Auctions, shocking decline

benneh

benneh

benneh

Soldato
Joined
9 Apr 2004
Posts
9,176
Location
Nr. brumijum
I went to the auction today (Walsall in the mids) on a bit of a spur of the moment thing, have a look and a bad cup of coffee, glass's guide in hand :D.

Anyway, I was totally shocked, there must have been no more than 300 cars, and it was over and done by 6pm. 5-6 years ago there would be a constant stream of cars from 11am to 9pm, with lots of people bidding, real hustle and bustle, today there were just a core handful of bidders and the rest were either buying real cheap tat or buying privately, quite depressing. I couldn't resist and ended up with a 206 :D, it was just so cheap!, pistonheads here I come hehe. But aye, a depressing state of affairs..
 
2003 1.4 verve, a/c, alloys, blah blah, 83k with fsh, £1800 inc fees. It's surprisingly clean, I can't find a single scratch on it. Totally original it seems. I'll probably chuck it up for £2595 and see what happens. Tbh I'll use it until it sells. Not my kind of car at-all, I was looking for a car for myself, the only thing that interested me was a 535i sport, was quite nice, alas the engine management light was on and it sounded a bit rough..
 
Last edited:
It's taxed and MOT'd, which means I can use it, and the cheapest 1.4 2003 206 I can find on pistonheads is £3,390, ebay - £2,495.00 (zero feedback and no photos etc). Glass's trade - £2300 - retail £3375. Not the cheapest thing in the world, but I'll take £2400, I paid £1800, and I have a car (which I've been without because of a knackered e36) to use in the mean time. I think £1800 is reasonable. It's not the deal of the century, but it's still fairly cheap considering the increase in values at the auctions, imo anyway.
 
I went to Walsall auction yesterday and found the cars to be over priced and quite a bit of spoof bidding from the auctioneer.
 
Locky said:
I went to Walsall auction yesterday and found the cars to be over priced and quite a bit of spoof bidding from the auctioneer.
Click to expand...

You know what, my dad said that (he was a car trader for quite a while, about 10 years ago), well he said "He's bidding off the wall", which I later found out meant counting fake bids, and I think he was, that's ****ing dodgy as anything.. But yah it was an expensive day at the auction for sure.
 
He was 100% bouncing the bids off the wall, you can tell when he's doing it when no one is interested in the car and then all of a sudden the car is Provisionally sold. That silver 7 series BMW had my eye on it but it went for silly money.
 
The prices of executive metal at auction are well down at the moment.
My 2005 Lexus GS430 went for £9500 apparantly. That's on 30k miles with a FSH. Book on it is £15k
 
hmmm I might have to get myself to an auction one of these days.
I've been buying cars with blown HG's etc and doing the work myself on and off over the past few years for a bit of extra cash.
Are there realy bargains to be had with the potential of a reasnoble profit out there for somebody with a good chunk of savings?
 
Certainly, imo anyway. It's fairly unpredictable, there were a few fairly nice older cars that went through with no interest whatsoever.

Locky, I had a look around that 7 series too, looked rather nice, but yup, silly money. Did you see that Audi TT?, went for under 4k iirc, complete bag of nails.
 
Rilot said:
The prices of executive metal at auction are well down at the moment.
My 2005 Lexus GS430 went for £9500 apparantly. That's on 30k miles with a FSH. Book on it is £15k
Click to expand...

I'm just waiting for the right car to turn up at our local. Had a look at an E39 535i tonight but it had Traction control and ABS lights that stayed on so I left it. Unfortunately we only seem to get 1 or 2 execs per night go through so it could take a while :p
 
Brave mine buying a 206 for resale. They are cheap for a reason - nightmares, and of course as a trader you are liable for anything found wrong with it within the first few months of ownership unless you can prove it wasn't faulty at the time of sale, which of course is virtually impossible. One fault and your profit margin is history. More than one fault, and remember its a 206...
 
kaiowas said:
I'm just waiting for the right car to turn up at our local. Had a look at an E39 535i tonight but it had Traction control and ABS lights that stayed on so I left it. Unfortunately we only seem to get 1 or 2 execs per night go through so it could take a while :p
Click to expand...

Don't buy an older E39 from auction, you need to test drive it or you'll end up with one that needs a £1500 suspension refresh to drive properly. They are utter pains as cheap cars.
 
I'm assuming that's £1500 at "throw at the dealer" prices though? I'll be doing any mechanical work myself so the main things I'm really being wary of are Nikasil engines and ropey auto boxes as these are things I don't expect to be able to sort myself economically.
 
If you can do all the work yourself, and you're looking at a worst case where all springs, dampers, bushes and arms need replacing, you're going to be in the region of £800 in parts.

However, I do agree with Fox. I drove a lot of E39s before I bought my current 540i6. Some were absolutely shocking and had one wheel in the scrappers.
Also, it's not just the suspension you need to watch on E39s. They will idle beautifully when knackered but as soon as you drive them all the issues show up, like a dodgy MAF, abs wheelspeed sensors, crank breather, vanos seals, rocker gaskets, coil packs, cam position sensors etc etc.
After my experience of buing a cheap E39, I would NEVER buy one without an extensive test drive.
In the £2000 bracket, 9/10 are wrecks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom