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How much do dealers pay for used cars at auctions?

How much profit are used car dealers making on each car sale? Do they get really good deals and make a lot of profit or do they struggle to make money?

Public Comments

1. they about what they would give you for a trade in if i remember correctly. it depends on the location and brand of vehicles.


2. Most of the time they make money, sometimes they dont. But the guys they have going to these auctions have the advantage of knowing what to look for and how much they can sell it for. It works like this, they send someone to the auction and he tries to pick up car(s) for cheap that arent in too bad of condition. These cars then get sent to the mechanics at the dealership or a trusted mechanic nearby. The mechanic looks at the car and makes a list of thing wrong with it and gives them the prices for the repairs. The dealer then has to decide on which repairs are cost effective to selling the car (safety related stuff first). Now, after the selected repairs are done, the dealer tries to sell you the car for a profit. Normally they dont make a killing off you, but a business is in it to make money so they have to make something

   Have you ever wondered why sometimes a dealer is willing to come down in the price and sometimes they wont budge an inch? Well the cars they wont budge on are cars that they perhaps paid too much for or needed more repairs than anticipated. This leaves little or NO profit on the car so they cant afford to sell it for less. The cars they can come down on are the opposite, picked up cheap, needed little repair, or both



3. they will rip ur a-ss off


4. simply put, they try to make as much as they can...


5. It all depends on the dealers on what or how much he pays for the car. Not all deals at auctions are great. Same as not all dealers are able to get trade in dirt cheap. Sometimes as a dealer we make mistakes and we buy a car or trade it and it needs a little work some may need a lot. so a lot goes into what the final price is. Most dealers are fairly smart in buying new dealers when they first get into the business make the same mistakes as any other business sometimes you over pay for cars sometimes you repair a car and have to much into it. Cars are worth a certain amount, no matter what you do to them.


6. It depends. Most of the time our dealership will buy the cars and mark them up $1,000. We try to do it no haggle style, but a lot of people will try and offer us less than we paid.

   We got a sweet deal from a trade-in. We had 4k in it and tried selling it for 5k and everyone kept offering less. So we took it to the auction and sold it for 6,900. Now that dealer is selling it for 10,000 and we refer everyone that is coming back asking about it to the other dealer.