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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I’ve sold a few cars on BaT, mostly on behalf of our customers (they were cars we built, and we help them find new owners if someone wants to sell). In most cases, we were able to come up with a reserve that BaT found acceptable. In one case, we blew past that reserve within an hour of the auction going live and the car ended up going for more than double the reserve.
In others, they’ve recommended no reserve because they figured it would open up the pool of potential bidders. That “No reserve” title encourages more bidding. We’ve never been burned but we also have a pretty good idea of the market value of what we’re listing so we accepted that.
So he’s that upset about a $2k difference? He knew what risk he was agreeing to. This one is on him. I do respect not using BaT – I wouldn’t use BaT either if they didn’t let me add a reserve. Him holding that prederence is fine, but he chose to do so anyway.
Yeah I recently encountered this when considering selling my W124 on Cars & Bids. They would not take a reserve for it. I think it hurts their engagement numbers when cars don’t sell, and the lure of a “smoking deal” with a low bid pulls in the clicks. I passed, sold it locally.
For you lawyers out there, what realistically happens if this seller were to refuse to follow through? Yeah, they’d be banned from BaT, but can they be legally compelled to sell?
Under the uniform commercial code, no, the seller is obligated to follow through on the auction sale- assuming the UCC applies in that state and they didn’t make their own modifications to that section
It’s not being compelled to sell.. he knowingly and willingly entered the contract. Absolutely the buyer could take him to court over it. Or he/she may decide that’s too much hassle and accept the seller backing out.
The issue with this is that there is no contract. It’s the honor system. BaT has a platform to provided a place for buyers to list a car and meet sellers – no more. There is no written agreement made between anyone until the seller issues a bill of sale and signs the title to the buyer. Basically, all of these transactions are private sales with BaT simply being a fancy craigslist of sorts.
In most US jurisdictions a contract doesn’t have to be written to be enforceable, with the exception of real property. Also, there is probably a written contract here between the seller and BaT that requires him to abide by the terms of the sale.
I have no sympathy for these Shark-mindset people who feel entitled to blame everyone/anything but themselves.
He overpaid in the 1st place, he put a ton of money into it and I know an engine and paint aren’t cheap, but then again that confirms he overpaid in the 1st place.
This is the typical story of “I saw an old Toyota 4×4 truck being auctioned for a ton of money, so I should be able to make a ton of money as well”.
It’s on YOU. Grow up, own it and move on.
When the seller wrote “I put 12k into it”, they were clearly not referring to maintenance but mods (suspension, tires, wheels, tent, etc.). Every-fucking-body in the world knows that mods add absolutely no value to a car because the idea of a project car is very individualistic.
So the seller overpaid, tried to increase the value by fabricating their own idea of upgrades and sold it for $2k less which isn’t too bad.
With those $2k I would find the original air filter housing, the original mirrors and fix the dash which is almost surely cracked.
But it is an 80’s Toyota truck, so I bet this guy thought he had it made. $17k was just going to be the starting point for his bidding war.
The seller doesnt seem to understand how these things go. First, you never get the money out of a vehicle that you put into it as a project, with the rare exceptions of getting something that is completely not road worthy and getting it running, or taking something to its perfection in a restoration and even then its usually a losing proposition. Is this their first time selling a vehicle?
Second, they are crying over a rather small difference from what their reserve would have been. I feel like if a buyer dropped 15k cash on the hood in front of them they would have taken it. The seller just thought that BaT would give them some absurd amount of money. I don’t feel for the seller here. And honestly, with the amount of work still needed, I dont really feel for the buyer either.
Cool truck though.
I looked at selling my XJ on Cars and Bids and they said they’d only do a no reserve auction. They gave a lot of great data points on why I should (no reserve auctions get more looks and often sell for more than similar vehicles with reserves), but in the end I decided I was just too risk averse for that and sold it on marketplace.
This truck looks pretty nice, but honestly I think the price was close to spot on.
Reject the sale? He’ll be banned from BAT. BFD.
The true, uncomfortable story of course…. is that the market may well be rigth there right now.
So the guy bought at the tippy top of the market. Put too much in, but didn’t finish the job, and then sold in a market that has a lot of uncertainty, but is most certainly lower.
That’s pretty much dead-on what I’d guess… possibly a bit high, but within $1k or so of what I’d guess it would go for.
That said, I’d only PAY maybe $10k for it myself, but I know there’s the BaT tax here, so it’d be more like $12-15k.
As a Toyota Die Hard, this truck has some real pros and some real cons.
Pros:
-The LCE engine is pretty cool. They make awesome products for the 20/22R-RE crowd.
-It seems to be in decent-ish shape. Definitely driver quality.
Cons:
-Long Bed. Shortbeds bring better money
-It seems to be in decent-ish shape. Definitely driver quality.
Either way, what is brought is incredibly fair for the market. If it had been spruced up to OEM perfection, he would have sold it for 30-40.
Some of that under hood wiring looks a bit janky, too.
Did I understand correctly that the seller THINKS that BaT was going to pony up the extra $2K itself? If so, that’s just plain silly… the seller is woefully mistaken to imagine that the listing website would ever agree to make up the difference between the highest bid and seller’s reserve on any auction. One vintage Ferrari is all it would take to put BaT into bankruptcy if the world worked the way that the seller apparently imagines. Plus, what you paid/put into a vehicle has nothing to do with its current market value. It’s worth what it’s worth: what someone is currently willing to pay for it, regardless of whether you overpaid for it yourself or got a screaming bargain or whatever.
Here’s a weird but charming Toyota 4×4 pickup I saw at the recent BaT car show in Thousand Oaks the other month: https://imgur.com/a/bQjxX5L …I think the owner chose to go with the custom stripes of houndstooth upholstery perhaps because so many nice vintage cars have houndstooth upholstery. I didn’t get to talk to the owner, but I bet he/she’s got a good sense of humor, and definitely, a nice clean old Toyota truck too. 🙂
Yeah, he seems to think that with a reserve, the truck would still sell even if the reserve wasn’t met, and the auction house would pay him the difference, instead of just no sale happening at all.
Yes, that seems to be what he thinks, but why he thinks that is beyond me. It makes no sense.
PS: I’m not even particularly into old Toyota pickups (beyond me liking all old/small Japanese pickups because they’re usually so simple/basic/serviceable/reliable) but with that said, I think I’d happily pay $13.5K cash TODAY for that one with the stripes/houndstooth that I posted. It’s just so charming. But I’d be afraid to get that custom upholstery dirty… I’d only wear clean pants and I’d put a blanket down if my dog were riding shotgun. It’s so nice! 😀
Clearly, he somehow made it to adulthood without a basic understanding of how auctions work, and still decided to sell something at auction
You’d be amazed at how common this is on BaT. Seller is like, nope I’m not gonna sell this to you no matter what the bids are. I know what I got. I saw a shit show of a listing recently. Only wish I could remember what car it was, but the seller said in the comments something to the effect of “my car is worth more than the top bid – I’m not selling”. Which isn’t how auctions are supposed to go.
This just in: You should know what you’re agreeing to before you agree to it. He took a risk and lost. Life goes that way sometimes. Also, he should be grateful someone paid $12K for that. No way it was worth that.
15, he got 15, top Dollar for that car IMHO.
And not knowing how a reserve works is just emabarrassing.
I missed that. Well he won the freaking lottery IMHO.
I sell used bike parts one of 3 ways. Ebay, a bicycle website classified section, and Craigslist. Craigslist is where I go if the item is not worth shipping because you really get the bottom of the barrel buyers and flakes. The bicycle website classified is for the stuff that bike riders can really appriciate. Ebay is where I get the most eyeballs for popular commodity items but they take the biggest cut of the sales price. I’ve often gotten less than I expected from Ebay auctions but that’s always the risk! Once you list an item on an auction, you are going to get what the market will pay at that time. If you don’t know the market or expect a certain price, don’t list it on a auction site.
I don’t understand reserves. Why not just start the bidding at the seller’s bottom dollar? I’ve bid on stuff on eBay and saw “Reserve not met”, and it just feels like a game I don’t want to play. It’s like the seller wants all the profit but won’t take any of the risk. It’s an auction. Don’t like it, list it for sale with an asking price and play that game instead.
I think showing the highest bid and “reserve not met” gives others a good idea on where the market is. If the bidding started at $17k and got no bids, we wouldn’t know that the market valued this truck at $15k, $12k or $16k.
Also the seller can sell for the highest bid, even if the reserve is not met. He just doesn’t have to.
For example: the seller expects his car to bring 20.000 Dollar and sets this as his reserve. The bidding only goes up to 18:500. He can then decide to let it go for 18,5 to the high bidder.
For some reason I appreciate you not using the same punctuation twice for the thousands separator in numbers. Reaching that global audience.
It’s a psychological thing. It can help drive up interest in what you’re selling. If you start low, you might get several people bidding on it and start a bidding war. Once people get invested in bidding on a thing, often they’ll go “just a little bit more” to beat out the other guy and “win”. If you start at a higher, more realistic price, fewer people will jump in on it and its more likely you’ll get either that price and no more, or it doesn’t sell at all, because all the bidders are trying to get a bargain elsewhere.
Because sites like BaT and C&B have a business need to demonstrate user engagement. If you see a vehicle offered at a $12K start and you think it’s worth $12K, are you more or less likely to come back (and maybe bid) if it’s offered at $600.
Reserves have been a thing in auctions for basically as long as auctions have existed, they weren’t invented out of nowhere when online auctions started with eBay and the like. The idea is an auction is an engaging, competitive environment and starting the bidding at a very low number (even if it’s well below the reserve) entices people with the prospect of a bargain encourages them to continue participating in the process. Revealing the bottom number to start with would result in less bidding, and probably end more often than not with the sale at the reserve instead of above it, when the goal is to sell for as much as possible
I saw a recent video with the Cars and Bids guys talking about how they momentarily considered a Dutch auction format – and then quickly dismissed it because they figured there’d be no way people (sellers) would participate in it.
nelsonhaha.jpg
Reserve prices shouldn’t be a secret. They should be disclosed after the auction is over. During bidding, you should be able to see whether the reserve has been met or not (ebay does this).
They should also charge a non-refundable fee just for having a reserve in the first place.
Or better yet, just start the bidding at the “reserve” price you want.
The fact that BaT wouldn’t do the 17k reserve shows they were right.
100%. I don’t understand how it’s to anyone’s advantage keeping it secret. Maybe someone would get scared off by the reserve price but offer something lower and, once emotionally “invested,” will become more likely to go higher?
There is a fee to list on BaT before you get to the buyer’s fees. $99 minimum or more if you have them do your photos and writeup.
Unless you’re saying they should charge another fee to have a reserve.
Correct. They should charge another fee to have a reserve.
Cars and bids started this way. Free for no reserve, fee for reserve auctions. They got rid of that maybe a year into the site being live.
A lot of folks hop into the car flipping scene after watching their favorite YouTuber do it for a living. They do so forgetting these guys get smoking deals on cars, parts, labor, and sponsorship deals to shore up any sunk cost in their videos. I’m sure the guy who sold this had the thought of big dollar amounts coming for a classic and tasteful Toyota, only to learn that an unfinished project is going to sell for unfinished project money.
It’s funny how he blames BaT, he could have easily used eBay or C&B’s if he felt that not having a Reserve was a bad idea.
He forgot or didnt know the rule of selling cars or anything really. You make your money when you buy it not when you sell it
“I WAAY OVERpaid $17k for it… GIVEN i STILL HAD TO put $12k into it….”
There… fixed it for accuracy.
And how much of that $12K was in the way of ‘necessary repairs’? I mean the seller spent all that money and the thing STILL doesn’t have a working radio???
WTF???
Toyota trucks were/are good at what they were designed to do. But I’m sorry… $17K for one that needs work is just insane.
And the mint early 1980s one that sold for $44K is even more insane. Yeah they’re good trucks. But compared to any new truck, they are not $44K-good or even $17K-good.
And they’re not all that rare either.
And technologically and designwise, they’re also not THAT interesting either.
I’m actually glad that this truck pulled in way less than expected.
It may be the start of classic car prices coming back down to more sane levels.
I thought the same thing, almost $30k into a 40 year old vehicle that seems like it is worth $5k in functionality and $10k in nostalgia? I guess I’m just clueless, glad I’m not participating in this sort of silliness.
*shrug* I’m having a hard time generating any indignation or sympathy. I read that headline and clicked in expecting to see the thing went for $750 or something nuts like that and was gonna be all like, “Aww, man! I feel bad for you dude, that’s gotta suck.” But $15k? Eh.
Yeah, I know you have more in it than that, but that feels more like decision making that didn’t quite work out in your favor more than the system doing you wrong. Win some, lose some.
Same, I was thinking it was gonna be a “no one saw this auction except a lone bidder at $250 45 minutes before it closed” horror story. Any speculation or profiteering the seller had in mind was fanciful.
Yeah, seller took a 11.7% hit by not getting *their minimum*, but obviously hit one buyer’s maximum (and overshot numerous other’s).
Yeah, I definitely expected this to be more of a horror story and less of a whiner story. This guy did better than I would have expected and should live with it.
Modifications versus restoration, name a more classic misinterpretation of how to add value to a car. I’ve seen it personally on car’s I’ve bought, messed with and sold.
I had a 1990 Miata, bought for something like 2800, it was rough cosmetically and meh mechanically, did a bunch of maintenance and a lot of modifications to it, enjoyed it, and sold it and lost several thousand dollars. I didn’t complain, I knew what I was doing, and was OK with the outcome because I got what I wanted from the car and the experiences.
After selling it, I bought a 2003 GX470 in rough mechanical shape for about 5k. I then spent 3k and many months fixing it, only repairing what was broken, no modifications, just mechanical work it NEEDED with OE style components. Sold it for a 2k profit, because it was an improved car without any expensive modifications that did not add value. I took a car with many issues that couldn’t be sold by a dealer due to condition to one that was above average for the market, and was pair accordingly.
This is how modifying cars goes. Unless you’re being paid to do modifications to someone else’s car, you WILL lose money. Restoring/flipping/fixing/rejuvenating on the other hand can pay, but even then it’s a gamble, I’ve just been fortunate enough that I get to have a variety of automotive experiences for relatively very little money because I can save money on labor. I don’t need to make money from this hobby, but if I can get the best bang for my buck, I’m happy.
The seller failed to make the perfect mod, removal of the TO and TA Graphics from the tailgate, that would have guarantted him the perfect sale price he was after.
I don’t know the last time you’ve done one, but an article series about the pros and cons of the different selling sites would be a great. I’m considering selling my classic squarebody and really don’t know what the best option might be.
Our man Tom McParland has started orbiting a little closer lately…
I’ve listed 3 cars in BaT, all with reserves. The key is that BaT wants a sale as that is how they get paid, so they need to make sure the reserve is set at a reasonable value. They have the data to make a good estimate as to what a vehicle will sell for and recommend a reserve accordingly.
I sold a Ferrari 308 Gtsi and wanted the reserve set at a value higher than they thought it was worth, through negotiations we settled on a value and went forward with the auction. The auction was quite successful, selling for $9k over our reserve.
In another situation I listed a MINI, set a reserve and it wasn’t met. Ended up selling it for $500 more than my reserve price a few months later on Craigslist. Thr buyer of the MINI proceeded to modify it more, and up screwing up the ECU such that it went into limp mode at 5k rpm, then listed it on BaT a few years later, and it sold for $7k more than the reserve not met auction I had. In the end, it’s all about timing and whether there are people looking for the vehicle you have for sale that particular week.
Seller : I know what I got!
Market : No you don’t.
COTD!!!
Should have listed it at Mecum Auction with a reserve.