buldozr

I have flipped a few.

The horror story. Bought the girlfriend at the time a Mitsubishi 3000gt, the idea was to fix it, enjoy it then flip it. Previous owner said the dealer did the timing belt/water pump etc, car was running rough and shifting erratic. Very common for the auto trans computer and ecu capacitors to leak, so limped the car home and rebuilt the tcu and ecu. Transmission shifted great but the engine did not run any different. Plugs looked fine, replaced a now blown cat converter as I was diagnosing the car. Found the timing belt had slipped 3 teeth on one cam and 1 tooth on two of the other cams... got lucky, reset Tbelt, car ran like a top but I had lost a week chasing my tail by trying to find the problem.

Two weeks later the GF complained of a slight belt 'squeek' in the AM. Looked at it couldn't find it. GF called me a few days later stating she smelled burning rubber and a very loud belt squeel. She pulled into a parking lot and shut the car off(I trained her well). I show up, looked at the belts, started the car expecting to find a locked up accessory pulley.... only to hear the sound of valves crunching the pistons. The water pump locked up and broke the Tbelt. I figured I botched the tbelt when I reset it but noticed the water pump had surface rust all over it and it seized solid, pretty sure previous owner was lying through his teeth due to the dealers wont do a tbelt job without replacing tensioners/idlers and/or waterpump. The car was a total loss, not worth fixing. Bought it for $1200 in rough shape, put about $1000 into parts and labor, was at the time worth ~$3500, sold for $500 with bent valves.

If I could suggest, shit can and will happen. Learn the market, if you live in the country, clean 4x4 pickups might be a good idea. Farmer Bob isn't going to be interested in an RX7. But play it to your advantage when it happens. Farmer Bob selling an import sports car for CHEAP. Bring it back into the city and get top dollar. Know your roll. If you don't know how to do body work, don't buy cars with ganky body panels. Rockauto.com is your friend. Try to find suspension problems(easy, cheap and very negotiable). Better to buy three vehicles at $2k a pop than one $6k vehicle... it is easier to hide and get your markup off three than it is on one car. Buy cheaper vehicles, somewhere in the $1k-$3k range. A $10k car may take two months to flip while a $3k car will be gone in a week. Don't buy green vehicles, for the love of god just don't. The pictures and ads need to be perfect, if that means you have to drive the car into a nicer neighborhood 20 minutes across town, so be it, the money you get from that alone will be worth it. Same with cleanliness, I bought a car, nasty nasty, cleaned it and doubled my money. Have fun with it, your negotiation skills need to be polished. Be polite yet firm when you have to. Don't make an offer on anything that is not face to face, like wise when selling. "I will give you &700 for it" gets the response "Let me know when you want to take a look at it but I will not accept offers over the phone or text" .... These types of people that send blind low ball offers are not serious. You could tell them you will take $200 on a $1500 car and they will never show their face, if they are not willing to possibly waste their time to come out and see the vehicle before making a blind offer, don't let them possibly waste yours cause flat out they are not serious.

Good luck and have fun. You will get a bad apple and have to take a loss on one. Don't let it be a big one, a lot of liability in a $6k car vs three $2k cars.

Da New Yawka

It's not a bad legal money side hustle. Especially if have some mechanical ability.

I'm thinking about doing it one day once I get more mechanical experience (did my first timing belt/water pump on my DD)


Since I'm off Sat, Sun and Monday every week and get over a month of vacation/sick and personal hours, I have time to kill.


I did it a few times, bought a Civic for $500, cleaned it up, drove it for a few months and sold it for $1,300.

623baller

if u want to do this for a living, then you are going to need a dealer license.

i m pretty sure most states have a limit on how many buy/sells transsactions an individual can have in a year.

can you make a lot of money from it? yes absolutely, but it's also not that easy to get in the game (getting the dealer license wise), i believe you'll need a lot or warehouse of some sort to make this happen but may vary by states.

besides mechanical skills, i think detailing skills also make a huge difference, when people sees a clean car inside and out, the price usually goes up. Espeicially majority of the used cars out there looks like $hiet. profits are based on the car but defintiely wont be chump change.

Hap1

I buy cars, fix them up and sell them, strictly as a hobby / extra income. I think it would be very hard to continuously find deals if your income depended on it. The key is buying them substantially under-value. That way you can sell it for a good deal, forget about selling something for top dollar unless you have owned it for a year or more, and you legitimately know your stuff about the car. People will freak out if they think you are trying to "flip" the car, since it's so outside the realm of normal thinking. Plus, "god forbid YOU should make a profit! You're not a dealer!" is the attitude you will face.

The best way I have found, is to play with cars you have a legitimate interest in. That way you can drive them for a few months, work out all the kinks, and sell a solid car that won't result in a "hey you sold me a lemon" phone call a week later. Do your due diligence when buying, stay in cheaper cars since lots of people won't need financing (and there is actually margin to be had). Once you get to expensive cars and motorcycles, the value is much more clear cut, and harder to negotiate a big percentage reduction in price when you buy.

You make your money when you buy it.

EricJT7

I flip cars all the time. Does anyone else play forza 6?

dave_

i've done a few, make $1000 or so and then move onto the next one... if you have friends in the dealership world you can really get ahead of the game and sometimes grab some good wholesale trade ins that the dealership doesn't want to have laying around.

right now it's a little harder for me A: because i lost bad on one so i lost my capital to purchase the next one. and B: i sell cars for a living now, so it's a bit of an ethical issue

V6 Donut

Forza 4 here, barrel rolling ftw.

King Tut

There is a guy in Texas named John that can help you flip an S2000.

ClemsonWill

I completely agree with this. I have family members that are involved with dealerships. The dealerships steal cars with issues all the time when a customer just wants to get into something new. Sometimes the fix is really easy and other times it's not. If the dealership doesn't have time or want to deal with it, they will unload the car cheap to avoid taking it to auction.

True story: I know someone who worked at a dealership. Customer brought in an S2000 (first visit) and tech discovered it had some valve issues so a new head was needed. Head replaced. Customer left. A few months later his S was towed back into the dealership. This time with a blown motor. At this point the owner was done with the car and just wanted to get something else. Employee offered him pennies on the dollar for it just as it sits. Guy took the offer. After a new motor and some minor tune up work, the S in excellent condition. Car is worth $7k more than what the employee has in it.

Now I'm sure this situation isn't the norm but it is a great example for making friends with a someone at a dealership if you are looking to flip some cars.

dave_

i've never seen it done with a higher end car like an S2k, but one friend of mine who was the shop foreman at a vw dealership ended up buying a customers car off of her for $1 and drove it for 3-4 years after the fact