Reliability of auctions

[Lamboguy]

I've never been to an auction and all the information I have about them has been from just infomercials saying you can make so much money buying and selling them, but what about just buying for yourself? Are there really good deals you can get or can you get stuck with a car that doesn't even work? Where exactly are the cars from an auction coming from and why wouldn't they just be sold at dealers?

 

[DMan]

A friend who works at a dealership told me that they don't like to keep too many off-brands on their lot, so they would send these vehicles to auction. Also when they get a leased vehicle back, they often auction these as well, instead of keeping them to sell on the lot.

 

[Hotrod25]

I have never been to one either but I have an Uncle who works at an Auction house. He has actually purchased a few cars from there. He does get to drive them and check them out first though.

 

[Lamboguy]

I've always heard that through those government or police auctions that the car comes "as is" and that you can't even really take a look at the car. It could not even have an engine and you wouldn't know until you bought it. I'm not really sure if those auctions I've heard about are real with getting an awesome car for so cheap.

 

[MaximumSpeed]

I haven't been to one, but I have a brother-in-law who buys cars from them regularly, and usually is able to sell them in a month or two at a nice profit.

 

[Lindsey]

Cars at auction can be a good deal if they come from a dealership and have turned in at the end of a lease. You just have to find this out before you put in a bid because almost certainly, there are going to be some lemons for sale as well.

 

[Rodney]

I've been to a few auctions. The vehicles are usually supplied by local dealers who want to move some inventory quickly. There are also typically some vehicles that come from businesses that want to get rid of some of their company fleet for whatever reason. I haven't actually bought anything from an auction, but I've seen people get some really good deals.

 

[Smoothe]

Problem with auctions

What bothers me the most about buying a used car at an auction is that so many of these cars are repossessed vehicles. To me this means that its previous caretaker has driven the car for as long as he could, probably knowing it was going to be repossessed. As a result, he didn't take care of it and may have done something to it on purpose. Hey, that's my thinking.