Most dealers claim to sell "the best or nicest cars".  But I haven’t seen anyone explain how they do this.  That should make you a little suspicious.  Finding the nicest used cars takes a lot of work and requires a big time commitment. We have to weed through a lot of vehicles to find the nicest ones. 

We have 3 full time vehicle buyers with decades of experience that are focused on finding vehicles that meet our strict criteria.  In order to get the selection we need, we mainly buy at auctions throughout Texas. I know some people are apprehensive about "Auction" vehicles and have a negative perception about a vehicle that goes through the auction.  But this is really unfounded.  The truth is the auctions are kind of a clearing house for wholesale vehicles.

For instance if a Chevy dealer takes a 5 year old BMW with 60,000 miles in on trade, they probably will not sell that retail as it doesn't fit their model.  Many of the new car dealerships are now owned by large Corporate groups who mandate that trade-ins MUST be sold through auctions. They do this to eliminate “kick-back’s” and other "under the table" arrangements on the sale of their wholesale vehicles. The truth is that most wholesale vehicles are sold through a dealer auction whether they are QUALITY vehicles or PROBLEM vehicles.  It’s the Buyers responsibility to identify the good apples and avoid the bad apples.

The trick is thoroughly inspecting the vehicles before purchasing in order to make sure you only buy the good ones.  This is time consuming and it is why we have 3 buyers to buy 20-25 vehicles per week.

1. Previous accident damage or paint work.  We use paint meters to help determine if the vehicle has any previous paint work.
2. We check all the fluids and maintenance indicators to determine if the vehicle was properly maintained.  If you know where to look, there are some easy indicators to pick up on.  then we buy 20 to 25 based on them meeting our cost criteria.
3. We thoroughly review the interior and exterior condition.  Vehicles that were poorly maintained cosmetically were most likely also poorly maintained mechanically.  Needless to say, we stay away from those.

Our inspections usually reduce the 200 selected vehicles to around 75 that meet our criteria.  Next we review average auction sale prices and book values to determine our maximum bid. Out of these 75, we will usually end up buying 20 to 25 vehicles.

That’s how we buy 20-25 of the nicest vehicles at the lowest price every week.  That’s a lot of work!  It’s no wonder most dealers don't do it that way.  They generally only go to one or two auctions and or work with a few other dealers to get their trade-ins.  The problem with this approach is it limits the dealer’s selection and they end up buying vehicles that aren't really what their customers want either in terms of make/model, condition or price.

We hope this helps give some understanding about where used cars come from and "Auction" vehicles.  Just remember, the vehicles that we pass over, end up at other dealers and many times are listed right next to ours on Autotrader, Cars.com and Craigs List.