Having sold hundreds if not thousands of cars professionally over the last 30 years, one would think that selling our current Fortuner would be a simple task. It is, after all, a Toyota, which supposedly has good demand in the secondary market, as well as the highest residuals among car brands in the Philippines.
The vehicle, to be specific, is a 2018 Toyota Fortuner 2.4V 4x2 model with many minor upgrades, including a new JBL audio system and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto capability. It has less than 60,000 kilometers on the odometer. Easy, right?
This would be my first time trying to sell one of my own cars in the open market after so many years, as previous cars I have sold went to either friends or car traders. Speaking of which, car traders are the easiest and fastest way to sell your existing vehicle. They pay you right away and you do not need to deal with the hassle of meeting up with strangers in petrol stations or coffee shops.
The downside here of course is price; car traders will definitely give you a lot less than market value as they assume the risk of keeping your car on stock waiting for a buyer, and of course they need to make a profit on each car.
I recall my very first experience with selling (and sometimes buying) used cars in the ’90s was by placing an ad for my father’s 1986 Isuzu KB pickup truck in the Sunday classified ads section of the Manila Bulletin. Sure, other broadsheets had classified and display ads sections, too, but none came close to the Manila Bulletin on Sundays.
The paper came in at around 200 pages, with the pages of classified ads outnumbering the editorial content. Placing an ad involved visiting one of their branches and writing your own text, which was limited to 23 characters per line, and the paper charged on a per line basis.
In 1992, the weekly all-newsprint Buy & Sell magazine was published, which was followed by Car Finder Philippines magazine in 1996. Both publications offered platforms for advertising your vehicle, spare parts, and other automobile-related items. Buy & Sell accepted line ads for free, while Car Finder Philippines would charge you a fee per ad but it allowed you to place a single photo of your car. Things went online after that with websites like sulit.com and carousell.ph becoming a platform for online sellers of anything and everything under the sun.
Today, buying and selling anything is predominantly done on Facebook Marketplace, which is where I placed an ad for my Fortuner. With about 100 million registered users and a 95% monthly login rate in the Philippines, Facebook (based on data) should provide the widest reach of any selling platform available in the country.
OTHER STORIES YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED:
How much does it cost to charge an EV at home versus at a public station?
PH car sales report: 105,642 vehicles sold in 2026 so far; VinFast tops BEV sales
Placing an ad on Facebook is free and pretty straightforward. Fill up some basic details, create your copy, and upload a maximum of 20 photos—done! Meta will just review your ad and after some time it will be published, all for free. But where it gets interesting is that Facebook will offer you the option to boost your ad. Depending on the reach and number of days you want, this ranges from a minimum of P250 up to thousands.
The simplicity of the process with Facebook has definitely made connecting sellers with buyers much easier for the Filipino, and as long as you filter out the noise you should be able to sell your product or find what you are looking for. The anonymity of all this, though, has allowed the rapid rise of scams on Facebook and other online selling platforms; both buyers and seller always have to proceed with caution. Allow common sense and gut feeling to prevail—if something does not feel right, back off immediately.
Scams aside, the ubiquity has also sort of lowered the standards of buying and negotiating, with some buyers being outright rude and impolite. In the few days that the ad for the Fortuner has been posted, I have received countless lowball offers from supposed buyers who have not even bothered to take a look at the vehicle. These offers are usually about 75% of the asking price, and are often accompanied by come-ons like “cash is on-hand now” and “bayaran ko na ngayon.” One of them even sent me a photo of the cash he supposedly has on hand, all without even taking the time to look at and appreciate the vehicle.
One of the more rude buyers was quite persistent in buying the car at the price that he wanted (cash on hand of course,) and even going as far as saying that his was the best offer and my car was not worth the price I was asking for. The worst experience, though, had to be the prospective buyer who agreed to view the car, but just simply did not show up on the agreed day and time and stopped replying to messages and answering calls. Fortunately for me, I usually set the meeting place in a secure parking lot near my place for convenience and added security.
The Fortuner has been listed for a few days now, and through all the inquiries I have received, there have been some quite promising leads. One of the more serious inquiries viewed the vehicle earlier today; turns out he is an employee of somebody from way up north and was tasked by his employer to look at my car. He seems pleased with what he saw, and has informed me that his employer will be coming to Manila later this week. We set a meeting for Saturday afternoon; let’s see how this goes.
There are also other potential buyers who have reached out. One has been honest enough to say that the price is beyond their budget, and there are others who are trying to schedule a viewing appointment. With all this interest, I have no doubt that the Fortuner will be sold at a price that is fair to both me and the buyer.
And once this is done, we can now proceed to finally getting the new car the missus has been eyeing!
