Yes more than possible they absolutely encourage it.

1) You'll need a desposit before you can start bidding. It's usually around a couple of hundred dollars.
2) There is time to view cars before the auction, look around the lot.
3) It's best to take a mechanic, if you ask one at a local garge nicely and offer payment for the day, they will usually be more than happy to help out.
4) Remember the auction house will add a percentage to the price you bid on, anything between 5-15% so check the terms.
5) Don't be hasty set a limit and stick to it, emotions can be dangerous at auctions.
6) If you don't find anything, go collect your deposit and come back another day.

Good luck.

P.S. Fantastic bargins can be found at the start and end of car auctions. Usually the start. :)
Source(s):
Personal experience of buying a couple of cars at auctions.

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Unless you have an auto mechanic you have known and have trusted like family for years who is willing to buy the auto for you at auction, take the car back to his shop and go over every square inch of it inside and out looking for signs of major damage, accidents, flood(waters) from floods, storms, hurricanes, cracked frames, rebuilt anything, and poor aftermarket parts or shoddy repairs AND then take it back on your behlf to the auction during the allotted time period ( a week, maybe 9 days), do NOT purchase an auto at auction no matter how good it looks to your untrained eye. You need an auto mechanic trained in collision assesment and restoration of autos to do everything on your bahalf (unless you are such a person - in which case you will already know how to buy at auction.

Carfax? Forget it. Consumer Reports (and other authorities, including governmental ) have demonstrated in recent years that autos with clear Carfax ratings have been in floods in Katrina, major accidents with severe frame damage, etc. This means they were declared wrecks by insurance companies, the title pagees were phonied up and Carfax misinformed and then the car was sold to one of the 17 states with weak laws in this area - and then sold to an unsuspecting customer. Yes, unsafe, perhaps fatally unsafe cars are being sold as "Certified" unused cars every day. This is illegal, of course, but we need stronger laws against this form of auto fraud.

Autocheck.com claims to have twice as many bad reports on cars as Carfax but the "Certified" used Toyota which I recently purchased iin SWOuthern California came up clean in Carfax and Autocheck...yet a collision expert has gone over it and shown me all the signs of a front-end collision, the body work, the after-market, non-Toyota replacement parts, etc. I am now in discussion with a amous auto fraud attorney to see if he will take my case.

If you want a used car buy only from an honest friend or relative who is the first owner of the car so that you know its complete history. Before paying or signing anything, take it to a mechanic and the body shop he recommends if he thinks he's not up to spotting subtle signs of body work and collision damage repaired previously. Do not buy anything that has been in water, that has had any frame damage, and, just to be safe, anything that has electrical issues. Once theres one electrical problem more seem to crop up.

Best of luck!
Source(s):
Consumer Reports Magazine (some issue in 2009), carfax.com, autocheck.com

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We can bid at dealer only auctions for you,tell us what your after & we can find send you pic's & info,we charge $200us

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We look forward to doing business with you.
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Source(s):
www.ususedauto.com

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