Capital Auto Auction buying advice DC NH PA MD ( How to buy a $2500 Volvo )

[foggydogg]

Thanks, these are great tips. Interesting that I might be able to not take title until evaluating the car. I wonder how long I could leave it in limbo.

Getting a quote from a local hauler seems easier than renting a trailer and tow vehicle, loading it myself, worrying about external brake lights, etc.

at Capital, it says either that, or 'starts', which is in-house code for it runs but not a likely candidate for driving it off the lot

Thanks, that helps. The garage where I work on cars is 30 mins from my home, so I need a car which drives that far. Purchasing from auction may be higher risk than I thought. I'll have to consider my options.

Looks like you own it ?
It looks like it was somebodies' car, as opposed to being abandoned in an apartment parking lot or some such. Estate sales following years of poor storage can be a challenge too. As long as there aren't any big surprises, I think it was well-bought. As the Doctor mentioned, even if there are a few high value wear items at the end of their life, you won't be in too deep, considering how rare it is - and the fact that it's what you actually wanted.

[foggydogg]

Thanks, these are great tips. Interesting that I might be able to not take title until evaluating the car. I wonder how long I could leave it in limbo.

Getting a quote from a local hauler seems easier than renting a trailer and tow vehicle, loading it myself, worrying about external brake lights, etc.

at Capital, it says either that, or 'starts', which is in-house code for it runs but not a likely candidate for driving it off the lot

Thanks, that helps. The garage where I work on cars is 30 mins from my home, so I need a car which drives that far. Purchasing from auction may be higher risk than I thought. I'll have to consider my options.

According to one of the threads on SwedeSpeed, you will have ( once you pick it up ) one of 19 Nautic Blue T5Ms

[foggydogg]

"Volvo's Reply to T5m Production#'s

Thank you for taking the time to contact us at Volvo.

For (Imports from mid 1998 to mid 1999) We built 15,610 V70's.
Of these 517 were T5, of that 101 were T5 with Manual Trans.

Color Break out of the T5 w/ manual trans:

019 Black Paint 16
189 White Paint 15
412 Blue-Green Mt 7
417 Nautic Blue Mt 19
419 Pewter Slvr Mt 7
421 Emer Green Met 11
426 Mystic Slvr Mt 14
427 Graph Grey Mt 0
440 Desert Wind Mt 4
441 Laser Blue Met 7
601 Red Paint 1

*Most T5ms were built in 1998. I'm not certain but I've heard less than 25 were built in1999 and only 1-2 built in 2000."

[matthew1]

Crazy, here's the one 601 red: https://www.matthewsvolvosite.com/1998- ... -for-sale/ That post is from 2016.

[FireFox31]

I did win the auction. Thanks to everyone here for their advice. Here's what I learned so it may help others in the future. These observations came from Capital in Manchester, NH but may be true of other auction companies.

1. and 2. You can't go see the cars before bidding. You certainly can't drive them before buying. Evaluate them by carefully reviewing pictures. Hopefully they included a video of the engine running for you to hear.


3. A Carfax can help. It shows how many owners the car had and how long each person owned it (which may reveal a long term owner who cared for it). It shows where some services were performed, specifically at dealerships. It shows the mileage when the car was registered each year, revealing periods of time when the car was sitting or getting excessive use. It shows some accidents, but I've known minor accidents which got excluded. In my case, the Carfax had exceptionally good things to say about the car, increasing my conviction to buy it.


4. To inform your reasonable max bid, check eBay Motors sales. Unlike Bring A Trailer and Cars And Bids, eBay has lower quality cars from potentially lower quality sellers. These prices are more in line with the lowest quality cars being sold at auction. Also consider auction house fees (should be on their website) and delivery costs.


5. I love to try and maximize my advantage when bidding so here's what I tried. Capital uses proxy bidding where you enter your max but the system bids on your behalf only one bid higher than the current max, automatically outbidding any new bids. You can set proxy bids up until the moment the car goes up for live auction. To find when your car goes live, check the "run list", the order in which the cars is sold (which Capital posted the night before auction day).

I prefer to bid strong as late as possible. This minimizes the time other bidders get to consider and respond to my bid. Other bidders may not be available during live auction, not able to respond to my last minute bid. Thus, I entered my proxy bid 7 minutes before the live auction started (leaving me time to recover if there was an error).

I feel that bidding in real time during the final moments causes some people to get excited and bid more than they planned. They may feel that each bid increase is small compared to the current price, thus exceed their maximum with "just one more bid". I don't want to get caught up in that and I don't want others to do so, driving the price up. I set a strong proxy bid to remove my emotions and let the system place immediate counters to any bidders, discouraging them.

Bidding is FAST for these car auctions, with each car selling in under a minute. Mine lasted 20 seconds, during which time three bidders each placed two bids (all immediately increased by my high proxy bid). There's risk in trying to bid during live auction. You could easily miss it, for one. Also, between the time in which you decide to click the "bid" button and when you actually do, the price may increase, thus you placed a bid higher than you expected. Yes, it's that fast.


6. As others said, towing is a great way to get the car home. AAA may require it be registered to you and have plates before they'll utilize one of your annual tows. Paying a local tow company is a safe bet if you're not going to register it. Towing it yourself requires caution, but it may be the cheapest option yet.

If you're lucky, the car runs and can be driven home. I think that the price for me to get plates and register the car for the remainder of the year is less than a tow, and I need the plates and reg anyway. Even better, ask about getting your own temporary registration and plates if you plan to limp the car home, then work on it for a while before paying for full registration. In NH, temporary plates are only $10! Call the auction house and DMV to ensure this is an option.

You may not be able to drive or even evaluate the car until it is paid for. After it's paid, it may need to be removed from the auction lot by the end of the day. Since you can't know if it drives until the day it must be gone, work with a tow company to see if they'll schedule you for your pickup day but let you cancel at the last minute if it drives.

My plan is to drive to the auction house, pay for the car, then evaluate its potential to drive home by checking its fluids and driving it around the block. If it looks good, I will move my daily driver to a nearby parking lot (not the auction lot), drive the auction car home, then get a Lyft ride back to where my daily driver is parked to drive it home. If I took a Lyft ride to the auction lot and the car won't run, I'd need a ride back home, wasting time and money. I will also try to have a tow driver scheduled for the afternoon, able to help but also ok if I must cancel.


Be sure to ask the auction house about their timeline for paying and picking up a vehicle. At Capital Manchester, after a Sat auction, you must pay by Wed and pick up by Fri. I got a little squeezed for time since I bought it during a holiday week. I've only got three days to pay and remove it before Thanksgiving while buyers on a typical week have five. This required me to pay with a costly wire transfer instead of casually depositing a personal check into their bank account, try to get seen by DMV (for temp plates) as a walk-in instead of getting an appointment in advance, and hope a tow is available on the busiest travel days of the year.

I'm not done with this auction purchase yet, but I feel like I've set myself up for a smooth transaction. Then I have to hope the car is good and my calculated risk pays off. If you're willing to do some work and take big risks, auction buying could work for you.

[abscate]

What’s an awesome grab!

Utility of a wagon, a daily driver you can sAve gas under 3000 rpm, fun shifting gears, and zoom zoom zoom with a HPT when you bang down into third...


...and it’s 417 Nautical Blue

[foggydogg]

In my last buy, I had my bank cut a cashiers' check and took that to the bank Capital uses and made a direct deposit to their account. It may need a phone call first for a new buyer; in my case I just emailed the DC manager. They emailed the gate pass within an hour (needed to remove the car from the lot.) NH may be different.
Might not hurt to pass a $5 bill to the lot guy.
Remember you need a battery.
The Adventure begins.

[volvolugnut]

Friefox31
Thanks for the DETAILed review of online auction process.

I hope you got a good one. HPT can be fun.
volvolugnut

[FireFox31]

In my last buy, I had my bank cut a cashiers' check and took that to the bank Capital uses and made a direct deposit to their account.

In NH, I could have done that or deposited a personal check into their account at one of their bank's branches. Problem was, Capital said both personal and cashiers' check would take a few days to clear. Odd, I thought a cashiers' check was good as cash. This method works when you have a week to get the car (before storage fees start) but I only have three days before Thanksgiving. I chose to do a same day wire; it was fast and I could do it from my desk. I could have deposited cash into their account or handed it to them in person but I want some amount of paper trail for the transaction.

[BlackBart]

Maybe this was answered earlier, but why does an undamaged, drivable car end up at auction?