alfredo_mancho

intuition tells me that a bunch of dealers bid the highest price for a car. but what condition is the car in? new, used or rebuilt? i just ran a carfax last night on a vehicle and found out a car was in an auction, stirred my suspicions.

xviper

In Alberta, a dealer auction can only be attended by licenced "dealers". These do not necessarily have to be "dealers" in the usual sense - ie, not just those guys you see with big car lots that sell Ford, Honda, GM, etc. There are the independent private dealers who buy and sell out of their own homes. Some of these have been referred to as "curbers".
Cars that are sold at such auctions can come from a variety of different sources - dealer lease backs, dealer unwanted inventory, rental companies, consignments, car brokers, repos. You must have a dealer's licence to attend, bid on and purchase these vehicles.
ps. Anyone can buy a dealer licence. It's an annual fee.

alfredo_mancho

thanks dave, so there's no saying what condition the car could be in, is it possible that 'rebuilt' vehicles could be auctioned here?

xviper

Yes, it's still a "buyer beware" situation here. Although they do check, it is still possible to sneak a stolen vehicle into this auction. On the most part, "dealers" are allowed to start the car and drive it up and down the parking isles. That's all the testing that is done on the vehicles being sold here. It is also at these auctions across the nation that the "black book" values are determined.

MOTU

When I used to buy from the GMAC repo pound, you could start the cars only. No driving allowed. But you could check the brakes and tranny all without moving the car, if you knew how to strain the engine against the brakes. Again in rev, to check the high gear drum in the tranny. Things like that.

GMAC always told us about problems they knew about, ie. noisy diff, or lack of power at speed etc.

Picked up some nice cars there, prices get too high when too many of the "public" shows up. They don't know how little they should be bidding. They fiqure 500 - 1000 buck less than retail is a good deal. Ha!

Good Hunting!