Selling on Bring A Trailer.com

I think almost everyone has heard of the online car auction site, Bring a Trailer or BAT as it is more commonly known (www.bringatrailer.com). I have been a subscriber for years and faithfully read the daily newsletter with the latest auction listings, what auctions are closing that day, and what did or didn’t get sold and for how much the day before. All auctions are posted for seven days and you can set a reserve price, that is unless it is a set of wheels as I was wanting to sell. They don’t allow reserves on wheels.

I have had a set of 911 15 x 7 & 8 inch Fuchs wheels for a number of years, they came with my long gone 1986 Carrera. I thought I may make use of them some

day so they sat in the garage taking up space but the time came to move them out. They were not in the best of shape so I looked in to getting them refinished before selling them. I got a quote from Greens Automotive in Richmond for just under $1500 and they were experienced in refinishing Fuchs. After researching past sales of sets of Fuchs on BAT I was quite confident I could get at least $2000 USD so I would at least clear a $1,000 CDN. For once the exchange rate would work in my favour. So I went ahead and got them done and they looked fantastic when I got them back.

Then I went online and filled in the form and sub-

mitted my pictures for the advert following what I had seen in prior ads for Fuchs wheels on BAT. They charge the seller $99.99 USD to submit an auction item. Within 24 hours I heard back from BAT and they committed to writing the ad and sending it to me to approve, once approved it would be posted on the auction site within a few days. In my case the wheels were posted within two days and it was now a case of waiting to see if there was any interest. Being a no reserve auction I was a little anxious about getting a good price.

Like all auctions it started off slow. For those of you who are familiar with auctions on BAT it seems all the serious bidding happens in the last ten minutes. On day one, the opening bid was $1200, day two $1300, next two days no bids. Day five, one bid for $1400 and day six $1500 and then $1600. Still not near what I was expecting but the last day is the when all the action happens and sure enough it did. The auction was set to close at 2:50 that afternoon.

At 8:38 in the morning the next bid came in at $1700, 8:45 $1899, 9:30 $2000, then it went quiet, well at least I had hit my minimum I was hoping to get. But hold on it’s not over yet, 12:25 $2100, 2:07 $2350, 2:50 $2650, now the auction is in overtime. When someone bids at the last second the clock resets for another two minutes to give a chance to other bidders

to respond, and one did for $2750 and I’m pretty happy but it’s not over yet, another bid for $2901. Then I watch the clock tick down and its over. The winning bid worked out to $3700 CDN. A fantastic result as far as I’m concerned.

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/set-of-15-7-8-fuchs/

Once the auction ends then you quickly get an email from the successful bidder. Turns out the wheels are off to Carson City Nevada to a PCA member Mark who has a couple of 70’s 911’s that he is looking to use the wheels on. Once I sent him my bank info he wired me the funds directly to my bank and I shipped the wheels off. The buyer is responsible for all shipping costs and having got the wheels done at Greens they came all packed in boxes and ready to ship.

If you have any Fuchs wheels hanging around that you are not using, you might want to give BAT a try. This turned out to be a good experience for me and I still look forward to those daily BAT newsletters.

Tim Evans

Treasurer