Question by : how much cheaper can you get a car at police/public auto auctions?
m looking to buy a newerish honda accord, toyota camry, or nissan altima or maxima. anyone who has experiences with this stuff... how much cheaper are the cars and i heard youre not aloud to turn on the engine so could you get totally screwed over ie a car that doesnt run.

Best answer:

Answer by Steve
What you are referring to as the police auction would probably be the impound auction where vehicles impounded by the police are sold to the high bidder. These usually are cars that broke down for some reason and got impounded. Most are junkers and have major problems. If the cars were any good they would have been reclaimed by their owners. Junk yards send buyers to these auctions to buy merchandise for their junk yard.

The public auction is just a way for car dealers to resell used cars that they bought at the dealer auction. They are not giving anything away and there will be shill buyers in the crowd to drive up the prices or the auctioneers will act like they have bids that really are not there. You will not get a test drive and for sure will get screwed. They usually buy accident cars, high milers and anything that looks good at a distance.

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Question by TheKingofVTEC: Are government auto auctions scams?
Looking to buy a car for cheap. Found some auto auctions online, like government repossesion, seizures, etc... All of the cars are super cheap. Are these auctions fraud? Anybody bought one of these vehicles?

Best answer:

Answer by nick@night
A lot of the on-line auctions that say they are "government auctions" are actually private companies auctioning surplus government items. Not all the cars are as cheap as they would want you to believe. Dealers are bidding on them and that drives up the prices. The cheap ones are usually junk that won't sell on a lot. The lists of government auctions that you see for sale on-line are nothing more than a compilation of free information available through a good search.

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