Auction houses - terrifying?

[Pillock]

Been browsing the stock list for the Newark auctions - it's spitting distance from work and I can bunk off half an hour early to get there. Seems to be some stuff I'm interested in, given that I feel the need for something partly modern and diesel - there's some VAG PD TDI stuff, a few Mondeos and Focii etc.

 

It states open to the public, but how terrifying are these places? I intend to go a couple of times before even thinking of buying, just to get a feel for prices, but is it really just a place where traders go to swap knackered cars? How much of the stuff has been wogged and bodged just to make it through the auction, and how much is a genuine cheap motor?

 

I'm a little concerned about the lack of comeback on anything I buy being knackered, but it's no worse than a private sale right?

[skattrd]

Have you got a link to the stock list? Its just down the road from me as well.

If you do fancy going sometime let me know and I might tag along if that ok ... not been to a car auction since I was kid

[alf892]

Just remember that most traders buy stock from these places..........they will go for the stuff that is straight off lease so it be 3/4 years old. 5 at most.If thats what you are in the market for go to a weekday sale.You should be able to secure what you are after as the traders can only go so far before margin is reduced too much. The in between age stuff is where the risk is although there will also be a good number of decent dealer pxs. Make sure you read the signs though so you know what sold with a trial really means.......and read the bit about commision structure to......as a private buyer (with BCA anyway) you may feel the need for vaseline.

 

The evening sales are where the real shit goes.......

[Cavcraft]

It is worse than a private sale because it's a licence for the unscrupulous to turn you over and you'll never find out who did it.

 

Best rule of thumb is to only gamble (i.e bid) what you can afford to lose and assume that anything you bid on will be knackered. Do your homework and if you get something far cheaper than you've ever heard of it going before you won't be too far out of bed. All you're really interested in is that if your prize buy turns out to be a complete heap of shit that you can get your money (or most of it) back if you end up sending it back round the block.

It's great fun and a total gamble.

[Pillock]

Have you got a link to the stock list? Its just down the road from me as well.

If you do fancy going sometime let me know and I might tag along if that ok ... not been to a car auction since I was kid

 

http://www.newarkmotorauctions.co.uk/carstock.html

 

Was thinking of going this Tuesday just to take a peek, definately leaving the wallet at home though.

[Pillock]

Just read up on the comission - £100 on cars up to £3k so I'll mentally add that onto all the prices.

Cav, good advice cheers - although I never thought of just sending it around again!

[ashmicro]

It's great fun and a total gamble.

 

+1.

 

only had a couple of duffers out of the 20-odd motors I have bought at auction over the years, and they were cheap so I didn't lose all that much.

 

 

There's a super-rare Rover 25 GTi on that Newark stock list

[warren t claim]

Buy this one...

 

FIAT STILO 20V ABARTH SEMI-AUTO - 2446cc 5dr Hatchback Mar 2002 (02) Grey Petrol Auto MOT Apr 2011 96,698 S

[Pillock]

What opportunities do you get to test cars before they go through the auction?

 

Warren.... just noticed that very motor and was going to post a "How much will I cry when this goes wrong?" thread

[Cavcraft]

Erm, absolutely NONE.

 

Another thing worth doing is if you see you see something you fancy then stand by it when they start it up. It might sound stupidly simple but honestly if you knew how many had a death rattle that will have gone quiet by the time it gets under the spotlight you'd be amazed.

Don't get 'auction fever' and stick to your guns. It's incredibly easy to see what you want, watch it make more then you wanted to pay and then bidding on something else just because it seemed cheap and you (inadvertantly) got the bidding bug. Stay in the shadows and do look completely disinterested in everything around you because trust me any trader worth his salt will smell your new money before you enter the hall.

[warren t claim]

What opportunities do you get to test cars before they go through the auction?

 

Warren.... just noticed that very motor and was going to post a "How much will I cry when I HAVE TO TAX THIS?" thread

 

EFA.

[Pillock]

Great, now I am terrified

 

I'll go to a few and see how it runs. I've just noticed a few posts on here regarding obscenely cheap cars, but I might well chicken out.

I've certainly talked myself out of that flappy-paddle Fiat Stilo Abarth by googling "Stilo gearbox failure cost"

[pogweasel]

Full of Carcoat Damphands who will spot a Gary or Janet out of their natural instantly and take them for every penny as they trot them up on some crunchy-gearbox'd HGF repo.

[Timewaster]

I've typed this before I know, but...In the mid 90's, Me and a colleague used to buy sub £300 shit from a local evening auction in the vain hope of making a few quid.

 

The stuff we bought was all utter utter crap and most of it was fucked. You should have seen the stuff we walked away from.

This was when you had to pay the scrappers to take old cars, so most of them went through the auction instead.

 

Gems which stick in the mind (throat?) were a Y plate Cavalier 1.6l in beige that required a t-cut and 2 rear arches, which we fixed before realising it only had 3 gears!

An A reg Escort 1.3 CVH with a lake in the boot. That seized up within a week.

A X reg Nissan Sunny koop that looked 2 tone silver in the dark but turned out to be grey primer under the rubbing strip. That went back in the folowing week for a £13 profit.

 

After that we gave up and the site is now, ironicly the local council rubbish lorry depot!

 

Auctions are GREAT!!

[meggersdog]

I haven't been to Newark auction for years but my experience is this :

Once the car enters the hall you are not allowed to lift the bonnet.No asking the driver to rev the engine and any attempt to ask if the clutch/gearbox is ok will be completely ignored.Cars are often driven straight from the parking area into the hall.It was a tough job standing waiting for the car to start then getting to the hall entrance before the driver so you could look under the bonnet.

Stone-acre put their part exes through Newark.You might think going for a genuine part exchange from a large dealership would be a safe bet but you would be wrong.Stone -acre specialise in weekly finance deals "cheeky weekly's" as they advertise, so if a punter can just about afford 15-20 quid a week for a newish car then his old one will not have been maintained.More often than not the old car needs a repair that the punter can't afford hence the need to sign up for a £15 a week for life finance deal.

Best advice would be to treat it as a banger auction and be prepared to get the spanners out on anything you buy.

[Lankytim]

Just go to a few to get the feel then go for it- its great fun!

[CreepingJesus]

It's definitely worth a go. If it's anything like Kinross (my local-ish), you'll wonder if you've gone thro' a portal to the 70's, freeze your arse off, swear never to drink the tea/eat the burgers again, and wonder at the sanity of some folk, given what they buy.

If you do eventually buy something, it'll be the most nerve-wracking test drive ever. It's a great trip, thoroughlly recommended.

[AnthonyG]

Go to a few sales and get a feel for it before you actually want/need to buy anything. Also always budget for repairs/servicing on anything you buy.

 

At BCA/Manheim some of the newer stuff gets a one hour (or similar very short length of time) 'warranty', where if the car is stated 'with no major faults' and then the gearbox doesn't actually go into reverse or something, you can cancel the sale. This doesn't mean any sort of trial or road test, but you can usually punt it around the yard. Anything over about 5 years old will always be strictly 'sold as seen'. Also this is something only the larger auction houses/chains do.

 

Generally if a car starts, ticks over OK, goes into gear, can move back and forth under it's own power and survives for 5 mins running without HGF, then it has no major faults - warning lights staying on etc don't count.

 

As Cavette says - it's a gamble but also a bit of a laugh. Ex lease and dealer part-exchanges can be very good buys, avoid anything obviously tarted up by an amateur - tyre/bumpers with silicone 'shine' is a usual giveaway.

[Pillock]

Ok, tootled up after work - given it's so close as to be visible it seemed rude not to. Couldn't move for stereotypes - if I ever need to shoot a major action movie based in a car auction I'm going back. I swear there was a guy with a sheepskin coat on, only lacking the cigar due to the smoking laws. On the plus side, it's free to view, it's a bit of a laugh, the cheesy chips are great and I found a fiver in the carpark.

 

Lots of crap. As in LOTS - stuff that had been punted out to a dealer as partex having been crying out for MoT work or a service for months. Half the stuff going through had service or engine management lights on, one Megane was lit up like a christmas tree. '04 reg cars with scabby paintwork and missing alloys. An 03 Ka where I could see the shit welding on the sill from 20 yards. Every Megane that came through was a 1.5 dCI jobbie which sounds horrible both aurally, and in the "to live with" sense.

 

But the prices were good and there were some genuinely good looking cars. 04 MGZR 1.8 Steptronic for £825 ..... 53 Mondeo TDCI Ghia for £1750. T-reg X-type for £650. I'd go back in all honesty and consider buying, there were plenty of people even I could tell were newbies and they got a bit of slack of the shouty-man-with-the-microphone. Amusing in places too..... "Would the vendor of the S-plate Vectra please come to talk to us about realistic reserve prices, we deal with a lot of things here bit miracles aren't on the list" after it failed to sell for £700.....

[eddyramrod]

Ahhhhhhhhhhh auctions... I haven't visited one for years, but I've had a couple of cars from them. Last time was 1995, I think, when I went to Chorley a few times looking for something dirt-cheap for work. A blue B-reg Alpine zipped past for about 25 notes before I even realised the auctioneer had finished with it! Shame, if I'd been more awake I'd have had a crack at that. There was a grey Capri that went round a couple of times over the two or three weeks I visited. Apart from the colour I fancied it, but it went over budget, like most things. In the end I strolled past the flyboys on the approach road and came away with this...

...for 90 quid! It wasn't a bad old tool, and after several Ladas, at least now I can say I had a Skoda too.

Before Chorley I used to visit Ormskirk, which was something of a scrapyard and closed down in the late 80s (I think).

 

There's supposed to be a new car-auction opening near Paphos Airport; first sale date is this Saturday (16th) but as it's my birthday I don't think I'll be there. More likely to be out-and-about in the Granada! Anyway I haven't got any car-buying money at the moment...