Anyone Know About Municipal Auctions?

"Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection" (itsalwayssteve) 04/06/2018 at 09:52 • Filed to: auction, My wife will not be amused

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Because I have bids in for 3 cars. My wife’s close friend is broke and the transmission just ground itself to pieces in her Suzuki Forenza. This led to her losing her job for absences, and stuff is bad in her house. We paid her power bill this month so she would have air conditioning and lights. She lives about an hour away, and it’s hard for us to see her and her son because we don’t have much time.

So I have about a grand in max bids on the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Rolling Stock auction.

All of the vehicles apparently run. If I win the auction for the Explorer, she’ll get the Cherokee. If I win all three, I’ll sell the Cherokee and the Uplander and give her the Malibu - unless she wants the Cherokee. But a Malibu with ~55k and city maintenance is likely to last a little longer than a Cherokee that’s 9 years older, has 200k more miles, and an unknown history.

Aaron M - MasoFiST > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 04/06/2018 at 09:57

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City vehicles are probably a better bet than police vehicles, but that depends a whole lot on the department.

Also, I wish Boston ran their municipal auctions in this way. There’s no online bidding, you basically need to show up in person.

E92M3 > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 04/06/2018 at 10:05

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Wow, you’re a good friend. I hope she appreciates you guys.

punkgoose17 > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 04/06/2018 at 10:05

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I don’t know anything, but I hope you win and it would be awesome if you could turn a profit on this too.

Long-Voyager > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 04/06/2018 at 10:19

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Wouldn’t it be cheaper to fix the car she already has than buy a vehicle that you know nothing about?

Not trying to be an ass, I just see people do this all the time: Trans fails in their car, so they scrap it, buy something else, only to find their new car has more issues than the one they just scrapped.

Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection > Long-Voyager 04/06/2018 at 10:23

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I’m bidding a max of $500 a vehicle. I might go a grand on the Explorer. I don’t have the mechanical knowhow or the tools to swap a transmission in a Japanese-branded, Korean-designed-and-built Chevy. Any shop around her or around here is going to want at least $12-1500 to put in a junkyard transmission, and even then it’s a Suzuki Forenza with ~180k miles. These cars were all owned by the City of Charlotte. This place hasn’t had a budget crisis in recent memory, so they are likely to be better maintained than any other craigslist cars we could find.

SmugAardvark > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 04/06/2018 at 10:28

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They seem to vary from place to place.

Locally, when they auction off vehicles, they do so with a very strict as-is clause. Beyond that, they only accept cash or certified bank checks as payment, and you are expected to arrange for your own towing off the lot within 48 hours. There is no expectation of getting the keys (or even necessarily a running vehicle).

With that said, I’ve seen some cars get sold for dirt cheap (relative to value) this way. It’s probably how I will acquire my next LeMons car when the time comes.

BigBlock440 > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 04/06/2018 at 10:34

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We paid her power bill this month so she would have air conditioning and lights.

Wow, AC already? It’s still snowing here. As for the auction, no idea, good luck.

Meatcoma > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 04/06/2018 at 11:55

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They are relatively low until just before closing, then every flipper within 100 miles it seems blows the bid out of the water. Occasionally you can get a deal on something that looks like it’s more trouble than it’s worth though.

Long-Voyager > Steve is equipped with Electronic Fool Injection 04/06/2018 at 12:25

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I hope they end up decent.

Good luck.