Buying a used car at auction?

[911p]

I'm currently looking at F30 BMW 330d's, and looking on the likes of Autotrader shows dealers such as carshop.co.uk with a very large selection of them. Their website shows over 4000 cars in stock, so I get the feeling that they just go to auctions and buy a st load of cars at once, and these 330d's are likely just ex-lease cars recently bought at auction.

There are plenty of 2-3 year old 330d's coming up for auction at BCA (British Car Auctions). Do any of you have any experience buying with them? Obviously I'd rather purchase one of these at trade price, rather than pay dealer margin on top for the same car.

[daemon]

911p said:

I'm currently looking at F30 BMW 330d's, and looking on the likes of Autotrader shows dealers such as carshop.co.uk with a very large selection of them. Their website shows over 4000 cars in stock, so I get the feeling that they just go to auctions and buy a st load of cars at once, and these 330d's are likely just ex-lease cars recently bought at auction.

There are plenty of 2-3 year old 330d's coming up for auction at BCA (British Car Auctions). Do any of you have any experience buying with them? Obviously I'd rather purchase one of these at trade price, rather than pay dealer margin on top for the same car.

Surely BCA fees are very high for a one off private purchase?

[exelero]

One of my friends bought a car for 225 hammer price and had to pay 350 in Total if I'm not mistaken (but I might be).
John Pye charges 20% premium +VAT I don't think BCA would charge more

[jjr1]

I think the fee on a £22k car is about £890 at BCA. I bought one last week through a trade account and paid £418, so the fees are very high for private purchasers.

[condor]

I've been trying to find the commission rates on the BCA website, but they don't appear to show them. Presumably it's because they have different prices for trade and private buyers.

[brrapp]

condor said:

I've been trying to find the commission rates on the BCA website, but they don't appear to show them. Presumably it's because they have different prices for trade and private buyers.

http://www.british-car-auctions.co.uk/Global/UK/Bu...

They don't call it commission, they call it buyers fees and it's a sliding scale starting about 30% (plus vat)for bangers at a few hundred pounds down to about 4% for a £20000 car. They also add charges for warranties, cash handling, card handling, and notifying the DVLA of the change of ownership. While it's still a bit cheaper than buying from a dealer , BCA have made sure they're taking a decent cut from the guy in off the street.
They also charge dealers, again on a sliding scale depending on how many cars they've bought from them in the previous year so the bigger the dealer, the better the bargain they get. This is done on a card system, public gets a blue card, small dealer gets a gold card, big dealer gets a platinum card etc.