I've been looking for my first C3 for some time. I check E-bay almost every day and have bid on a few cars with no luck. Yesterday I did a search on closed auctions and only saw where maybe 2 cars had hit the reserve and sold. What's going on here? Is the market real soft right now or are sellers being urealistic on their prices?

 

when they add the word "Corvette" and throw the age out there, it tends to add about $5k to the seller's reserve/asking price.

 

After a few months of looking at crap. I bought my 80 off E Bay. I paid a little under $12,000 for it. I saw it the day the auction was ending and it was exactly what I was looking for. The car looked great in the pictures. I spoke to the owner and he asured me the paint was nice the interior was new and the engine was fine. He sent me some more pictures and then I spoke to my wife who told me to go for it.
Well the transaction went smooth and I received my car about a week later. It arrived at night, 2 AM to be exact. Well the next day I went over the car, the paint was a 15 footer. The interior was new, as in newly painted from red to black, bad job. Again the interior looked great in pictures. The motor was spray painted to look restored. It also looked great in pictures. I called the seller and told him I was unhappy with the car and he refunded me about $800. To this day I am still finding little treasures on this car, the frame has a crack right by the steering and that will have to be welded up. I am lucky I do all the work myself.
My lesson learned was not to buy a car with out physically looking at it. Which makes buying on E bay hard to do.

Since I have the car for a year now I have , put in a new full interior, dash pad, seats, rug, everything. The car is in process of a new paint job. I had to strip off 5 layers of paint before I could paint it. Also someone did some bubba body work that I have spent the last month repairing. I also figured since I was dumping all this money into the car I might as well be totally satisfied so I installed a 383 into the car.
Next witer I get underneath it and do the front end and all the bushings And paint the frame and floor.

When the car is done I will have a real nice 80, black interior and paint, 383 engine with a 4 speed.


All I wanted was a nice driver that didn't need any real work.

 

I would never buy a car without looking/ test driving it first

 

ebay is just an exposure tool for a high percentage of sellers.

in order to bid in an auction, the car must be either close by, or a price that will offset the fact that I can't look at it in person prior to auction end. on a national auction site, that is why cars don't get bid up. I know the car won't bid up to reserve. or the seller is fishing for a high price.

if the car does not make reserve, call the seller up and ask what the price is and negotiate from there.

ebay will tell you to not make the deal outside of ebay in order to get their fees, and to provide transaction protection in case of fraud. but if you really read the small print in the ebay agreement, you will see that the transaction protection is meaningless in many many cases.

do your deal outside of ebay after you go see it, know the price, and do your diligence.

a high percentage of remorseful purchases are from buyers buying site unseen.

 

I would not buy a car on ebay without looking at it first. They all seem to look better on line than they really are. A few years ago I followed one on ebay the car was located just up the road 60 miles from me so I was able to look at it before bidding. Lots of issues not mentioned by the seller. The car did not sell (or fell through) and the owner called and offered me the car for about 20% less than the ebay reserve. Looking back on it now I wished I would have bought the car at his new price.

 

I purchased my 1970 off Craigslist.

You're able to better narrow your geographic area to places where you can drive. I had 10 different Craigslist areas with a "Corvette" search on my iPad 'bookmark' bar so I would just pick each of them morning, noon, and night. All were within a ~200 mile "striking distance" if the right car happened to turn up.

It took me about 6 months of 'not really' looking and about 2 months of VERY intense scrutiny before "my" car came up for sale.

Craigslist has scammers, just like eBay. But it also has real people who are looking to sell something that isn't (in their opinion) made of solid gold.

I bought my 1970 'driver' for $7k in January of '12. The car turned out to be exactly what was described to me even after over a year of work and scrutiny. I actually still talk to the seller every once in a while. It isn't perfect, but I didn't want (and couldn't pay) for perfect.

 

My thinking: It's a combination of unrealistic asking prices, softer market, and misrepresentation... The distance thing definately makes it difficult to know what you're getting yourself into...

I think the mentality of buyer right now, is that you don't want it if you can't steal it... Meaning the deal has to be too good to pass up in this economy.

The mentality of many buyers seems to be... I'll ask for a lot, and who knows, maybe get it. If I don't, I'll repost later.

Or some might not really even know what the true value is. I mean, determining true value is difficult even for the experts here. And we all know we have more in our cars than we can get out of them. Some folks probably try to get it all back.

I use Craigslist, surf through the piles of garbage, and go to look at a few now and then. I miss the occasional good deal, which doesn't hurt too bad. It's the deal you make that you shouldn't have made that can hurt you. At least with Craigslist, they're close enough to inspect in person.

 

I think that a lot of EBay stuff is over priced. To many people watch BJ Auction and then put a turd on Ebay so they can get rich.

Just be careful and look long and hard before you jump into something

 

The market isn't really soft. It's just at an appropriate level for buyers, which is how a free market is supposed to work. True, there is a bit less disposable income in the economy, but that's not the whole of the market for collector cars. I think the buying public -assuming they are old enough and have a sense of history- having seen two massive crashes in the car market have come to the realization that cars are toys, not investments. Even looking at the TV auctions, you can see cars going for but a fraction of what they were selling for some years back. And the market doesn't care how much time and money the owner has in the car. Again, cars are not investments. They are toys

Now the other part of the issue is as you note: sellers are unrealistic on their prices. This, however, is a self-correcting problem. Be it a house, boat or car, if no one is interested at that price, they get to keep their property until they adjust the price to meet the market. I like looking for cars on CL and running across a 4-door, clapped out pile of junk and the seller thinks it's worth around $6,000 or more. Because they think any old car is gold, that owner will be keeping that car for a very long time.

 

Since Mr. Oldschoolvette brought it up, the auction thing is pretty funny.

I see these cars at BJ and am amazed/scared of the level of finish these cars have and the prices they command. They make mine look like a 8 year old drove it through a couple barn doors before parking it under the grain chute for a season or two.

And Mecum get boring because so many of the cars have SILLY reserve prices. Just dumb. The sellers there aren't looking to sell their cars...they're looking to make a mint off somebody. That's not an auction. That's a bunch of eBay sellers congregated at one place under a different name.

I've sold 2 houses and several cars on the open market. I don't think any of them have been listed for more than 24 hours before I've sold them. I have never given anything away, but I've never gone for blood, either. And I've always clearly represented what the thing is.

Cars are toys.

And lots of sellers have a VERY high opinion of what they have in their garage. Or are trying to do the single most foolish thing they could EVER do with one of these things: Try and get their money back out of it!

 

I bought my FJ Cruiser off Internet, but it was at a Dealer in CT. I simply made a deposit with the understanding that if it was junk...I could not buy it and not lose my deposit, it was also done on my credit card and was also a pretty new vehicle.

Other than that, I am with all others, would never buy a car online, not a finished car at least.....ratty project car another story.

 

Same for me. Half a year of 'browsing' CL then an intense few months of finding HER and a solid 24 hours to convince the wife why I needed a Corvette.
She was only 2 hours away from me but well worth the drive! Good luck on your search!

 

I ended up buying my 71 (in pieces) about an hour away. It was listed on CL. I did look at it twice before buying it (two weeks apart)

 

My 2 cents:

*You can get ripped off a 1/4 mile down the street or 1000 miles away.

*Ebay is not good or bad, just another market.

*I have bought and sold a number of cars on ebay. Few things I suggest:
-never bid on a car that is too far away to go look at, my limit is 250miles, maybe 500miles.
-make your $200 to $500 deposit and tell the seller that you have to have a personal satisfactory inspection before you make the final payment and the car has to match his photos/description exactly.
Otherwise you want your deposit back. Think ebay backs this up too, ck though.
-Go inspect the car in person before you hand over the big bucks. I have gotten a chevy dealer that sponsors a local corvette club to inspect a newer car and also you can generally find a corvette person local if you look.
-if the seller will not agree to these term before you bid in writing or email, walk away!
-buyer beware as always!
-trust your intuition, talk to the seller on the phone, ask for specific photos, you can usually smell a fraud.

*If a bidding ends and reserve was not met, you can do a couple of things, best I think is to call the seller and ask if he is willing to sell it to you at $xxx. If so, ask the seller to relist it at buy it now price $xxx at an agreed upon time and then you buy it. This way is likely better and keeps ebay happy.

*Or just do the transaction outside ebay, this make the buyer happy as he does not pay listing fees. I do not like this one very much as ebay did the advertising for the seller and deserves a fee, but people do it all the time.

*And yes, the market is still soft and yes it is a buyers market and if cars are not selling, then they are overpriced. things are only worth what you can find somebody to pay for them. another pretty girl (I mean car) will come along soon. half the fun is looking anyway!

 

I've been watching for awhile too and you will see the same car getting re-listed over and over. If you do some poking around you will even find youtube videos of the car for sale and see that some of these have been for sale for two years.

Just keep searching, something will eventually show up that's priced right and matches what your looking for.

 

Thaks for the reply's. I'm currently having a '66 Mustang restored for my wife. For the money I'll end up having in this car I could have bought 2 running cars but I wouldn't really know what I was getting. Having this car put together at a professional shop with quality parts lets me know exactly what I will have when it's done. I could have bought one similar to mine for cheaper but then I wouldn't have any choices in what I was getting either. This will still be cheaper than buying her a new Mustang and will be much cooler. This will not be her daily driver just something for her to take out when she feels like it.

That said I have learned a lot about what I really want in a Vette and what a restoration costs. I know that I can get what I want for MUCH cheaper by buying something already done. Also, I hate waiting. The restoration on her car is taking twice as long as initially planned. I want a nice mostly stock 69-75 Convertable Daily Driver. There are not many of these local where I live to see so.......

That is where Ebay comes in. I've bought a few motorcycles on Ebay. Not common bikes but bikes that I want. I've had excellent luck with my purchases and would not hesitate to buy again. Some where from the East Coast and some where from the West Coast. I don't care where they are I just want what I want. As far as Vettes on Ebay. I'm not looking for a fixer upper I am willing to spend the money for what I want but I'm not looking to be taken to the cleaners either. I've researched extensively and know what the cars I want are worth.

As far as Vette's I know there is a huge difference in the price of the years and my budget is flexable for the right car. I guess I get as excited about getting the car for the right price as I do about the car. That's sort of what puts me off on Ebay car sales. Post a buy it now or put a reasonable reserve Dang it! I hate posting up a bid and it never makes it to the reserve because no one bids the car up! I have no problem traveling to where the car is if it's properly represented. I will not pay $25,000.00 for a car sight unseen. But $15,000.00 for a '72 Convertable in nice shape the colors I want? No problem. Reputable sellers will give me the option to see the car before the deal is final anyways. I'm not going to buy from just any wahoo. I check out the sellers too. Buyer beware. I'm not easily separated from my money.

Honestly, I think the best thing would to buy from a member of this fourm. They usually seem to know the value of their cars and many have the bugs worked out or are forthwright with what the car's need. It's just a matter of finding the car I want for sale here. I guess I need to be patient and watch for the right deal.

 

Considering buying from the forum can be a good idea.
Being patient and watching for the right deal is the best idea.
Good luck in your search!

 

Ebay can be a great place to buy and sell Corvettes; Ive done both. But you have to understand that you are not going to get a true representation of the market while searching Completed Listings.

Many cars are actually bought on a deal after the auction closes, or during the auction but the seller agrees to end it early. This could represent most ebay car sales. You will not find these in Completed Sales. This will mislead you if you are looking for a pattern of sales.

Cars on ebay arent any better or any worse or more overpriced or more or less misrepresented than Corvettes for sale anyplace. Ebay does not have a market cornered on a certain type of seller. All normal buying rules apply.

I will agree with many people here that have said never ever buy a car unseen and never ever ever take a sellers word for anything without verifying. Dont be that guy a year later who says, "but I was told..."

 

wow I'm feeling old
.
Anybody remember "Buy N Sell"..?
bought the same car twice off that rag
*** (still own the car)

About your ebay ....
I bought a vert off there once turned out I got lucky
after I won the auction
drove 3hr the owner met me said if I wasn't happy with the car
he would refund money minus the listing feel.

I brought it home not bad for what I paid
in the glove box was the real reason I believe it was for sale
( fist full of methadone clinic receipt)

sold that only to buy it back 6 yrs later
***(still have that car too)
.
........................................ .s