2006 Turbo S for $2,300
01-21-2019, 12:41 PM
#16
Getting the auction history of a car is usually the most important thing after the pictures. Never trust anything else.
For a lot of the 'scam' listings what will happen is a car gets totaled, insurance sends it off to the auction - at this point the car looks like it did immediately following the accident. Usually the car will look like a mess, body panels are often left off by whatever body shop did the accident inspection and any reasonable buyer will look at it and think "Who would buy that? It'll never be repairable and probably not even worth it for parts". What happens next is auction flippers will buy the car, they will dress it up a bit. For example if body panels are hanging off, they'll reattach them, they'll try to straighten out panels, clean the car etc. Whatever they can do to make the car look better in the pictures for little to no money. If they reattach bumpers that had come off, suddenly the mangled frame rails are no longer visible in the pictures.. Things like that. At this point they will re-list the car and it will show up as a 'Third Party' sale now and sell for significantly more.
The best way to avoid getting screwed over by auction flippers is to find the previous auction history of the car. Ideally you'll find the original insurance auction with the original pictures that give you a much better idea of what happened. Other times you'll just find rejected winning bids. The car in this post for example had a number of them for around a thousand less than the asking price. That suggests to me that the professional salvage buyers are seeing enough red flags either in the pictures or because they saw the vehicle in person to not even commit $2300.
For a lot of the 'scam' listings what will happen is a car gets totaled, insurance sends it off to the auction - at this point the car looks like it did immediately following the accident. Usually the car will look like a mess, body panels are often left off by whatever body shop did the accident inspection and any reasonable buyer will look at it and think "Who would buy that? It'll never be repairable and probably not even worth it for parts". What happens next is auction flippers will buy the car, they will dress it up a bit. For example if body panels are hanging off, they'll reattach them, they'll try to straighten out panels, clean the car etc. Whatever they can do to make the car look better in the pictures for little to no money. If they reattach bumpers that had come off, suddenly the mangled frame rails are no longer visible in the pictures.. Things like that. At this point they will re-list the car and it will show up as a 'Third Party' sale now and sell for significantly more.
The best way to avoid getting screwed over by auction flippers is to find the previous auction history of the car. Ideally you'll find the original insurance auction with the original pictures that give you a much better idea of what happened. Other times you'll just find rejected winning bids. The car in this post for example had a number of them for around a thousand less than the asking price. That suggests to me that the professional salvage buyers are seeing enough red flags either in the pictures or because they saw the vehicle in person to not even commit $2300.
What website do you use to get this information? I usually just buy from Copart locally but will soon be starting to branch out since I want to start a business parting out cars and hopefully I can concentrate on Porsches and Cayennes.
Thanks!
01-22-2019, 12:42 PM
#20
There are a few different sites. My recommendation would be to first Google the VIN. You can often find a lot of good information from that for free. Second step is some paid sites. I've sent you a pm with one I've had some luck with but they're all generally hit or miss so I don't want to post it here and lead someone to losing money.
