My Copart Experience

[turbomacncheese]

Well, I promised I would tell everyone what I went through once it was all done, and I finally got through it. I think this is important because the threads I found weren't very thorough, even on other forums. There were some delays on my part, but more about that later.

For starters, Copart runs insurance auctions for cars that are mostly salvage (but have some clean titles here and there). Most states have laws requiring special licenses to bid on these cars, so either try to find an auction in a state that doesn't have those laws (I couldn't) or hire a broker (I did). I know we don't repeatedly plug non-supporting vendors, but since I used Auto Alpine Gallery and I absolutely HAVE to give credit where it's due. The rate was right, and Angelo (and team) were responsive and polite to my many questions. I would absolutely hire them again.

Most brokers (even Copart, if you are able to go without a broker) require a deposit (most of them said $400). Depending on the broker, you'll be able to bid up to $4000 with that deposit, or deposit more for higher bids. Once I did that, I got a login/password, and I was able to bid on cars.

Copart uses an online automated bidding system. Apparently they even have computers in their lobbies to bid from. I bought from the comfort of my home. You can place a max bid and Copart will use it to outbid anyone else with lower bids, but no higher. The bidding is performed in stages. There is the pre-bid (which I found useful for weeding out the cars people wanted to bid high on) and then the live bid. Each auction typically contains 100-400 cars (from what I saw) and when a car you're interested in goes to live auction, it has a sequence number. You can check on the live auction ebay-style, and see how far away you are from yours. Each car can take between 10 seconds and several minutes depending on the bidding action. Most of the WRXs were going for $2500 - $5000 depending on condition (although I don't know how many of those actually sold for that price...see the next paragraph) and the STIs routinely went for close to $10k and up.

Like ebay there are some no-reserve auctions, called "Pure Sale." If you win the auction, you win the lot. Most of them, though, are either reserve or "On Approval." Basically, that approval functions as a hidden reserve. I won several auctions for a few hundred dollars, only to have the sale rejected and go back to auction a few days or weeks later. I'd say that was the most frustrating part.

Once I finally won an auction, for real-sies, my broker paid Copart and sent me an invoice. It included the auction amount, Copart fees, and broker fees. No surprises. Of course, my broker has a Copart Fee calculator on his website so I knew what to expect. The Copart fees are a combination of flat and indexed, so you'll want to have a fee schedule or find a similar calculator. Paying my broker was a little challenging, since my bank was being kind of a pain to work with. I checked before bidding, and knew to expect either a wire-transfer or direct deposit. My bank hemmed and hawed saying it would take as long as 5 days, but Angelo had my wire-transfer in a matter of hours once we convinced my bank to play nice.

Once the lot was paid, I was able to set up shipping with HaulMatch, which is another type of broker for transporters. I paid online, no problems. I was a little concerned because there is a lot of language on Copart and HaulMatch about loading and unloading equipment for cars that don't run. Anything smaller than an F-350 will be loaded by Copart with a forklift (a HaulMatch rep confirmed this). Anything larger they won't load at all. As long as it rolls off the transport truck, there shouldn't be a problem at delivery. Mine did. Copart will store the car for 5 days free, then charge something like $20 a day so timing is important. My transporter picked the car up in time, but you might want to check how your transporter will handle late fees. It's possible that either the driver will front the money and you'll reimburse, or your broker might be able to help you get it paid.

For delivery, HaulMatch says they'll call a couple days in advance to schedule the delivery. It's possible that it could take a couple weeks to get the car if they want to stop other places for pickup/delivery first. I had mine inside a week. Unfortunately, I got a call when the driver was a couple hours out, rather than days. He didn't get the message that I needed some time. Luckily, my oldest kid is an adult and she was home, so no harm, no foul.

Finally, I got a confirmation of my name/address etc from the broker, and they Fed-Exed my title. Here's where I screwed up a little. Wifey got the package and I never looked at it. There was a bunch of stuff that needed to be signed and returned. Finally did that. Never mentioned that I didn't need any more cars immediately and that I wanted to close my account so they kept my deposit expecting I wanted to buy more cars. After a phone call, though, they fixed me up (happily, at that). It took a few days to get the deposit returned, but nothing unusual.

I've heard horror stories of Copart cars not being any good, or missing stuff that was in the pictures. Mine came exactly as pictured, except the battery was dead when a picture showed the mileage on the odometer. Either they used a jump-box to get the picture, or somebody did an in-person inspection and left the key on. Also, the front end was pushed in a little more than it looked in the pictures, but it's not like they smashed it again. Just understand that sometimes pictures don't tell the whole story and that you're buying a salvage car with unknown history. Just because Copart said it ran doesn't mean it ran well (although I also heard a story of a car that was marked run-and-drive and was delivered without a timing belt/sprocket).

All in all, I had a lot of fun bidding on cars, even if I got outbid 35 or 40 times before I won. The great communication from my broker helped ease my mind and keep me level. They even gave me a fair amount of advice when I got started. If I can convince the wife to let me build another one later on down the road, I'll certainly Copart again. I'm also happy to answer questions if I missed anything.

[Shawn818c]

Thanks for posting! I'm sure this will be helpful to many and help to alleviate some stress buying online.