1965 230SL Just Sold on Bring a Trailer

[Bonnyboy]

I was watching this latest auction on Bring a Trailer (BAT) and it brought up a couple points of interest. 

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1965-mercedes-benz-230sl-54/

This seems to be a fairly low sales price.  Reading the comments on this sale would be good advice on anyone wanting to sell their car on BAT.   I expect that the value was low resulting from comments from the peanut gallery and the person selling the car not responding in a timely manner with the pictures that they wanted.

So if you want to sell on BAT make sure you are available to respond to the peanut gallery or they could sink your sale.


Car looks rusty so maybe the final sales price was "market correct" but without more pictures of the underneath and responses to a few of the questions,
 one will only wonder.



   

[john.mancini]

I was one of the responders from the peanut gallery. I'm @pagoda69. This particular 230SL was a dog of a car, and a very sick dog at that. Undercoating was slobbered everywhere, hiding massive rust issues that poked through in various areas. Carpet padding glued down in the trunk and floor pans. Why anyone would bid on a car like this is beyond me. The buyer is going to be shocked when he/she gets that 230SL. With the buyer's premium the sale was over $40K. That car will take at least triple that to make the body whole and who knows what mechanical work it needs. Too much time and money to end up with a car that, unless is done perfectly, will never look quite right.

I'm always amazed at the bids on BaT. Bidders see these beautiful Pagodas and bid with no knowledge or insight. And, many of the "experts" who make comments are even worse. It can be very entertaining

[Bshaunessy]

I also followed this BAT sale and was one of the peanut gallery commenters.   That car was pretty hagard, Merle!

Early in the auction ( day 2) i requested some basic info and pics from seller…..radio silence.  BAT sellers are normally engaged in the sale process and are responsive.    It is frustrating when a seller does not engage.
  I made a recommend to BAT administration to add a feature to allow registered bidders to rank sellers on quality of their BAT listing ( photos, car description, disclosure level etc……say a 1 to 10 scale……the seller in question was a half star out of 10!)

[Bonnyboy]

I agree with your comments - I had a friend ask me about this one and I said "don't even consider it".  He can't weld.

I also have another friend looking at selling his Packard and Mercury cars on BAT and I said to make sure he is around to answer questions and take multitudes of pictures and make sure the cars are clean.


 

[john.mancini]

Those were great suggestions. I usually follow the W113 auctions. The prices have been high, especially for rusted, damaged Pagodas. Many bidders have no clue about what they are bidding on. On BaT, and other auction sites there is no ability to see if the seller is being honest about the car he/she is selling. Some sellers are auctioning off horrendous cars. It would be nice if sellers could be held accountable, BUT, in reality, shame on the bidders for buying cars they know nothing about and have not had inspected.

[JamesL]

No doubt in part motivated by “investment potential” - or at least the man maths of it won’t depreciate so I can flip it if need be

[jjbrooks]

Car condition aside there may be several reasons why a BaT seller does not respond promptly or at all to posted questions or comments - for one sellers are not given a time certain when their auction goes live so they may be indisposed or otherwise unavailable during the auction. Similarly, the seller may have been called away on an emergency or required to attend to a short notice obligation beyond his control. Also, a seller may not be intimately familiar with BaT messaging protocol - this seems to be more prevalent with older sellers who don’t have the latest IT gear or network connectivity. In the subject auction a question was posed to “@seller” instead of the sellers user name/handle - I don’t know if BaT’s auction platform can direct the question to the seller under the generic handle. Yet another reason may be a language barrier or possibly a lack of knowledge about a listed car - not everyone seller is a car buff. In one auction earlier this year the seller was a father selling his son’s car relatively soon after his son had died and so he was still in mourning and not focused on the auction. In a nutshell I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect all BaT sellers to be uniformly proactive/prompt communicators although the less communicative ones undoubtedly end up with money left on the table or RNM.  Just my 2¢…

[AdelaidePagoda]

JJ, agree with all your comments although they could be considered as excuses that should, or could, be included in the terms and conditions of the BAT conditions of sale.
If you are not available to comment during the auction due to some unforeseen circumstances, the car should be withdrawn or paused. If you do not know enough about the car to comment and answer buyers questions, it should be outsourced to someone who does or not included in a BAT auction.
The downside otherwise is that a successful bidder takes ownership of a car that may not be of the quality the photos suggest, or areas of concern that do not capture. You could argue that ‘buyer beware’ although that may encourage unscrupulous sellers to dump poor quality cars on a site that does not have quality controls in place.
I like the idea of regular buyers having rating's, this would encourage high volume sellers to lift their game.
BAT has come a long way and continues to improve and enhance the buyers, and sellers experience.

[JamesL]

I’m afraid I’m a caveat emptor kind of chap.
If the seller doesn’t answer questions, bid accordingly.
There’ll always be folk sticking lipstick on pigs to sell them. It’d be lovely to have complete information but it’s pretty much always incomplete. What may be a dog to you with lots on info and experience, may well end up being someone’s pride and joy on a sunny Sunday. Or may come back to haunt them, but those that don’t do their homework (or have it marked!)  are taking a bigger risk come exam time.

[mdsalemi]

I’m afraid I’m a caveat emptor kind of chap.
If the seller doesn’t answer questions, bid accordingly.
There’ll always be folk sticking lipstick on pigs to sell them.

I agree, James, with the following qualifier. This points to separating the "wheat from the chaff". I don't follow these BaT auctions at all, as opposed to some of our members here who do this in lieu of watching football, e.g. doing it for sport entertainment!

Some questions are totally inane. They ask minutia that is totally irrelevant. They want the seller to go take that 251st photo because the 250 wasn't enough. They are just time wasters. So, if someone isn't answering a question, maybe they have determined you are not a buyer and dealing with your questions is simply a waste of time?

I do sell a lot of older personal items on eBay; it's not a business, it's a way to simply repurpose that which is no longer of use to me, but has value to someone, and perhaps recover a few dollars in the process. Most of the items I sell transact with no questions. Of those that have a lot of questions, the buyer is rarely the one who has asked them. So, some items that have stupid questions, I just ignore the questions.

[john.mancini]

I do find the W113 auction comments very entertaining, but I'm with you Michael. I'd still rather watch football