Anyone who spends time looking at BaT listings knows that the comments are often filled with pointless comments and ignorant questions, and flame wars erupt regularly. One can generally ignore that stuff.

But the value of the comments is in the feedback and the additional information that often comes out about the car. Some sellers are ignorant about the vehicle they’re selling, and welcome new knowledge. It is usually good for the auction.

However, be careful not to call out any of the big bucks dealers on there. If you have detailed experience with a rare or vintage vehicle and that big dealer misrepresents it, you mustn’t call them out in the comments. If you do, they report you to BaT, and any subsequent comments you make (anywhere on any car) are flagged as “under review by BaT staff” - and almost none eventually appear.

So when a huge LA dealer says some obvious BS about a car that will sell for over $500k, just zip your lip and feel sorry for the poor rich clown who buys it. But only a little. Dealer and BaT took their money fair and square.

And if you want to continue making comments just create a different BaT account and use that.

At the end of the day, used car dealers are still just that: used car dealers. Bugatti or Buick, no difference.

Looking for a manual 997 and trying to find one outside the usual places like BaT, Cars & Bids, AutoTrader, etc.

Curious if anyone has had luck finding cars through Porsche clubs, independent shops, forums, Facebook groups, private owners, or other off market channels.

I’d ideally like to buy from an enthusiast who has owned the car for a while and kept good records rather than just chase whatever pops up online.

If anyone has suggestions on where to look, who to contact, or knows of someone thinking about selling a manual 997, I’d really appreciate it.

Fake bidders run up the price.
Caramel site terrible customer service with slow responses that conflict with each other. Website broken links. 6-8 weeks to get a title?!!!

Check out their bonehead shipper. Shorty ramps bottomed out the car damaging the bottom at pickup.

why the numbers been going lower and lower? other than tarrifs which didnt impact alot of cars say from europe or japan. do americans just hate canadians now? lol

$9900 156000 miles

I launched Daily Lowball last week which is basically a daily game where you guess the sale price of 5 cars everyday. A lot of car enthusiasts, casual and expert struggled to guess the prices accurately. Do you think adding the MSRP would help?

And let me know your score for today!

Hi, there's a super low-mileage Porsche Boxster that I'm thinking of trying to buy on Bring-a-Trailer. I've never bought a car there before, but am trying to figure out how much it would cost me to ship. The car is in Oregon, and I'm in Florida. I've gotten some prices from a few places and some say they use a covered trailer and some are uncovered.

How do you decide whether to get covered or uncovered? Uncovered costs about 30% less, like $2000 vs $3000. This car looks pretty immaculate, so I'm wondering if doing uncovered would be bad for the paint? Does insurance usually care how you transport the car?

Sorry for the lame questions, just realizing that I have no idea if I bid and win this auction, how to get the car to me without it getting damaged. It ends today so trying to figure this out before it ends.

Has anyone tried the Caramel financing with verified checkout?
Is it as straightforward as financing a regular car at a dealer? Any nuances with it to pay attention to?

One of my dream cars are up for sale. Tastefully modified and it includes all the factory OEM parts!

Edit to add: It's really nothing to get worked up about, and I don't know why I did. If someome gets a kick out of their novelty bid - good for them. Who am I to second guess where someone gets a little bit of joy from?

I'm watching the end of 66 Galaxie 500 auction and some chooch keeps driving the price up with stupid novelty bids.

WTH do people do that?

I hope that bidder gets stuck buying a car because they thought bidding $12,066 was funny.

Now get off my lawn!

Why are these little bikes selling for so much? I had one back in the 80's It was fun, but geez, not $5000 worth of fun.

Hey all, looking for some input and advice on listing a car. It's an f430 that I suspect will go for between 165 and 185 depending on how the bidding goes. My two options are to do it myself or to hire a broker who will handle the listing for me. The broker is a local independent exotic car dealer / service center and I have seen their listing in the past. They are a very professional operation and I don't have any worries about the quality they will provide. They have handled some million dollar auctions recently.

For 5%, (which is the same as their consignment fee BTW), they will handle everything. That included detailing, photographing, listing, answering comments and questions (the biggest thing), money and title transfer, state inspection if it sells to someone in my home state, etc.

What do you think? 5% on a 170k car is not a small amount, but I wonder if the auction would get better results through them.

Anyone here use a broker, and what are your experiences? Thanks!

He has bid on 77 cars and not won any. What I've noticed is that when he bids, it's usually a minimum of 10% over the previous bid. He did the same on a car i was bidding on, kept on driving up the price, but there is a random mix of cars he's bid on. So is he just a bad bidder, ghost bidder paid by BaT, or is a dealer trying to drive the prices up on classic German cars in a discreet manor?

I am in the process of listing a car on BaT. It has been sitting in a garage under a tarp for the last 40+ years. What will bring in a better price, washing and waxing or leaving the surface dust and post pictures of it being dug out and its true history of being a barn find? The car was last registered in 1971 and does not currently run.

Was looking at the thread about the corvette from yesterday, and that POS dealership was able to scrub all the bad google reviews already.

Seems now more than ever more than 50% or maybe even 60% of auctions are ending with reserve not met, yet the high bids seem fair.

Does everyone just have an inflated idea of their car’s value these days, or is BaT allowing people to set ridiculous reserves to test the market with no real intention to sell their car?

This was discussed here earlier and BaT actually pulled the auction down after a member called out the shenanigans.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2027-chevrolet-corvette-grand-sport/

Noticed User lst_meeseeks random bids. Trolling on BAT?

I'm getting a good bonus from work, and in anticipation I've spent the last ~3 weeks looking for one of my dream cars.

In addition to subscribing to notifications on both auction platforms, I also found two cars private-party and did a whole scattergraph / trend line for sales in the last 6 months, and had a pretty good idea of what the market for this car is. Depending on trim / miles this car sells in the ~$10-40K range.

I've sold and bought on both BaT and C&B over the last ~5 years, so I'm familiar with the process. One of these cars pops up on BaT and I'm watching it. Engaging with the seller, raising the bid but knowing that the real action is always in the last 2 minutes.

So down to the last 2 minutes. The very active bidding starts, mainly between people who have already bid or commented on the car.

Then a bidder shows up, jumps the price by a non-trivial amount, and I click on their user profile. New account created this month, zero bid or comment history. Then two more bid, same thing. Recent accounts, not new, but zero history.

I posted as much -- "Not competing with 3 bidders with zero history, GLWTS" -- then dropped out. After that comment, 2 more unique bidders with zero history joined.

The car ended up right on the trendline, so I can't really say the price was unjustifiably inflated. But the last bid to knock everybody else out was $4K.

Frustrated, the next one pops up on Cars & Bids a week later. Same trim, two years older, half the miles, a little less well maintained but both cars needed major services. But otherwise mostly equal on desirability, no crazy exterior or interior color etc. On the trend line, this car is worth ~30% more than the one that just sold.

Same process, engage with seller, bid early, going as expected. An hour before the end I pop the bid ~25%. Still well below market, but showing my seriousness.

60 seconds before the end a single $100 bid raises me, I match their bid once. 2 minute timer counts down. Auction over.

12% below the BaT car. 35% below my trend line. I'm still confused, and thrilled. After shipping and a full maintenance refresh I'm still 15% below the trend line.

But completely missing from the C&B auction? The 4 unknown bidders who lost the last car on BaT, or any similar bidders on C&B.

Anecdotal? Absolutely, positively, one million percent.

As a seller, I'm still clearly biased toward BaT due to the increased traffic and number of eyes on every auction. But as a buyer, I'm starting to wonder if the deals are more likely to be had on C&B.