Would you avoid a car purchased from an Acura dealer to dealer auction?
08-12-2023, 03:09 PM
#1
Instructor
Thread Starter
Would you avoid a car purchased from an Acura dealer to dealer auction?
There’s a really nice 2021 CPO Aspec (in Apex blue) with only 13,000 miles at my local Acura dealer. The carfax shows that it was a personally owned vehicle in New Hampshire and was likely traded in after a couple of years and offered for sale at the same NH dealer it was purchased at. It looks like it was for sale for about 2 months at this dealer then my local Acura dealer bought it from auction. I assume this is likely an Acura dealer to dealer type auction. I usually avoid auction cars but in this case it seems like it should be ok. Anyone have any thoughts? It has about 22 mos on the original warranty plus the 2 year CPO.
Last edited by Otherbmw; 08-12-2023 at 03:16 PM.
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JoelEDC (08-14-2023)
08-13-2023, 07:55 PM
#3
Being from New Hampshire it may have been exposed to salted roadways. This can cause serious rust issues on the undersides of cars. If your state is not a snow state that salts the roads I would be sure to inspect the undercarriage for rust before buying or even just walk away.
08-13-2023, 08:03 PM
#4
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Thread Starter
Being from New Hampshire it may have been exposed to salted roadways. This can cause serious rust issues on the undersides of cars. If your state is not a snow state that salts the roads I would be sure to inspect the undercarriage for rust before buying or even just walk away.
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rmeastma (08-13-2023)
08-13-2023, 08:54 PM
#5
Racer
Hmm, that would give me suspicion too. You'd think the original dealer would have had no trouble selling it vs. resorting to an auction if the car had no red flags. There's a car salesman Reddit that I've found really useful for business questions like this. Might be worth asking there if this is normal or weird.
Last edited by jmhumr; 08-13-2023 at 08:59 PM.
08-14-2023, 04:58 AM
#6
Instructor
Thread Starter
Hmm, that would give me suspicion too. You'd think the original dealer would have had no trouble selling it vs. resorting to an auction if the car had no red flags. There's a car salesman Reddit that I've found really useful for business questions like this. Might be worth asking there if this is normal or weird.
08-14-2023, 07:02 AM
#7
Burning Brakes
Hmm, that would give me suspicion too. You'd think the original dealer would have had no trouble selling it vs. resorting to an auction if the car had no red flags. There's a car salesman Reddit that I've found really useful for business questions like this. Might be worth asking there if this is normal or weird.
Last edited by Texasrdx21; 08-14-2023 at 07:04 AM.
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08-14-2023, 07:35 AM
#8
Racer
Yes but the OP said the history showed it was a lease returned to the original dealer, not part of the repo network.
08-14-2023, 07:59 AM
#9
Burning Brakes
Ok. If it's a clean carafe, passes inspection and YOUR personal inspection - CPO is a good safety net. I would read into to much why a dealer would sell it - that dealer may be tapped out on short term used car financing to keep it on the lot - needed the $$$ to keep the dealership flowing.
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JoelEDC (08-14-2023)
08-14-2023, 08:13 AM
#10
I used to sell cars and came up with five easily plausible scenarios (all somewhat related) in about five minutes for this situation. I know that a lot of car buyers are suspicious of everything (to a pretty crazy extreme sometimes) when it comes to car dealers (just look at some of the comments on the buying and price threads on this forum), but car dealers are businesses and sometimes they are actually just making business decisions:
They paid too much for the RDX in order to make a deal on a new Acura and are now panicking about it. So they put it up for auction with the hope that another dealer would view their "trash" as a "treasure"...which happens more than you might think and results in a sale more than you might think
It's been sitting too long (which costs them a fortune) and they've decided to unload it. Maybe they do better with higher mileage, less loaded RDX's (or don't do well with used RDX's at all).
They might be trying to turn over their used car inventory (partly because of item 2). Used car managers are always looking at how many days the inventory is sitting and will either lower the prices accordingly to see if that'll help, or they'll just sell the cars to a wholesaler or at auction.
They might do better with non-Acura used car inventory. They could probably have two or three used Hondas (and potentially three times more profit) compared to whatever they paid for this one RDX (or could sell it for).
I can't tell you the number of times we traded a "cream puff" that everyone thought would sell in two seconds for huge money and then....it didn't. Maybe that's all that happened here, and after a while the dealer just shrugged their shoulders and moved on.
I'm sure there are a dozen more very reasonable possibilities, but the bottom line is that if you like the car, buy the car. I think you'll be just fine.
They paid too much for the RDX in order to make a deal on a new Acura and are now panicking about it. So they put it up for auction with the hope that another dealer would view their "trash" as a "treasure"...which happens more than you might think and results in a sale more than you might think
It's been sitting too long (which costs them a fortune) and they've decided to unload it. Maybe they do better with higher mileage, less loaded RDX's (or don't do well with used RDX's at all).
They might be trying to turn over their used car inventory (partly because of item 2). Used car managers are always looking at how many days the inventory is sitting and will either lower the prices accordingly to see if that'll help, or they'll just sell the cars to a wholesaler or at auction.
They might do better with non-Acura used car inventory. They could probably have two or three used Hondas (and potentially three times more profit) compared to whatever they paid for this one RDX (or could sell it for).
I can't tell you the number of times we traded a "cream puff" that everyone thought would sell in two seconds for huge money and then....it didn't. Maybe that's all that happened here, and after a while the dealer just shrugged their shoulders and moved on.
I'm sure there are a dozen more very reasonable possibilities, but the bottom line is that if you like the car, buy the car. I think you'll be just fine.
Last edited by JoelEDC; 08-14-2023 at 08:15 AM.
08-14-2023, 09:42 AM
#11
Racer
Ok. If it's a clean carafe, passes inspection and YOUR personal inspection - CPO is a good safety net. I would read into to much why a dealer would sell it - that dealer may be tapped out on short term used car financing to keep it on the lot - needed the $$$ to keep the dealership flowing.
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Texasrdx21 (08-14-2023)
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