We take care of it on our end. In a private party sale it works the other way around: you would have to get the car smogged yourself before your buyer could register it, and if it failed you would be paying for the repairs.
The title, the current registration, and your driver’s license. That is the short list. If there is a loan on the car, bring your lender name and account number. If the title has been lost, tell us before we meet and we will walk you through the DMV duplicate title process.
That is not a problem, and it is more common than people think. We pay the lender directly, handle the paperwork, and you keep whatever is left over. You do not need the physical title in your hand for this. Your lender is holding it and releases it once the loan is paid off.
We get the exact payoff figure from your lender and pay them that amount directly. You do not pay the loan off yourself first and you do not need to come up with the money upfront. Anything above the payoff is yours. Bring your lender name and account number so we can confirm the figure before we meet.
At the same meeting. Once we have looked the vehicle over, your payment has been issued and the paperwork is signed, the car leaves with us. We do not take a vehicle before you have been paid.
It depends on one word. If the two names are separated by the word “or,” either person can sign and sell on their own. If they are joined by the word “and,” both people have to sign. It is worth checking the title before you set up a meeting, because this is the single most common thing that stops a sale at the last minute.
Not once the transfer is reported. California asks the seller to file a Notice of Transfer and Release of Liability with the DMV within five days of the sale. It is free, it takes about two minutes at dmv.ca.gov, and it is what takes your name off the car for parking tickets, tolls, and anything else that happens afterward. Do not skip it, and do not assume someone else filed it for you.
After, not before. Keep the car insured right up to the moment it changes hands. Once the paperwork is signed and the car is gone, call your insurer and cancel so you stop paying for a vehicle you no longer own.
Still have a question?
Send it over and we will answer it. If you want a number on your car, the offer form is faster.
What We Buy And How We Price It
Cars and sedans, trucks and SUVs, EVs and hybrids, and work vans. Most years and most conditions. If you are not sure whether yours is something we would be interested in, send us the year, make, model and mileage and we will tell you straight either way.
No. We buy clean titles only. If your title is branded salvage, rebuilt, junk, or lemon law buyback, we are not the right buyer for it and we will tell you that instead of wasting your time.
Yes. We can only buy from the person whose name is on the title. If you are selling a car that belonged to a relative, or one you bought but never transferred into your own name, that has to be sorted out at the DMV before a sale can happen.
Year, make, model, mileage and condition, plus what that exact vehicle is doing at dealer auction right now. Service history, tires, brakes, cosmetic damage and title status all move the number. We do not publish a price chart, because a number written down last month would be wrong today. Send us the details and we will give you a real one.