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Bidding
How it works
The short version: register once, place a refundable $500 hold on the car you want, let proxy bidding hold your place, and if you win we charge a 5% buyer fee, never more than $5,000. The car itself you settle with the seller.
At a glance
- Refundable hold
- $500
- Placed once per auction before your first bid. Released when the auction closes unless you win, and for the winner once the fee is paid.
- Buyer fee
- 5%
- Minimum $250, maximum $5,000. Charged to your card when you win, never held in advance.
- Soft close
- 2 minutes
- A bid in the last 2 minutes adds 2 minutes, as often as it takes. No sniping here.
Five steps
Register once
Make a free account, accept the buyer agreement, and save a card on your dashboard. That is the whole of it, and you only do it once. From then on you can bid on any car here.
Place a hold on the car you want
Before your first bid on a car, a refundable $500 hold goes on your card. One hold covers every bid you make on that car, or every car in a live auction. It is released when the auction closes unless you win, and for the winner once the buyer fee is paid.
Bid, or set a maximum
Place a single bid at the next increment, or name the most you are willing to pay and let the system bid for you. It raises you one increment at a time and only as far as it needs to. Naming a maximum never means spending it.
Let the clock do its thing
Every car has its own end time, usually about 7 days after it opens. A bid inside the final 2 minutes pushes the end out by 2 minutes, as many times as it takes. Last-second sniping does not work here, so you do not have to hover over the keyboard.
Win, or get your hold back
If you do not win, the hold is released when the auction closes. If you do win, the 5% buyer fee goes on your card right away, and we introduce you to the seller to settle the car itself.
The buyer fee
5% of the winning bid, with a $250 minimum and a $5,000 maximum. Above a winning bid of $100,000 the fee stops rising, so the fee on an expensive car is the same as the fee on a very expensive one.
| Winning bid | Buyer fee | How it was reached |
|---|---|---|
| $2,500 | $250 | 5% would be $125; the $250 minimum applies |
| $50,000 | $2,500 | A straight 5% |
| $200,000 | $5,000 | 5% would be $10,000; the $5,000 maximum applies |
What we charge is the buyer fee, plus card processing at cost once our processor sets a rate (nothing right now). The price of the car itself settles directly between you and the seller, along with title and transport. We do not hold the vehicle funds and we do not transfer title.
The fee goes on the card you saved when the auction closes and you have won. It is not charged in advance and it is not kept if the sale falls through. The only money that touches your card before then is the refundable hold. Card processing on the fee is passed through at cost: nothing right now.
Bid increments
The minimum raise steps up with the price. The band is chosen by the current bid, the amount being raised from, so a bid that crosses a boundary uses the increment of the band it started in.
| Current bid | Minimum raise |
|---|---|
| Under $10,000 | $250 |
| $10,000 to under $50,000 | $500 |
| $50,000 and above | $1,000 |
The house rules
Same clock, same rules, for everyone
Floor or online, friend of the house or first-time bidder: every bid lands in the same ledger, on the same clock, under the same reserve.
Reserves, and what we will not do
Most cars carry a reserve. The page tells you whether it has been met. Never the figure itself, just whether the bidding has cleared it.
If the reserve is not met, the car does not sell, and it is recorded that way publicly. We never quietly make up the difference to the seller so a pass can be reported as a sale. A sold price on this site is a price someone actually bid.
Comments are moderated, and when something is removed the removal carries a reason and is logged. Sellers get a right of reply on their own car.
Sellers cannot bid on their own cars. The system checks that on every single bid.
Selling here
Anyone can apply to sell. The team approves sellers and reviews every listing.
Once you are approved you write the listing yourself, with the same photo tools the house uses, and submit it. The team reads it, may send it back with notes, adds Reggie’s Comments where he has something to say, and schedules it. Nothing goes live without a person having looked at it.
Thinking of selling? Start here.
What we do not handle
We would rather be clear about the edges than quiet about them.
We do not hold the purchase price in escrow, we do not transfer title, and we do not arrange transport. Those are settled directly between buyer and seller after the auction, and we introduce the two of you to make that possible.
We are not a dispute-resolution service. If a car is not as described, that gets settled between buyer and seller. We still want to hear about it, though, because it decides whether that seller ever lists here again.