Since my car died and I wasn’t about to take the chance of an esculated maintenance we had to get a new car. Looking through the car trader mag last week and dreaming that I could afford a Dodge Magnum I found a block with a 2004 Jetta for “$2,500 that had to sell this week”, I later figured out it was an ad of sorts for the LA and Orange County Auto Auctions. I figured I’d have to check it out.

My dad and I arrived at 9:30 planning to look the cars over and hopefully find a suitable ride to bid on at noon. Online they list a ton of cars in actuality we finished looking at all the cars in an hour. Turned out all the cars where retailed extremely high (a little over BB) and all the cars had so many miles. I had hoped for a 8K car with 30K, but nothing was even close to that on either ends. What a disappointment. Soon after my dad picked up on a car selling before the live auction, strange indeed. Turns out you can offer to buy the car before the live auction and what really got us pepped up was the offers could be well below “retail value”, about 1/3 less.

We started our trek again around the small lot and found the hidden reserve prices which were described as the reserve for the auction and that the cars wouldn’t be sold if they didn’t meet that reserve and “the cars always go over reserve in the live auction”. Thinking this wasn’t a pitch we offered on the Volvo that I bypassed early for the miles and price, I asked half of their “retail value”. We went into a building were the guy had to ask the manager, he came back with “we can’t go any less then 6.9″, screw that we got up and left. Hoping the auction wasn’t what the salesman described we stayed.

The auction started at 12:30 and went by so fast. 15 minutes after starting the Volvo pulled up to all the bidders and it was on. I bid in the beginning and then started again when it slowed around 1/3 actually BB, bidding went back and forth, 15 seconds later the spotter was still pointing at me, it passed like minutes but all a blur. It suddenly ended at 1/2 BB, 1/3 their suggested retail…I WON!!!

What an experience. I really think I got a great deal and I hope the car lasts at least 3-5 years while keeping us safe, it is a volvo after all.

I’d recommend the auto auction to anyone, it was pretty sweet. Just don’t listen to the sales guys, it’s pretty much a dealership before the auction. And make sure to check everything about a car, you don’t want any surprises (I have a few already). I couldn’t recommend a strategy, what a shame to want more then one car, you’d probably regret buying the first one every time.

The problems: you can’t test drive the cars, you can just turn them on and rev them like crazy; already mentioned, multiple cars that you want to bid on–once you win a car they pull you out of it; the time it takes to buy the car takes forever, it took a few hours to get out of there after the win.

What’s next for my ride:

• The alignment (hopefully the 3-month warranty will cover it)
• Gas door needs a $5 plastic piece replaced
• Driver side door has a small gap and the wind on the freeway makes it real loud and noticeable (nothing a new seal wont fix)
• Car stereo. Nice, I get a new one because this one wont work (some security thing that I could figure out but I rather not since I deserve at least what I had before ;])
• Window tinting
• 20″ rims, just kidding

All small fixes that wont cost much at all.