Selling a vehicle by auction

In message , jim writes

Thanks Jim, and it does indeed not seem to be a popular way of selling an individual car. The trouble is that time constraints are in the way of ebay and the friend who went down that route had a horrendous experience.

I've never bought or sold a car on Ebay, but have heard plenty of first hand stories to make me avoid it. But mainly with classic cars. Most common one is winning an auction them not proceeding. So just wasting time. Next is trying to reduce the winning sum bid on collecting the car.

I have sold at a proper auction. Just a normal sort of lowish value used car. That was painless - but didn't make strong money despite being a decent enough medium sized car which needed nothing spent on it.

E-Bay worked for me. I'd been very reluctant but had a word with a local used car dealer we've used and had some secret insider pointers.

I was actually selling my mums 3 wheeler. Just added it with the condition of winning bid must pay £100 non-refundable deposit by paypal on successfully winning the auction with the balance of cash on collection.

I listed it with every imperfection detailed and pictured so the purchaser couldn't say the advert was misleading. However the most important thing which makes a huge difference to the final selling price is to list it on a Sunday night around 20:00 hrs so it finishes the same time the following week.

This one simple thing made the difference between it being sold for £700 first time round when I made the mistake of the auction ending on a Wednesday night (which the buyer subsequently pulled out of due to "work commitment in another country") and selling it for £900 2 weeks later after re-listing Sunday night it as he'd suggested!

If it's actually worth selling it will sell on e-bay and even if there aren't any bids right up to the an hour before the listing ends don't give up hope, that's when the 2 bidders that really want it will pay top market value. :)

That said this was the only one I've sold on e-bay but it's where our garage trader chum buys and sells the majority of his motors.

Does anyone here have experience of selling a vehicle by, say, BCA, as against a smaller local vehicle auction site?

I'm obviously interested in seller's total fees and costs and whether it is just a question of turning up with the vehicle and a few bits of documentation and receiving a nice cheque in the post as the websites imply. Can one specify, for example, a reserve price (eg £500 on a vehicle valued at between £1k to 1.5k)? Any other things to be aware of?

Is it worth an amateur like me contemplating this at all?

Sorry about the cross-post, but thought it might be worthwhile here.

Who uses auctions? best for big fleet operators. Police cars?

I did buy a car from BCA in the 80's. A lovely Fiat 132 1800 GLS, One hour warranty for major faults. Oh buy the way, clutch cable broke, warranty expired of course, but I figured to drive without it. A bit tricky at traffic lights; green was preferable...

dealers taking trarde ins.

If you take a 6 year old car to a main dealer and trade it fr new, they will auctionb it. They cant be bothered...

car then gets boiught by tier 2 dealer who fixes gross faults offers shoddy warranty and hopes.

In message , at 09:46:51 on Wed, 9 Aug 2017, The Natural Philosopher remarked:

Although it's just as common for the main dealers to sell direct to the tier 2/3main dealers. Saves the auction commission and is much quicker.

Yes. A lot depends on the car. an old low mileage jag is a hard thing to shift whereas a high mileage fiesta is not

I was quite impressed at the really comprehensive IT based 'paperwork' prepared when ye trade in (under duress, or whatever) to webuyanycar.com

I guess somewhere there are folks biding/buying 'on-spec' on just that without actually seeing the car.

In message , Adrian Caspersz writes

In February, webuyanycar offered just over £1000 for my Jeep Grand Cherokee. In July, they offered £340 for the same car. On both occasions after I didn't respond, they upped the offer by about £100 a few days later.

Maybe their paperwork is good, but neither offer impressed me.

Ah, BCA...

Used them to get shot of a rapidly failing rover 216 cabriolet P reg. After struggling through southend evening traffic, drove it on their reception forecourt at just the right moment before the engine completely seized and life was declared extinct. The mechanicals had just gone too far south, OK'ish body though.

£99 was gained for that performance. I expect it's now been slung, drawn and quartered.

Beforehand, we'd phoned up some scrap metal dealers but none had any interest in sending out a trailer for it, and neither did some 'collectors' that maybe could have done something with it.

Sold my x Saab 9000 280,000 miles on ebay, got £200. But the sought after 16" Aero wheels now worth at least £500. Buyer was happy and I wasn't unhappy since I had got rid of owner responsibily for the car. Not easy to have two cars with no room to keep. Not easy to sell a car with no wheels.

In message , at 11:46:13 on Wed, 9 Aug

2017, Adrian Caspersz remarked:

WBAC's website does indeed ask loads of questions about the car in advance, but they then need to inspect it.

The provisional valuation they give is on the assumption the bodywork, wheels etc is in concourse condition; and they go round like a chap checking you back in after a rental and list every tiny ding, dent or scrape.

You are invited to either go get those fixed at your own expense and bring the car back, or they knock off for each bit of damage against a scale they have.

In the case I saw, what one would normally consider to be a car "in typical condition for its ten years age" that process resulted in almost halving their valuation.

The reason given was "when we send them to auction, those are the things the trade buyers are looking at".

The mechanical side of the equation is presumably dealt with under TNP's observation of: "tier 2 dealer fixes gross faults offers shoddy warranty and hopes". As of course will subsequent retail buyers (hope that is)!

OMG!!!!

My 11 YO MIcra, for which the insurance sites guess a valuation of 2000, but which realistically I would be lucky to sell for anything over 1000

WBAC.COM

345 pounds

wtf, I would get almost that from the scrappy

tim

I got 220 for my last, drivable, car that I scrapped.

Bastard fixed up the broken bits that has caused me to decide to scrap it and put it back on the road

[snip]

About 1975 I scrapped an 850 minivan. Steering rack badly worn, rear wheel bearings dry and rusty with brass swarf from collapsed ball cages, barely legal tyres, headlamp bulbs removed. Dead battery - jump started it to drive to the scrap dealer and received £5 for it, which I thought was reasonable. It may have had a few months on its MOT - can't remember.

A few days later a mate saw it being driven around by a pikey with his wife & kids on board!

Many moons ago my son needed a car at very short notice with little money. I bought him a Renault 5 from a local scrappy for £300 with a months unconditional warranty, it was body from one scrap car and engine/transmission from a second. We needed to guarantee he would be mobile for three weeks whilst we were away so I paid the asking price as long as they agreed to the unconditional warranty.

Four years later after only needing two tyres and a coil (Coil under the original warranty) my son declared "I hate that car but the worst thing is there's nothing wrong with it"

Mike

A man with no understanding. There was everything wrong with it.

It was a Renault.