Almost every piece of used-car safety advice in Australia is written for the buyer. But it's the seller who invites a stranger to their address, hands over the keys to their own car, and sits in the passenger seat while someone they've never met drives it.
That side barely gets written about. Here it is.
Before anyone drives your car: see their licence, know where you stand on insurance, and make sure someone else knows where you are. Those three things cover most of it.
Before they arrive
Don't publish your home address. Arrange to meet somewhere public and agree the exact spot in the message thread, not on the phone. A supermarket car park in daylight is fine and boring, which is what you want.
Keep the conversation in writing. A record of who you're dealing with and what was agreed is useful for ordinary reasons — disputes, no-shows — and useful if anything goes wrong. On MotorLoop that happens in the app by default, so your phone number stays private until you decide to share it.
Tell someone. Where you're going, who you're meeting, roughly how long. Trivially easy, and the single highest-value item on this list.
Take the paperwork out of the car. Registration papers, service book, anything with your address on it. Bring them separately, and only hand them over at the sale.
The licence check
Do this before the keys move, every time.
Ask to see their driver licence and actually look at it. Photo matches the person, name matches what they've told you, and — this is the one people skip — check it isn't a learner or provisional licence with conditions that make the drive unlawful.
Photograph it, or note the details. You need their name and address for your state's notice of disposal anyway, so this isn't an imposition.
If the name doesn't match, stop. There may be a perfectly good explanation, and you're entitled to ask for it before proceeding. Someone test-driving a car under a name that isn't theirs is worth understanding first.
The insurance question
One phone call, before you list: does your policy cover an unlisted driver test-driving your car?
The answer is policy-specific, and it determines whether you let anyone drive at all. We've covered what to ask and what your options are if the answer is unfavourable in what happens to your insurance and CTP when you sell.
Make the call before you need the answer.
The test drive
Go with them. Standard, expected, and nobody serious objects. A buyer who insists on taking your car alone is telling you something.
Bring your phone, and keep your keys. Not the car keys — your house keys, which shouldn't be on the same ring as the ones you're handing over. Split them before the buyer arrives.
Agree the route first. Fifteen minutes, including some open road if you can. It's enough for a real assessment and it removes ambiguity about how long they've got the car.
You don't have to allow a drive. If something feels wrong, "I'd rather not today" is a complete sentence. A sale is not worth overriding your own judgement.
The handover
Meet at the buyer's bank. This solves the payment problem and the safety problem at once: it's public, it's monitored, the transfer happens in front of a teller, and the bank surfaces anything irregular. Our payment guide covers the money side.
Don't hand over the keys until the funds have cleared. Not sent — cleared, and visible in your account.
Complete the receipt on the spot. Both names, date, price, VIN, odometer reading, both signatures. Photograph it before you part ways.
Then lodge your notice of disposal, the same day. Until it's in, the car is still legally yours in the eyes of everyone issuing fines.
Two ways to reduce exposure before anyone contacts you
Use in-app messaging rather than publishing your number. A phone number in a public listing is permanent and reaches everyone who scrolls past. On MotorLoop, buyers message in the app first, and you share your number when you've decided the buyer is real.
Consider an unlisted listing for a high-value car. MotorLoop lets you mark a listing unlisted — out of search and browse, visible only to people you send the link to. For an expensive or unusual car, that means a small number of considered enquiries instead of a public advertisement of a valuable item and where it is.
If something feels off
Trust it. You are allowed to cancel a meeting, decline a test drive, or end a conversation without a reason. The car will still be there tomorrow, and a buyer who makes you uneasy is rarely the buyer who was going to complete anyway.
If you're threatened, or you think a crime has occurred, contact police. If a listing or a message you've received on MotorLoop is the problem, there's a report control on it — you'll need to be signed in — and the reports go to a queue a person actually works through.
What this means if you're selling on MotorLoop
Two of the things above are how the product works rather than advice you have to act on: buyers message you in the app so your number stays private, and you can mark a listing unlisted so it's link-only. Listing a car on MotorLoop is free.