Car auctions

I had a good experience with eBay...

Tell me more, John...

I put my car on eBay, somebody bought it and collected it on a truck.

Although that said, I found this informative:

http://www.rac.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?74-Ebay-or-Autotrader

And then there's:

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/

Right...

Okay, we have a auction house near Croydon and one at Blackbush. Both are within half hour ride. Heard some horror stories about cars bought at auction and some real successes.

Is it worth the trouble?

Had the cambelt changed a couple of weeks ago but the garage told me a suspension bar is showing wear, plus the windscreen wipers only work on full speed. If I get all those repaired it'll cost in the region of £1,000 (incl. the belt) and the car is only worth about £600-£800. It's a shame because the engine is still very sound.

Little'un wants a convertable but most aren't pratical, the possible exception being a Audi A4 convertable: My bro has one and they have a huge boot... 

Ooo... shiney. Sadly out of my budget.

If you live close to any BCA sites it may be worth following their advice by going to an auction to watch before taking part

http://www.british-car-auctions.co.uk/

You may just grab yourself a bargain

Blackbush is a BCA site. Cheers.

Hi PP,

I work for a main dealer and we send a lot of our p/x to the auctions, normally the ones that are a bit ropey, or may have a problem, the gooduns we sell on again.

Would recomend you need to know what you are looking at when there or you could get stung.

Not that there is not the odd bargain to be had of course, but would you know one from the other ?

Just my opinion of course.

Depends on what you call ropey. Some may call my Alfa ropey, but it's still the most exciting car I've driven below silly money (and still looks cracking).

You're right, a modicum of knowledge will be beneficial, the same principals as buying any s/hand vehicle. My main concern about auctions is you can't hear the engine prior to the start of the auction, and few have any history.

I have been to a few auctions to try and buy a car although not for a good few years, never managed to buy one though. You can listen to the cars starting up when they drive them into the auction, you just need to wait outside (or inside) by the car. You should have plenty of time to listen to the car when they que up to drive them into the bidding area before making your way to bid. There were alot of really rough cars there though and the good ones tend to get many bidders so hard to grab a bargain.

One of the auction houses I went to specialised in ex fleet cars, these tend to be in pretty good condition and normally come with a full dealer service history. Downside is there were alot of dealers there bidding on the cars with many cars going for more than a simillar spec private sale on autotrader etc. The cars I was interested in went for way over my budget, to many interested parties.

My last three cars have all been bought via autotrader (private sales) and I find this a safer bet than auctions/ebay. The main bonus being that you can have a proper look around the car and a decent test drive before you make an offer as well as checking all the paperwork etc. If the seller is genuine they shouldn't mind you getting the car inspected if you are not to savvy with cars.

My current car (mondeo) was 150 miles away from me but by talking to the seller I asked if I could have first refusal, didn't fancy driving all that way only to find someone had beaten me to it. The seller told me the condition of the car, service history and that there were no faults with it and had a geniune reason for selling the car. The car was in the right spec, mileage and price that I was looking at so agreed I would buy it as long as the condition of the car was as described and I was happy after the test drive.

When I arrived to view the car the owners house was in a very nice area and he had an almost new go faster Audi convertible sitting in the drive. A good clue that car will have been looked after as both the house and the Audi were spotless, the couple both had managerial jobs as well so more than likely the car will have been looked after properly. My gut instict told me the car was good after talking with the owner and test driving it, a full service history was a bonus as well. Managed to knock £200 off the price as the tax was almost up and it was due a service in a few months. I really looked for things to knock the price down further but the car was as described over the phone.

The reason they were selling the car was his girlfriend was moving into his house and as this was much closer to work than her house she was after a much smaller car. I have bought a car before without listening to that little voice in my head saying no, turns out I should of listened as that car cost me a fortune over the years I owned it. Heart over head decision  

I also used car text check, it only costs £3 and you recieve a text back with the details within a few seconds. You can then compare this with the paperwork as well as finding out if the car has ever been stolen or accident damaged. For £3 its a no brainer.

Another good point about autotrader is if you check for a certain model in your price range over say two or three weeks the dodgy or overpriced cars will still be listed. The genuine cars at the right price will get snapped up very quickly, I hate to think how many times I rang up only to find the car had been sold or was sold before I could look at it. Some cars were even relisted a week or two after being sold by a different seller, handy to weed out the duffers if you keep an eye on the website.

Sorry my previous post goes on a bit but another good site to check is Honest John (has a column in The Telegraph as well). Check out the car reviews for the cars you are interested in buying and it will tell you the good/bad points plus any recall info and common faults/issues to look out for when looking at a car.

I was looking at buying either a Mondeo or a 3 series diesel but after reading about the potential issues and repair costs involved for the 3 series I knocked that off my list.

Appreciate you input, Spice. Cheers.

Today I had a test drive of a Audi A4 Convertible 2.0 litre on a (57) plate. It drives absolutely beautifully. It has all the bells and whistles, including leather interior and heated seats. The only real disappointment was its performance. Given that it only had 30,000 miles on the clock, it didn't feel as peppy as my Alpha (1800), which has done 97,500 miles.

Back to square one in effect.

The trouble with new cars is they tend to get heavier and heavier with each new model. Better crash protection and more and more kit as standard compared with older cars bulks up the weight of the car no end. Would imagine the convertible weighs more than a normal A4 as it would have extra bracing to compensate for the lack of a proper roof.

My old Reno19 16v was much quicker than my 320i BMW and much more economical, despite being about 30bhp down. Had to drive the beemer like a saint to get 30mpg where as the Reno would get around 40ish with a erm enthusiastic driving style. A bit of swings and roundabouts though as the beemer didn't used to drain my bank account on a regular basis in repair costs.