Just wondering what your experience on BAT either as buyer or seller has been. They have some interesting cars come across there so buying experience is more interesting since my heirs will likely be the ones selling my stuff.

__________________
85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

I was looking at a car just now. It looks very nice. I am wondering what happens if I win a bid on a CA car and go to pick it up and it is not as represented? Can I refuse it?

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

They've changed a LOT it used to be neat oldies that you'd actually need a trailer to take home .

Now they're ll overly detailed vehicles ('collectable') that rarely sell for reasonable prices .

More tomfoolery I think .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

t walgamuth - VERY good question, I would like to know that myself.
vwnate - not sure what you mean by tomfoolery, but yes, it has changed a lot and I would think it's going to change even more given it was fairly recently sold to Hearst Autos, which I think is the big magazine publisher.

I had planned to list my e21 BMW there but managed to sell it before that using a consignor. I got a ton of info from a forum buddy with a very similar car who sent his through BaT shortly before I was to list mine.

This was about 9 months ago so pre sale to Hearst-

- there's some politics involved in getting your car listed at all. If it's something the people there like (they're really big into BMW's and 911's), no problem. I've heard of them rejecting cars, but I don't know if they were flat out rejections or they just couldn't come to an agreement on the reserve price.

- more politics on setting reserves. Again, if it's something the people out in the CA office "like", you'll have a lot more leverage on setting the reserve. Unlike ebay, they will not let you just run it through with a sky high reserve as long as you pay the listing fee. They were willing to put a fairly reserve on my 320i sport, but who knows with diesel Mercedes.

- you get one shot. If you set a reserve and it goes RNM, they won't let you relist. I have seen cars (more lately) relisted due to non-paying bidders ala ebay. But that high bid will follow you as most people shopping for vintage type cars know of BaT and it's one of the first places they look for comps.

I tried to list my Lotus 7 replica autocross car which had won 12 national championships at that time. I wanted a reserve of 20K. They said I needed to lower it to 12K. I listed it elsewhere and sold it for 22.5K.d

To be sure the YC3 is a home built and is nearing 20 years of balls out racing. It looks a bit shabby but since sold the new owner has won two national and his wife two, out of two attempts.

It may be shaggy but (like Forest Gump) it sure can run!

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I was just thinking about BAT this morning strangely enough and here's a thread about it!

Anyone has any experience buying/selling from Canada? We're skipping town in the latter half of next year and as much as I'd like to keep my W115, I don't realistically have place to store it so it's got to go in the summer. The caveat is of course it's a Canadian (BC so PNW) car rather than US so it would be a case of a likely buyer being from south of the border. Wondering if that would make a sale difficult.

I'm of course working under the assumption that Covid will have for the most part tapered off by then!

Any thoughts?

__________________
Sold them all but I'll be back...

I'm thinking most wont want to deal with the importation unless it was something unobtainable in the states or in immaculate condition. Remember that as the buyer you're looking at probably another 2-3k to get it into the states and shipped to your home. That 2-3k expense is almost half the price of most W115's that have sold on BaT.

__________________
--------------------------------------------
Old Blue - 83 240D 6 speed manual trans, OM648
Green Machine - 2001 Europa G500
87 300SDL Bought on Peachparts. Low-ish miles..?

Family Truckster - 2012 VW Touareg TDI

Patchouli Wagon - 2004 E500 - SOLD
333k mile 97 BMW 750il V12. - SOLD
The Californian - 85 300TD - SOLD
Daily Super Sedan - 03 Audi S8 -SOLD

That's a very good point .

I used to buy derelicts and travel to fetch them by bus with a duffel bag full of tools ad the parts I knew they'd need .

Much fun and learning transpired, I usually made decent $ flipping them after I'd sorted them out .

I miss those days quite a bit .

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Nate, you remind me of my youth back in England when my friends and I used to raid the local scrapyards so regularly that the scrap guys knew us all by name. We'd always buy old Peugeot 205 GTIs to fix up and sell, as well as buying all the parts we knew we could sell on eBay for a hefty profit.

Our weekends and after high school free time was spent driving around the Northamptonshire countryside doing that and finding all manner of slightly ropey French cars to fix up and make a buck on. Glorious days those were

I remember we got so good at working on 205s that we could have the engine out of a GTI within 45 minutes. This was all before I discovered Mercedes' of course.

Junkyards in Canada are not quite as fruitful as they were back then in the UK (early 2000s) and also the country being so huge, the car market being so different it's a lot more difficult to make it worth it. Plus living in hellishly expensive Vancouver and not having a parents' driveway/garage to dump dead cars on constantly

Anyway, I'll cease rambling. Thanks for reminding me of some great times!

__________________
Sold them all but I'll be back...

Thanx for sharing .

In the early 1960's junkyards were chock full of vehicles going back to the 1920's, I lived in rural New England back then and most of them were pretty rusty, gaping holes and so on .

As it turned out, many (? most ?) Americans took very little cars of their motor vehicles so often all the junked ones needed was serious maintenance and maybe some brake works and tires....

So many oldies that are now impossible to find, available for $10 ~ $35 complete .

Of course, one had to be careful as they'd only sell for $150 ~ $250 when running and in good shape...

When first I came to California in the Summer of 1969 I was flabbergasted to see Porches with zero collision damage and no rust at the bottom of the stacks of oldies....

__________________
-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

I lived near a junkyard. It had no fence and as a 12 year old I would wander the yard imagining the olds v8 into a smaller ford etc. Loved it. The guys running it never cared. I never bought anything or stole anything, just looked.

__________________
[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I sold my Ponton on BaT.
It took a looong time to have the auction assigned a copywriter, then to have it posted. About 2 months total or longer. It was autumn already and the car fetched 30% less than any Ponton on the site, even though it was quite decent and worse condition models are for sale for more.
The thing is, they might be for sale for more, but the market decided the price. Maybe it was an off day, maybe that was the real value. Who knows.
Comments were mostly useful, even previous owner commented.
Some people contacted me trying to make an offer - ridiculous.
The new buyer sent a shipping company my way, they took the car, did not take the documents. I had to ship them separately. The company lost them...I offered shipping a certified copy, haven't heard back in a while so maybe they found them after all.

I had little car history available, so I guess if you do not have plenty of maintenance history, it's not worth selling on BaT. You won't fetch "crack money".

I'm going to be attempting to list my 95 E300D with aggressive hopes for target bid. Probably would piss off several here in PP.

But that said, I have an extremely clean car with low miles. Other W124s, all gassers, are selling for nice amounts there. I hope this car goes to an enthusiast, but I also want to recoup a sizeable amount of money.

__________________
'85 300TD "Puff The Magic Wagon" - Rolling Resto
'19 Mazda CX-9 Signature - Wife's sled
'21 Morgan 3-Wheeler P101 Edition
'95 E300d - SOLD
'84 300TD "Brown Betty" - Miss this one
'81 240D "China Baby" - Farm grocery getter

Well, BaT passed on listing my car.

https://youtu.be/IkGoNNStyRI

__________________
'85 300TD "Puff The Magic Wagon" - Rolling Resto
'19 Mazda CX-9 Signature - Wife's sled
'21 Morgan 3-Wheeler P101 Edition
'95 E300d - SOLD
'84 300TD "Brown Betty" - Miss this one
'81 240D "China Baby" - Farm grocery getter

Looks and runs really nice.