Auto Auctions Bangkok

[regknick]

Greetings. Anybody out there have any experience with Thailand's auto auctions? I've read quite a few of the posts here. There seems to be a lot of mixed feedback.

In particular, I'm interested in which auction you may have used and how pricing played out on winning bids compared to used car market at time of purchase.

I'm in Bangkok and attending an inspection tomorrow and auction on Weds. Comments would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[MadMac]

Have been at union-auction a couple of times (for buying a scooter) and watched the cars running in parallel. It's pretty mixed, mostly older vehicles from what I think private owners. Not repossessed ones from the finance companies like almost all the bikes. Prices were good, or relatively high. So it may be a good opportunity to sell your old car there compared to giving it to a dealer who will pay peanuts, wash and polish it and puts it up for 100k more.

[regknick]

Have been at union-auction a couple of times (for buying a scooter) and watched the cars running in parallel. It's pretty mixed, mostly older vehicles from what I think private owners. Not repossessed ones from the finance companies like almost all the bikes. Prices were good, or relatively high. So it may be a good opportunity to sell your old car there compared to giving it to a dealer who will pay peanuts, wash and polish it and puts it up for 100k more.

many thnx madmac... for better or worse... no old car to sell. have been painfully renting and need to get a set of wheels. looks like union is running quite a business there but it does seem to be more individual sellers coming forward with their own vehicles. on your scooter buys... based on your experience how did you fare? 30% of market value? 25%? 75%. apologies for the extra questions but i'm looking to pick up a scoot as well as a truck and would like to understand better. either way though i appreciate the tip and will continue to dig into it on my end. hope the scooters bought have been worthy wheels for you.

anybody else have any experience in purchasing through union-auction or another auction sites? again, i'm trying to get a handle on whether or not auction fever takes over and prices end up reflecting used dealer prices or have there been some worthwhile bargains had for those willing to brave the adventure?

[tomtaylor1]

I have had experiance at Manheim auctions at Bangkok, bought Jeep Cherokee older model 1996, ran it for over a year and then got my money back private sale, also had a bad experiance bought Mitsubishie G Wagon Turdo Diesel, this turned out to have been clocked, even though the milage was stated as correct, they would not compensate me in any way, advertised it later, the original owners saw the my add, contacted me and called me dirty cheating farang, the finance company had repossed and put it to auction.

Tom

[MadMac]

A scooter may be well worth it, but you must carefully check out a couple of candidates before. They are all parked there before the auction takes place. Lots of dealers around who buy the cheaper ones to be sprayed fresh and sold again for a premium. So do some homework before, lists of the next auction are possible to download on their website, but the actual ones you can only get the same morning (will change).

We got a Scoopy that was repossessed after half a year, so virtually new with 5000km on the clock. 28kTHB, that's almost half of the new price if you look at a financing deal. That was the second try. I made the mistake to not look closely enough the first time to see some watermarks from the flooding. The bike did not start after buying. But they did a check and confirmed flood damage and took it back without any problems, then at the next auction we bought the same model again.

Also note that there is no such thing like data protection in Thailand. We got the complete paperwork of the previous owner including ID and bank history as well as copies of the documents of a bunch of guarantors for the financing. Ridiculous

Just checked, the financing for the previous owner (some young lady from Khon Kaen) was about 70kTHB (!).

[vtjforyou]

Any luxury cars there ?

[BSJ]

Lots of traps for young players at Western Auctions, I could imagine it's worse here. I've been to the Union auctions here in Pattaya and there are no bargains! The prices for cars and pick-ups at auction is ridiculous.

I used to buy and sell in Australia which was a good source of income. Just not possible to make good money here if your a foreigner.

[MadMac]

Lots of traps for young players at Western Auctions, I could imagine it's worse here. I've been to the Union auctions here in Pattaya and there are no bargains! The prices for cars and pick-ups at auction is ridiculous.

I agree, it's a sellers market. Probably the best chance to sell you old car which will be picked up by some dealer to receive a nice polish and a 100k markup. But not the place to buy a second hand car. Different from the bikes, the repossessed ones are well worth the show, and it's fun too!

[regknick]

I have had experiance at Manheim auctions at Bangkok, bought Jeep Cherokee older model 1996, ran it for over a year and then got my money back private sale, also had a bad experiance bought Mitsubishie G Wagon Turdo Diesel, this turned out to have been clocked, even though the milage was stated as correct, they would not compensate me in any way, advertised it later, the original owners saw the my add, contacted me and called me dirty cheating farang, the finance company had repossed and put it to auction.

Tom

A scooter may be well worth it, but you must carefully check out a couple of candidates before. They are all parked there before the auction takes place. Lots of dealers around who buy the cheaper ones to be sprayed fresh and sold again for a premium. So do some homework before, lists of the next auction are possible to download on their website, but the actual ones you can only get the same morning (will change).

We got a Scoopy that was repossessed after half a year, so virtually new with 5000km on the clock. 28kTHB, that's almost half of the new price if you look at a financing deal. That was the second try. I made the mistake to not look closely enough the first time to see some watermarks from the flooding. The bike did not start after buying. But they did a check and confirmed flood damage and took it back without any problems, then at the next auction we bought the same model again.

Also note that there is no such thing like data protection in Thailand. We got the complete paperwork of the previous owner including ID and bank history as well as copies of the documents of a bunch of guarantors for the financing. Ridiculous

Just checked, the financing for the previous owner (some young lady from Khon Kaen) was about 70kTHB (!).

@MadMac & TomTaylor1

Thanks for the informative replies gentlemen. I spent the better part of 3 hours today inspecting at Manheim and your responses were both timely and helpful. Bidding Card in hand, I will return tomorrow and see how things go. It's too bad I don't feel like pounding a clutch all day as there were quite a number of clean double cabs that would have been great. Thankfully there were a few 2.5 - 3.0 double cab automatics that would work nicely for me. It will be interesting to see the reserve prices. It will also be interesting to see just how far the feeding frenzy will make or break the opportunities.

If it all gets FUBAR tomorrow at Manheim then I guess it's off to Union Auction later this week for another roll of the dice.

Thanks again guys.

[gerryBScot]

I bought a Triton at Union about 4 years ago with 5,000 km on the clock, 100,000 km later it is running like a good thing; never had a problem with it; never had any problems in the few dealings I had with Union; got all the paperwork, the radio, the remote for the radio. Very pleased with everything. You can download their list on the www. SHould be easy to understand as a lot of it is in ENglish. Good luck

[regknick]

I bought a Triton at Union about 4 years ago with 5,000 km on the clock, 100,000 km later it is running like a good thing; never had a problem with it; never had any problems in the few dealings I had with Union; got all the paperwork, the radio, the remote for the radio. Very pleased with everything. You can download their list on the www. SHould be easy to understand as a lot of it is in ENglish. Good luck

is it just me or is it virtually impossible to find an active list of vehicles on union-auctions website? good grief. if you happen to have a grip on it... I'd appreciate the guidance.

[moe666]

I have had experiance at Manheim auctions at Bangkok, bought Jeep Cherokee older model 1996, ran it for over a year and then got my money back private sale, also had a bad experiance bought Mitsubishie G Wagon Turdo Diesel, this turned out to have been clocked, even though the milage was stated as correct, they would not compensate me in any way, advertised it later, the original owners saw the my add, contacted me and called me dirty cheating farang, the finance company had repossed and put it to auction.

Tom

A scooter may be well worth it, but you must carefully check out a couple of candidates before. They are all parked there before the auction takes place. Lots of dealers around who buy the cheaper ones to be sprayed fresh and sold again for a premium. So do some homework before, lists of the next auction are possible to download on their website, but the actual ones you can only get the same morning (will change).

We got a Scoopy that was repossessed after half a year, so virtually new with 5000km on the clock. 28kTHB, that's almost half of the new price if you look at a financing deal. That was the second try. I made the mistake to not look closely enough the first time to see some watermarks from the flooding. The bike did not start after buying. But they did a check and confirmed flood damage and took it back without any problems, then at the next auction we bought the same model again.

Also note that there is no such thing like data protection in Thailand. We got the complete paperwork of the previous owner including ID and bank history as well as copies of the documents of a bunch of guarantors for the financing. Ridiculous

Just checked, the financing for the previous owner (some young lady from Khon Kaen) was about 70kTHB (!).

@MadMac & TomTaylor1

Thanks for the informative replies gentlemen. I spent the better part of 3 hours today inspecting at Manheim and your responses were both timely and helpful. Bidding Card in hand, I will return tomorrow and see how things go. It's too bad I don't feel like pounding a clutch all day as there were quite a number of clean double cabs that would have been great. Thankfully there were a few 2.5 - 3.0 double cab automatics that would work nicely for me. It will be interesting to see the reserve prices. It will also be interesting to see just how far the feeding frenzy will make or break the opportunities.

If it all gets FUBAR tomorrow at Manheim then I guess it's off to Union Auction later this week for another roll of the dice.

Thanks again guys.

Give us some feed back on how it goes

[BSJ]

So, how did it go?

[regknick]

So, how did it go?

Apologies… it's been a busy week in BKK.

So without getting too deep into the play by play, I will say that it was a very interesting experience to say the least. If you're at all uneasy listening to fast talking Auctioneers in your native language… don't go. At any given moment there were 4 lanes with 4 different Thai female auctioneers and I'm positive they each had lots of caffeine that morning before just before the opening bell. Add to it the fabulous wretched PA systems they were using and the complete lack of audio separation between the lanes and it was jarring on the senses to say the least. Thankfully my Thai isn't too bad but if you don't speak it… don't go or at the very least take someone that does speak Thai so you can at least keep up with the pace. 50 vehicles per hour!

As for the nitty gritty details, I spent the better part of the day prior to the auction inspecting the vehicles that would be of interest. The inventory ranges from "why bother" to "worth looking into" depending on your preference. Had I been interested in buying a manual shift D-Max, Vios, or Civic there would have been any number of possible candidates. Automatic Vigo Double Cabs only counted 3-4 out of 250. Of those only 1-2 had my interest.

For those commenting on Used Car Prices being 20-30% less this year over last… I would really like to know what makes and models you're using as the reference point and then what book you're using to confirm those prices. I used Thanachart's Bluebook and I'm convinced that they have a vested interest in keeping used car prices up so they can maintain revenues on car loans. Used or otherwise. What I will say is that after inspection of the vehicles of interest, review of their book value, and then bidding on them… there's not a lot of what I would consider to be reasons to buy through the auctions. There were/are exceptions of course but it's not the norm. When factoring in the inability to actually start or test drive the vehicles and in some cases not even being able to open doors or pop a hood… you better be sure you have a good eye for inspection or you'll find yourself stuck with any eyesore in the driveway.

So what happened? Well, I was high bidder on 2008 Vigo Double Cab 3.0 G. Feeling somewhat relieved I'd found and bought a truck I went to the cashier to settle up and arrange collection. After a few minutes at the cashier waiting for all the details the nice woman at the counter said, "actually, you didn't buy the truck" because there was a reserve set higher than your bid." I smiled and then cringed as the other truck I was interested in had already been sold. I then asked the cashier what the reserve price was so that I could understand the gap. The reserve set on the truck was within 20,000 THB of the (imho) extremely inflated Thanachart Bluebook value on the truck. They asked if I was interested in increasing my bid to meet the reserve. My response was, no thank you. The spread was around 90-100k THB. I left the auction as I arrived… without car keys.

All that said and done… I'm going to check out an Apple Auction on Saturday. I've been told that Thanachart and others are using Apple and Union to clear their repos. The auction I attend was Manheim. I'm a sucker for punishment and will take another stab at it this coming weekend. However, I'm not super confident it will be much different based on the current book values. This week alone there were 3-4 different auctions here in BKK. So far though, it seems like I'd be doing better through private owner sales. Unless of course they are using the Thanachart Blue book to come up with their selling price. Also worth noting… Toyota Sure (the certified used Toyota team) was out in full force at the auction and from what I could tell buying quite a few vehicles. It sorta makes you wonder.

In case you're still reading… I'm still looking for a 2nd hand Vigo Double Cab or something comparable. =)

[MadMac]

The experience is well worth it, so you did not waste any time . I went there 3 times and always enjoyed it. Good show!

For the car, you may consider to buy a new one, particularly if you look for a pickup. Used ones are marginally cheaper but with 200k+ on the clock. I bought myself a new Mazda, high end 2.2l model, manual.

[BSJ]

4 lanes with 4 auctioneers, would be interesting to see that! I've been to the Manheim auctions at Laverton in Victoria, Australia....which runs like a well oiled machine one lane or three.

[yankee99]

Sorry i didnt see this post before. Ill say it again the union auto auction is a JOKE!!!! I would estimate 5% of the crap rolling through there sells as i am sure the op can confirm. Reserves are just over the top...Waste of time.....