I will be selling my car soon and I am planning to sell it to a private party. If someone is interested and asks me to let him/her test drive it, should I? What if they crash the car during the test drive or mess up the clutch? What is the standard practice for this?

When I sold my B5 I let them drive it. I rode along, of course, but I wouldn't expect to sell it w/o letting them drive it. Pretty hard to check compression, tranny, etc. w/o driving it.

and if they want to really push the car hard to test it out - have them get the car inspected instead at a shop.

When I test drove a car at the dealer, they photocopied my driver's license. If an accident did occur, can I sue the person? Thanks.

but I always told people before we went out in the car - If you don't know about these cars and you want to just test drive one - go to the dealer. If you want to verify how good the car is - make arrangements with a shop I will meet you there and you pay to have it inspected - Other than that we can just do a normal routine relaxed drive

is not going to damage anything and neither will a hard stop or a hard turn. I wouldn't let them turn the streets into a racetrack but I expect them to give the car a push to see how it feels. I wouldn't buy a car if the seller had a problem with me doing a hard launch or a full WOT run.

:)

If they say it's their first car with a stick, then say sorry, it's sold.

I met the people who bought my cars at a gas station, I took the test drive with them, and that's it. Of course, you can't ever be 100% sure about people, but this is a necessary thing if you want to sell your car.