Anyone bought a car at auction over here? I'm looking at getting an ex-gov car from somewhere in Bris. Good idea or no?

Went to a couple of ex-gov car auctions here in Perth when we first arrived - if the right car had come up we would have bought. Nearly died from the exhaust fumes though! Seems like a sensible way to buy.

We bought our car at the government auction in Adelaide. We saved ourselves around $5000 off the forecourt price at the local Toyota dealer (we happened to be sitting behind their manager!).

The car was 2 years old and still had 1 year's warranty. We've had no problems in the past year. Several dealers did minor repairs covered by the warranty, without any hassle.

Tips:




· Go a couple of times to get the hang of it.



· We sat behind 2 regulars (probably car dealers). That way the auctioneer always looked in our direction.



· Don't get to fixated on a single car, try and stick to a range we have Toyota Camry, 5 came up in the auction we were at - so we were able to pick and choose a little.



· You get to see the log books of all the cars, check that these are complete.



· Ask as many questions of the people there as possible. We got chatting to the AA guy who had done a lot of the vehicle inspections, he gave us some insider info on the bangers.



· If you think it has been trashed, it probably will have been. The social workers tended to treat the cars better than the on call emergency service, for example.



· Try to bid on the second hammer fall if possible. That way you will push up the bid by one increment, around $200. We saw 5 bidders bid at the same time, the auctioneer rattled around the room, and suddenly one $200 bid had increased by $1000 :scared:


Good luck, if you want a bog standard saloon type car then we found it to be a good experience.

http://www.pickles.com.au/