Your Gummint In Action

[Edward DeVere]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/09/01/clunkers_a_classic_government_folly/

[boxcar]

We need to deactivate Government. This would be the best government for this country.

Boxcar

[NJ Stinks]

I think the article is horseshit and the writer has a political agenda. Why? Because I work at a huge national auto auction company. Today was auction day at our location.

Only dealers can buy cars at our car auctions. The cars we auction off come from expired leases, trade-ins, finance companies, and from car rental companies.

Today we were lucky if we sold half of the 4,500 cars being auctioned off. (Normally, we've been selling around 58% per auction this summer.) The dealers were not coming close to the seller's reserve prices today on a lot of the cars. And I'm here to tell you that those reserve prices were not unreasonable.

What I saw today with my own eyes was sellers refusing to be low-balled by dealers doing the bidding. Most of the cars that don't meet the reserve price (and therefore were not sold) were sent back to the auction block later in the day. (It costs the seller about $140 every time a car they own goes through the auction block. So two times through the auction block in a day cost the seller around $280.) Most of the "retreads" didn't sell the second time either.

The dealers who flock to my auction mostly come from North Jersey and New York. They come because they know they can pick up used cars cheaper in South Jersey than they can up north. They ain't bidding.

I've been at this auction for almost two years. I never saw a used Cadillac Escalade go for over $25,000 on the auction block.