Engine warmed up in BCA photo

[MJG50 7]

I've just been looking at a Merc diesel at BCA and I can see from the dash photo that the temperature needle is at the half way position, around 80 degrees. Am I being paranoid or is this a bad sign? The car is a Mercedes Retail PX car with no assured report.

I once got caught buying a Mondeo from BCA at a physical auction that had been deliberately warmed up for a while before being driven through. It sounded awful when cold.

I used to be wary of buying anything at auction with over half a tank of fuel as I figured most previous owners would run the tank dry before trading it in unless there was something major wrong with it! I've bought a few with half full tanks though and they were all fine but I'd be interested to know people's thoughts on the Merc with the temp gauge in the middle. I tend to find most auction photos are taken with the temp gauge at zero. Thanks in advance.

 

 

[MarkTVS 209]

It wouldn’t bother me, if you look into stuff too much it ruins it for you. We’re all gamblers in this job. Just take a chance 

[Lakeside 94]

Really wouldn’t let it worry you, the way things are at the min it’s probably been driven straight from the dealership, through the auction gates and into the photo booth. 

[D&M 66]

We're the opposite - full tank of fuel means the owner liked and trusted the car... Nobody is going to fill up a car that they think is gonna break down!

We haven't been caught out for years, not whilst we've been trading but when buying our own cars - bought an E36 318tds years ago. Less than 1/4 tank and you'd be cranking for at least 30 seconds before it'd start.. Pinholes in the lift pipe.

Another one was a P38 Range Rover - again less than 1/4 tank and a left turn and the engine would cut out and take an age of cranking to get it going.

Good old days... 

[MJG50 7]

Yes you are right, as I've got older I definitely over analyse and over research potential auction buys. In a way the internet hasn't helped as there are so many ways to check out cars prior to the sale.

The other thing I've started doing is to check when it was last road taxed. If there's a fair old gap I tend to wonder why the car hasn't gone into auction straight away after being traded in. Well unless the dealer has tried to retail it themselves of course but this Merc isn't main dealer stock and was traded in back in June but it didn't get to BCA until this week. Part of me worries that there was something wrong with the car when it was traded in and it's been botched up to get it through the auction but then again even if there was a problem, it would probably still get sent to auction straight away.

As you can tell, over analysing definitely isn't the way forward!

[Blenheim Car Sales 111]

there are plenty of reasons to not buy a car.....................this is not one of them

 

i see the fuel tank as a bonus, half a tank, Obviously £50 is of such an insignificant amount  they can afford to waste it and not be bothered by it at trade in

[David Horgan 564]

11 hours ago, MJG50 said:

traded in back in June but it didn't get to BCA until this week

They are not touched for ages when being transferred from dealer to auction , their way of killing the virus , leave it and it dies off . so you will find it can take months to get where they are going sometimes 

[Tony F 38]

18 hours ago, MJG50 said:

 I'd be interested to know people's thoughts on the Merc with the temp gauge in the middle.

In the bad old days (20-25+ yrs ago) I know of a trader who got rid of his overheating Merc through the auction when he superglued the temperature guage needle on the halfway point. The car had less than a gallon of fuel in, but he was feeling generous and gave it 'a full tank' at the same time and glued the fuel guage needle on Full. Imagine trying to get away with something like that these days!!

Joking aside, I think you are correct. The older we are the more we seem to over analyze stuff. I am guilty of it. And I certainly dont have the balls I once had. I think you could call it experiance or once bitten twice shy. Having said that the auction job has changed a lot past 10 yrs, what with half of Bca now being their own wbac cars for sale. And as we all know, there are a large percentage of these with hidden faults, which is why they were sold to wbac in the first place.

[Halfpenny 114]

If you overthink the job you will drive yourself insane. Just be reasonably cautious and be prepared to take a knock now and again..... it goes with the job.

[Lakeside 94]

8 hours ago, David Horgan said:

They are not touched for ages when being transferred from dealer to auction , their way of killing the virus , leave it and it dies off . so you will find it can take months to get where they are going sometimes 

WBAC are not doing that. I traded a van into them a few weeks back, it was going through bca two days later.

[trade vet 697]

25 minutes ago, Lakeside said:

WBAC are not doing that. I traded a van into them a few weeks back, it was going through bca two days later.

I didn’t think they bought from the trade.

[Lakeside 94]

1 hour ago, trade vet said:

I didn’t think they bought from the trade.

They dont, long story short I bought private just after lockdown when auction prices were through the roof. Seller was being funny about me filling in the trade section of the V5 for some reason so I just put it in my name. 
 

WBAC offered me £500 more than I paid for it so off it went to them for a quick flip. 

[trade vet 697]

10 minutes ago, Lakeside said:

They dont, long story short I bought private just after lockdown when auction prices were through the roof. Seller was being funny about me filling in the trade section of the V5 for some reason so I just put it in my name. 
 

WBAC offered me £500 more than I paid for it so off it went to them for a quick flip. 

Thought so,you were masquerading as a private seller.In the distant past that was known as a ‘bowler hat deal ‘.Never tried it myself because the consequences if you got found out could be ending up in a wheelchair.

[Casper 272]

Wbac also wont but a car in your own name that you haven't owned for 3 months or they didn't a few years back got talking to  an  acquaintance in the pub one night he had audi which he bought for himself and registered in is name and address and  the engine management light came on a few week later he ended up sticking through the auction and loss a bit on it .. 

as for the fuel thing never have any right nor reason to it or the car temperature in photos 

even some of the cars ive sold at auction some times they had half a tank quarter a tank or full three quarter etc 

sometimes if they were decent enough but older or ruffer than usual standard we would use them to smoke around in to use the fuel 

as the other said some times in life and in this business you have take chances

in the wise words of del boy he who dares wins rodney 

[MJG50 7]

Yes I think we all get a bit more risk averse as we get older as we have accumulated bad experiences in the past. In the old days, I used to take my chances and back then, I can't say I ever bought anything with major issues. More recently though, since I've been over analsying things, pretty much everything I've bought at the block has had some hidden mechanical nightmare which would be impossible to check at auction. In the days before we could check MoT histories online, I can't ever recall buying anything with a nasty advisories. I occasionally check out the MoT histories of retail cars on Auto Trader and I'm amazed that quite a few £5k plus cars have a lot of horrid sounding advisories on their new MoTs - I can't imagine ever being able to sell anything with advisories such as oil leaks, leaking cooling system and rusty rear subframes on the new MoT! I've always found that buyers want a totally clean MoT regardless of the price of the car! I've even had people ask about advisories from 5 years ago! It's pretty obvious that an advisory for rear brake pads 20,000 miles ago has been sorted out!

I had to have a wry smile at the superglued temp gauge - that's the sort of thing I'd immediately spot at auction when the car is started but online you have no idea what happens when the car starts up! I know over analysing kills things but when I see an auction photo with the temperature gauge in the middle I tend to think does it show warning lights that only go out when the car reaches a certain temperature! That said though, BCA has so many cars to photograph, I doubt they'd faff around waiting for a car to warm up before taking the dash photo.

I've checked a few 'last road taxed' dates and most are very recent so it does seem a bit strange this Merc wasn't entered into the auction with a few days of being traded in. It hasn't had a private plate either so it's not as though they were waiting for documents. I always worry about buying a main dealer PX that was traded in with a major fault and the owner decided to upgrade rather than repair their old car so my mad paranoid logic is that if it is traded in with a major fault, it takes a while for the dealer to botch it to get it running to go through the auction. 

At the end of the day, it's a numbers game and one big snag I have is that I'm only intending to deal in a very low volume now so if I buy a lemon it's gutting, both emotionally and financially. Whereas, if someone is buying a couple of hundred cars a year, the odd headache car isn't going to make much difference.

 

[Casper 272]

1 hour ago, MJG50 said:

Yes I think we all get a bit more risk averse as we get older as we have accumulated bad experiences in the past. In the old days, I used to take my chances and back then, I can't say I ever bought anything with major issues. More recently though, since I've been over analsying things, pretty much everything I've bought at the block has had some hidden mechanical nightmare which would be impossible to check at auction. In the days before we could check MoT histories online, I can't ever recall buying anything with a nasty advisories. I occasionally check out the MoT histories of retail cars on Auto Trader and I'm amazed that quite a few £5k plus cars have a lot of horrid sounding advisories on their new MoTs - I can't imagine ever being able to sell anything with advisories such as oil leaks, leaking cooling system and rusty rear subframes on the new MoT! I've always found that buyers want a totally clean MoT regardless of the price of the car! I've even had people ask about advisories from 5 years ago! It's pretty obvious that an advisory for rear brake pads 20,000 miles ago has been sorted out!

I had to have a wry smile at the superglued temp gauge - that's the sort of thing I'd immediately spot at auction when the car is started but online you have no idea what happens when the car starts up! I know over analysing kills things but when I see an auction photo with the temperature gauge in the middle I tend to think does it show warning lights that only go out when the car reaches a certain temperature! That said though, BCA has so many cars to photograph, I doubt they'd faff around waiting for a car to warm up before taking the dash photo.

I've checked a few 'last road taxed' dates and most are very recent so it does seem a bit strange this Merc wasn't entered into the auction with a few days of being traded in. It hasn't had a private plate either so it's not as though they were waiting for documents. I always worry about buying a main dealer PX that was traded in with a major fault and the owner decided to upgrade rather than repair their old car so my mad paranoid logic is that if it is traded in with a major fault, it takes a while for the dealer to botch it to get it running to go through the auction. 

At the end of the day, it's a numbers game and one big snag I have is that I'm only intending to deal in a very low volume now so if I buy a lemon it's gutting, both emotionally and financially. Whereas, if someone is buying a couple of hundred cars a year, the odd headache car isn't going to make much difference.

 

In fairness your right when you start to buy on a lower volume you do seem to want to over analyse and think about or maybe over think about I used to buy a lot more had the odd one with issues but due to my own health and dads health with his dementia I've scaled down a lot don't buy or make as much as i once did but still get by and don't feel i need to so much these these days if i cover overheads and get a wage  

I'm undecided if i should keep doing what I'm doing or if some stage to go back to the larger scale i guess time will time 

[Kes 7]

On 8/21/2020 at 10:54 PM, MJG50 said:

I've just been looking at a Merc diesel at BCA and I can see from the dash photo that the temperature needle is at the half way position, around 80 degrees. Am I being paranoid or is this a bad sign? The car is a Mercedes Retail PX car with no assured report.

I once got caught buying a Mondeo from BCA at a physical auction that had been deliberately warmed up for a while before being driven through. It sounded awful when cold.

I used to be wary of buying anything at auction with over half a tank of fuel as I figured most previous owners would run the tank dry before trading it in unless there was something major wrong with it! I've bought a few with half full tanks though and they were all fine but I'd be interested to know people's thoughts on the Merc with the temp gauge in the middle. I tend to find most auction photos are taken with the temp gauge at zero. Thanks in advance.

 

 

I would say you really overanalyzing things.

I see two reasons why car was warm:

 

1. It has flat battery so was left running.

2. It has working aircon so somebody was just chilling down in it...

 

[Lakeside 94]

10 hours ago, Casper said:

Wbac also wont but a car in your own name that you haven't owned for 3 months or they didn't a few years back

They must of changed that as it was only in my name for about a week.

[Casper 272]

1 hour ago, Lakeside said:

They must of changed that as it was only in my name for about a week.

Cheers yeah it was about 3 years ago maybe more .so they must have yeah . 

[metcars 394]

When I used to watch them at Colchester the cars went from the valeting bay to the photo booth so the engines tend to be running?