Salvage Car Auction Fees and Taxes

If you're wondering how to bid on Copart CA or IAAI, we suggest familiarizing yourself with the auctions' rules and provided online tools. But before starting the bidding process keep the following tips in mind as you search for your next salvage car lot at auction inventory. Setting your total budget ($Budget) limit is the first and obvious step. However your maximum bid will also depend on a variable parts – cost of repairs, which you must determin up front for each particular lot. The complete list of expenses counting towards budget is:

 

• Registration fees (Auction + Broker)

• Action fees (Depends on winning bid size)

• Broker fees

• Sales taxes (Depends on winning bid size + Auction fee)

• Transportation fees

• Repair estimate costs (Parts and Labor)

• Unexpected costs

   ======================

      $Total_Cost

 

Once collected your MAX bid limit will derive naturally as:

 

  $Max_Bid = $Budget - $Cost, 

 

An important indicator that helps buyers understand bid limits is the estimated market price value of a vehicle with a clean title. At Copart this is known as the "Est. Retail Value (ERV)", and at IAAI it is known as the "Actual Cash Value (ACV)." Sellers usually submit this value along with other lot information, and in most cases, they provide an accurate value.

 

This article is written in March 2023 when the situation with the used car market is (was) very unusual. Due to supply chain issues and other factors, the price of used cars grew significantly during the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022. However, now we are seeing a cooling-down period, with prices decreasing by 2-3% per week in some cases. In this situation, sellers may have a tendency to submit values related to the market situation a couple of months back, resulting in higher than actual market value. Therefore, it is worth checking market trend insights on websites like Cargurus to ensure the accuracy of ERV/ACV.

 

At SF Auto Labs, we are closely following trends in the local CA market by analyzing thousands of daily offers  listed on the market to provide the most accurate representation of the used car market.

 

Brokers’ websites typically offer fee and tax calculators that provide quick estimates of expenses and charges assosiated with a given lot. However, we recommend using a spreadsheet table for a more comprehensive approach to calculating and comparing total costs across different lots. You can create your own spreadsheet or use the one we offer on our website – Max Bid Calculator – a Google Sheet that provides assistance with calculations. It is free and additionally, it provides an estimate of the MAXIMUM BID LIMIT based on your budget and estimated repair costs, which You may find  a valuable tool.

 

Feb, 2023

SF Auto Labs.