Motorcycle Auctions

 anyone know anything about these?

http://npauctions.com/Default.aspx

I know you have to have a dealers license in order to get in on the
bidding but am wondering how the guy on the street might take
advantage of one.

 

Stay away from these businesses.  When a new bike is repoed, if
it is in pristine condition the lender usually make a deal with the
dealer and the repo goes right back to the showroom floor.  And
some motorcycle companies, like Harley Davidson, run their own
wholly-owned subsidiaries (Eaglemark, Inc.) that finance the bike
and if the buyer falls behind in payments then the ownership of the
bike goes right back to Harley Davidson who sends it right back
out into their dealer network as a used bike.

What these auction houses deal with are the used bikes financed
by a credit union or a bank, that the dealer doesen't want, either
because they are old, or broken.  These houses sell to places like
GLD Cycles (a bike wrecker) who part them out, or on occassion
a small dealer might take a chance on a bike.

You can certainly call a salvage shop like GDL Cycle as they will
usually maintain a small cache of the best stuff they take in, that is
common (so parts aren't worth much) and is running well.  But your
best bet for a cheap bike, in my opinion, right now is to go to a
dealer.  The reason why is that with the economy in the crapper,
the private owners who got in over their head on a bike aren't
even bothering to try and unload them through private sale since
they know nobody will buy them, they are just letting the banks
take them.   And with sales down the dealers are desperate.

Ted

 
<snip>

Interesting. Finance snatchbacks are relatively rare in the UK, and
bike auctions don't seem to feature the machines much. Generally,
they're used to offload stuff that dealers have taken in p/ex but
which is too old or shonky or both to go on the showroom floor.

If you know what you're going, you can grab a real bargain. I once
bought a mint Yamaha XS400 Custom because the auction description was
wrong and listed it as a 250. Both bikes were identical and neither
carried capacity badges. The only way to tell was to read the cc
stamps on the barrels or if you knew (as I did) that the 400 had
rounded barrels while the 250 had square.

Mind you, in the same action was a Honda CX500 that my friend and I
calculated had been built up out of four, count 'em, four different
machines.

I wouldn't recommend any vehicle auction to a novice, that's for sure.

 
You have to have a dealer's licence? How bloody silly. In the UK,
anyone can pitch up and bid and plenty do, cars and/or bikes. I have.

 

Most vehicle auctions around here do not require a dealers license.
However, most of them also require a minimal entrance fee ($30 or so)
to get in the door and bid.

There are also NO government auctions in my state anymore,
haven't been for years now.  The state government of my state, (OR)
stopped doing impound vehicle auctions.  Nowadays, all government seized
vehicles are sold off on none other than Ebay using the Ebay userID
oregonmotors2000 while the rest of the seized junk is sold using
ID oregontrail2000.  They make a LOT of money doing it this way
and have a dedicated staff that sells this stuff.

Ted