How to buy vehicles at a police impound auction

When you visit a used car lot, they may tell you it came from the "Auction" but what auction did it really come from? Cars, trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles can be cheaply purchased from impound auctions. I will show you the ins and outs of buying cars this way.

Instructions

1

Do your homework first, most impound lots will list the vehicles to be sold online a week or two before the sale. Some lots will even tell why the vehicle was towed. I will give a couple of links in resources to a couple of local impound lots. Research locally where the nearest impound lots are and when the auctions take place, call the local police department or sheriff's office.

2

Now that you have your list of cars. Visit http://www.kbb.com/ or http://www.nada.com/ to research what the potential resale (or value) of this car would be. Write this info down on your list of cars high value/ and low value. This is a ball park figure you will use when you view the cars before the auction. This also helps determine how much to bid, I usually will never go above half of the low resale value. You have your list with prices on it, you're ready for the sale day!

3

It's the day of the auction, you show up early with your tools, your 12 volt tire inflater. Your jumper cables, extra engine oil, antifreeze, tow rope and a dozen other things you might need. Pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches, etc that will be needed to either make it run or at the least towable enough to get home for further diagnostics. Borrowing a dolley trailer is another way to get vehicles home.

4

First you get your bidding number from the office, then it's time to go inspect the vehicles prior to the auction. Most lots will let you come in two hours early to look over the cars. The ones with lots of beer cans were probably a DWI tow. Some look like they were stolen and driven through a police chase, if the frame or undercarriage looks bent, you don't want it. Pull the engine oil dipstick and look to see if it's full and note the color of the oil, clean or black is usually ok. No oil means there could be mechanical problems, look under the car and see if there is a hole in the bottom of the engine or transmission. Check the radiator and see if it is full of antifreeze and the color of it. If the coolant is green or orange it is probably ok. Grab the belts or the front pulley and see if you can turn the engine, you may or may not be abler to do this. A wrench may be needed to check to see if the engine rotates, it's a good thing if it does, a really bad thing if it doesn't. I usually do a quick visual inspection of the cars and then go back to the ones that I liked the best. Looking at the inside of a car tells a lot about the previous owner and how they cared for it.

5

The bidding begins, don't get caught up in the bidding process and pay a lot more for a car than you wanted to. Pick a number before you begin and stick to it, you will be bidding against folks that want to part that car out and make quick cash out of it. Bid only what you can afford and remember this car will most likely need repairs, buying a car at the auction is a crapshoot for the most part, you may get an excellent car for next to nothing and resell it for a lot of cash or you might get something that will be headed for the boneyard because the engine is blown up.

6

Getting it started if possible, if you have keys and a good battery. I have seen cars fire up and drive off with no known problems and I have seen them towed away, mostly the latter. Have a plan in place to get the car home and a place to work on it when you get there. It's a lot of fun, especially when you are fixing up a car for a teen driver and you don't want to put out a lot of money.