I’m in the market for a newish car, but the car that’s exactly what I need (Honda CR/V) is way too expensive for me. What are my chances of getting a decent car at a police auction? Is it safe to say I’d get a lemon? What prices would I expect to pay? Should this be in IMHO?
Thanks.
You chances of getting a decent car at an auction are slim and here’s why.
Did you ever see those ads on TV where the guy picks up a brand new car at an auction for $100.00 and then they say “So can you.” Well these commericals aren’t lying, those auctions and police auctions and the like do exist and they are legit.
But like everything here’s the catch.
I worked at a Days Inn in the late 80s, we were a few blocks south of the weekly auctions for cars. This auction was held on Wednesdays. Every Tuesday night our hotel was sold out. Why? Because car dealers were filling the rooms.
These car dealers came to Chicago from as far south as Alabama and as far west as Omaha and as far east as New York City.
Not only did they come but they came with these huge empty car carriers, the kind that hold 6 or 8 cars. And when they left our hotel, those car carriers were full of cars.
So do you see what I’m saying, while the auctions are 100% legit, you’re going to be competing with dealers who buy and sell cars for a living. Now this doesn’t mean your not gonna win, but realistically any car that is sellable is going to be bid up by a dealer.
Those dealers know what they can resell it for. So your chance of getting a deal on it isn’t very good, 'cause if the car is any good or can be fixed up.
So go to the auctions but do your research and be well prepared to compete with people who buy and resell cars for a living. It’s do-able but not easy
The other thing to consider is that police cars (assuming this is an auction of former police cars and not of seized property) are, as I understand it, driven rather hard and tend to have far, far more actual wear on the engines than their mileage would suggest due to the fact that cops don’t usually turn off the engine. My source for this is Car Talk, FWIW.
Do your homework.
Get the list of cars to be auctioned as soon as they release it and pick out the ones you’d be interested in. Go online and find out how much they’re selling for. Also get the info for similar cars that will be sold before the one’s you’re interested in so you can get a feel for the prices before they get to the one(s) you want.
The worst case that you should find yourself in is that you’ll spend slightly more than the dealer would have, but less than you would have paid the dealer.
And beware of auction fever
I got my current SUV at auction but I needed to have a family friend that was a dealer do the actual bidding for me. I only had about 2 hours to look over hundreds of vehicles, pick out the ones I was interested in, and do a quick test drive around the giant lot. You couldn’t take them on the actual road or anything like that. I picked one, set an upper limit bid with my dealer friend and won it. The biggest catch is that you may have to pay for the vehicle in cash or the equivalent on the spot or within a few hours. There is no financing or anything like that. That is why the whole system is so much easier for dealers than generally consumers. I saved lots of money and have had it for 6 years now but the starter failed a few days after I got it. It wasn’t an expensive fix but it could have been major engine or transmission failure and there is no warranty for auction vehicles.
Back in 97 we heard about an auction being held at a smallish town near ours, and lucked out in getting to go see the offered vehicles. They announced the auction 1 week before it happened in really small print in the local free paper 
We bought an 87 [I think] maroon dodge caravan [I think maroon was the default color for caravans that year … there were so freaking many on the road!] for $200 and whatever the state nicked us for sales and auto tax and registration, probably another $100 tops. Only thing wrong with it was a part of the headliner was sliced to get to the drugs someone hid up there. We got a letter from teh town stating that it had been seized for carrying drugs, then we had the sub bases drug dog sniff it and confirm that there were no more drugs in it, and got base security to make a note that it had previously been seized in a drug raid just in case it popped the puppy on a random screening at some time in the future on the advice of one of the base JAG officers.
That minivan lasted beautifully for about 5 years. Stupid idiot on the highway decided to pull into mrAru’s right side rear and pushed him into the guard rail and totalled it out :mad:
If you do shop for a seized car, make sure it isnt being held at an auction house, but at a small town cop shop … fewer dealers show up
I bought a couple police seizure cars back in the early 90’s. The first was a Chevy Cavalier convertible, paid $320 for it. It was about 6 years old and had only 31,000 miles on it. According to the paper work that came with it, it was siezed by US Marshalls at the US/Canadien border in Blaine. I fixed a few problems with it then sold it for $1000 to a neighbor. He drove it for a few years then parked it, it is still sitting in his driveway.
The second car was a 1970 Olds Custlass Vista Cruiser wagon. The car was in great shape and ran like a top. It cost me $850 and was just listed as a police forfeiture. My step daughter drove it for about 9 months till someone backed out of a driveway in front of her. His insurance totalled the car. The one downside of buying this car was it did not come with a set of keys, I had to pay a locksmith (who just happened to have a little shop inside the auction house) $135 to make a set of keys.
As long as you don’t mind a few blood stains and traces of coke residue, you might get a discount.
An unexpected surprise at police auctions is when the vehicle contains some property that has potential value. A couple examples: First, A friend of mine bought a car at a police auction and the rear trunk was packed full of Magic: The Gathering cards. After sorting them out, he made about $600 selling them to the local card shop. Second, a customer of mine bought a car from a surplus government auction. Inside the car was a brand new two-way radio (car had come from law enforcement) worth about 3 times the cost of the car at the auction.
My WAG is that you could get a good deal on a car that LOOKS like crap but is mechanically sound.
Most dealers are not going want to get a car that they cant easily make look nice, so they are not going to bid up the price on something like that.
Wouldn’t it be rather easy then? Car dealers have to make a margin on the cars so they need to bid under market rate. Just find a dealer who looks like they know what they’re talking about and bid $100 more than them.
In effect, what you’re doing is cutting out the middle man.
How do you find these auctions anyway? Do they sell anything other than cars?
On a related note while I’m here, my brother picked up a house in Philadelphia for $5000 in one of those foreclosure-or-tax-seizure sales. The catch is that he has had to completely gut the thing (he’s a plumber/general contractor, so it’s been rebuilt for roughly the cost of materials), and it’s in a not great (though not horrible) neighborhood. There was so much garbage in the backyard that you could walk from the house to the far end without ever touching the ground. But now he and my sister-in-law will shortly be moving into a very nice house that’s mortgage free for almost nothing.