Anyone ever bought or sold a car on Bring A Trailer? How easy was it to buy or sell, and where you happy dealing with them? Did They do the money exchange, or do you have to deal with the buyer? How do you guys compare it to Ebay? Any info would be great Thanks 442 Harv

 

I bought a car off of BAT in June of 24. Was actually an easy transaction. I opted to pay the seller directly in person. They have a CC on file for you to bid. They charge the 5% fee at the end of the auction. I like it better than Ebay because at least they verify all the ownership paperwork. I was happy with it.

 

I bought a car off BAT, my brother has sold several on there. There are almost always surprises with buying something off pics. The car I bought looked great, drive video looked good. When I got it the brakes in the rear were leaking bad, new clutch they advertised had to be redone as the put the fork on the wrong part of the throw out bearing. I bought it right but definitely had a few surprises. The transaction was easy tho. My brother has had decent luck selling on bat. Ask lots of questions.. silly things like, do all wipers, lights, horn, heater , dash lights and blinkers all work..?

 

Not looking to buy a car,but interested in selling if it was easy,or,how they did the money exchange. Thanks for all the info so far.

 

If your selling you pay a fee to list etc, they have to accept the car and the reserve. They will not accept cars with reserves they do not feel will be met. They require a certain amount of high quality pics and highly encourage seller interaction. As far as the money goes, they leave that up to the buyer and seller, they do not hold funds. If the buyer doesn’t pay as promised they are banned from BAT. my brother has sold several on that forum and has zero problems to date collecting his money. Hope this helps.

 

A friend just unloaded a couple cars on there. 1st listing runs 1 week with reserve "suggested" by the company. If it doesn't sell, you're out the listing fee, and that's it. Now, if you want to relist it, it goes up as no reserve, so keep that in mind.

 

Thanks for the info guys.

 

There are aspects of this that bother me. What each auction has is an ongoing conversation, just like a conversation thread on classic olds. People can ask questions about the car, and the seller responds. All very nice. But they ALSO allow criticism. Someone can come on there and disparage the car. Say they drove one once and didn't like it or had one once and it was a lemon or anything they want. It seems like anything goes, and the seller has to continually defend his car. This sort of thing is precisely NOT allowed on CO.

If I'm trying to sell a car, the last thing I need is someone coming onto the listing and poo-poo-ing the car. Take it elsewhere.

 

‘The only time that conversation affects a sale is when the car isn’t what the seller says it is. Frankly I think it’s a great forum for both buyer and seller. Yes, you get some loudmouths and any serious buyer knows they are simply keyboard bozos trying to get attention. However many serious experts show up on there bringing excellent dialogue to both buyer and potential seller. If you advertise the car openly and honestly then you have no problem. If you got ripped off buying a car and try to sell it on there to move it on then if it’s not what it says it is, that will be exposed..every buy sell forum has its pros and cons