Online car auctions are a thrill, but relying on bids to get a vehicle to fall within a desirable price range is a bit of a gamble if you’re buying and more than a bit of a gamble if you’re selling. Typically, for those averse to risk, there’s the “reserve” route, but this Toyota Pickup seller whose vehicle went up for auction “no reserve” now seems to have regrets.
Firstly, what is a reserve? Think of it as the seller’s bottom dollar. If a car up for auction has a reserve of $20,000 and bidding only reaches $18,000, the car isn’t sold. The top bidder doesn’t take the car home, and the seller doesn’t leave with cash, but also doesn’t leave short on the cash they expected.
It makes a lot of sense to set a reserve when auctioning a car, but there are two caveats. Firstly, some internet auction sites don’t accept reserves on certain cars. It may be due to condition, due to it being a niche vehicle with wildly varying values, or due to being worth a fairly low dollar amount. Secondly, reserves need to be extremely realistic, meaning bidding must be expected to meet or exceed the reserve.
That brings us to this 1982 Toyota Pickup, which recently went up for auction on Bring a Trailer. It’s modified in a rather period-correct way with suitable aftermarket wheels, 31-inch all-terrain tires, a brush guard, and a 2.4-liter stroker engine; it presents as a nice driver.
A recent repaint after rust repairs has resulted in a great-looking body, but there’s some light patination on the trim and corner lights, a bit of wear on the interior, a void in the dashboard due to the absence of a factory radio, a broken window knob, and uninstalled air conditioning components.
Oh yeah, and the odometer of this Toyota Pickup shows 207,000 miles, but total mileage is unknown. Effectively, it looks like a 90-percent done project that needs a bit of finishing to send it over the top, and it’s in the sort of shape you’d expect to see in an owner’s group.
Now, values on these things vary wildly from four figures to as much as $50,000 depending on options and condition, so with the modifications made and existing odds-and-ends requiring tidying up, you could say a no reserve auction made sense.
In fact, the vast majority of Toyota Pickup examples from this era on Bring A Trailer were listed without a reserve, so there’s definitely precedent. Unfortunately, it seems that the owner didn’t quite know what they were getting into. When the auction closed with a high bid of $15,000, the seller took to the comment section, making their feelings known to the peanut gallery:
Not gonna lie that kinda hurts.
I paid $17k for it… put $12k into it….
When asked by another commenter about why the auction didn’t have a reserve, the seller responded with:
because BaT said they wouldn’t. I wanted to do a $17k reserve and BaT said no. So for this auction BaT would have paid me that extra $2k. Long story short, I will never be using nor advising use of BaT again. Big dang.
Ah, okay, a few things to note here. Firstly, we have no official confirmation for this claim that Bring A Trailer didn’t offer a reserve, but we’ve reached out to ask. Regardless of whether a reserve is offered or not, it’s still the seller’s choice to auction off a vehicle as opposed to listing it privately on a platform like Facebook Marketplace. Secondly, there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding on what happens on Bring A Trailer if a vehicle listed with a reserve doesn’t meet it. Here’s what it says on Bring A Trailer’s frequently asked questions page:
For auctions that do not meet reserve, you and the high bidder will be given the opportunity to exchange offers above the highest bid and below the reserve amount. For more information, see the Reserve Not Met FAQ sections below.
Assuming Bring A Trailer accepted a $17,000 reserve on this Toyota Pickup, it wouldn’t eat the $2,000 difference, it would be up to the seller and the highest bidder to negotiate on the difference between the highest bid and the reserve. If negotiations don’t end up working out, the seller just keeps the car.
Beyond this misconception on how reserves work, there’s some more we need to unpack here. We’ve reached out to Bring A Trailer for comment and will report back as soon as we hear more, but in the meantime, it’s worth reiterating that values on these third-generation Toyota pickup trucks can vary wildly. For instance, here’s the high end of the spectrum, a seriously nice 1982 SR5 4×4 model with period correct mods that sold for $44,444 on Bring A Trailer last month. From the gleaming chrome to the pristine interior, it looks money, so it’s no surprise it brought in a serious sum.
And here’s something on the lower end, a slightly patinated 1983 SR5 4×4 model that sold on Bring A Trailer last year for $9,500. With an odometer showing 88,000 miles, it looks like a pretty solid driver example. Sure, the dashboard is cracked and the paint is flaking in places, but this thing has dealer service receipts dated as recent as 2014, a sign that someone took pretty good care of it.
Taking a look at the truck at the center of this debacle, it seems maybe a bit closer to the latter example than the former. While it does have some nice modifications, it’s also someone else’s project, it needs a bit of tidying, there’s some slight corrosion on some underbody surfaces like the floor of the bed, and the mileage situation seems like it’ll really affect resale value.
Given the current market uncertainty, $15,000 seems to me like a fair price, and it could be argued that’s this truck’s value because that’s what someone was actually willing to pay for it, but at the same time, I totally feel for the seller. Anytime you put lots of time and money into a vehicle, you want to be able to get some of that back when you sell — so naturally, it’s disappointing when that doesn’t happen. I’ve been there.
So, if you’ve been thinking about submitting your car for online auction, make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into. There’s a chance it might pull more money online than locally, but there’s also a chance your expectations might not be met.
Top graphic credit: Bring A Trailer
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How is this noteworthy? Dude didn’t follow instructions, gets disappointed.