Oh and to answer your question I have seen cars sell for way above Blue book in my former career. You would be surprised at how many buyers will sign on the X on your dealsheet after the first writeup and drive off happy as a clam in their new to them highly overpriced used car. We used to call those deals "pounders" and the customers "lay downs". In some cases the numbers that we used to write up the deal were random and pulled out of the sales managers head.

Speaking of auctions. You do realize the cars that the general public sees at the public "wholesale" auctions are the ones the dealers have already picked over right? If there is a $6000 S class at auction its there because even the buy here pay here lots did not want it.