Step 1 - Define What is Fun for You
Your daily driver, dependable transportation needs to be set. Much of what is described in this guide can help you find a daily driver, but it will be full of compromises.
What you'll develop is a mental model that fits how you enjoy vehicles to the realities of the marketplace. Whether that's a simple love of machines, or a more complex relationship between the cost, availability and ease of shopping. Follow the guides in this section to help you get started mapping what you want to what you can get.
Step 2 - Define Your Risk Tolerance
You'll need to be comfortable with a wide variety of risks when purchasing vehicles from auction houses. There's your known risks, like body and flood damage. Then there's the unknown risks like transport damage, parts theviery, smells, and the auction houses last minute 'changes to the deal'. Looking for real world examples of what can and does go wrong? This section has details on what to expect.
Step 3 - Define What You're Not Going to Fix
This is the best way to save money and still have a fun car to drive. Alternatively, this is a great way to spend more money trying to fix it yourself than it would cost to have a professional do it. The reality is you can easily get to 80% on most body repairs, for drastically reduced cost. Find more details here on the tradeoffs and how to decide what to keep broken, and what you must fix.
Step 4 - Define Your Budget
Now that you know what you want, and what you do not want, you can define your budget. Check this section out for real world breakdowns of what you can expect to pay, and when. You've probably heard of the fees at this point, and this set of guides will show you exactly what costs are for Auction house fees, DMV fees, transport fees, etc.
Step 5 - Auction
Finding vehicles on Copart and IAA is easily the best part of the process. Their selection is truly unmatched in the industry - combined they have over 700k vehicles available on a daily basis. You can use these auction house interfaces to reduce your stress and cost. At bid time, you don't have to be subject to their engineered manipulations, and you can control your costs. Ever wondered who you're bidding against or what the various sale types mean? It's explained here.
Step 6 - Pay for the Car
Even today, few people have purchased a car online. From credit card deposits for 'buying power', membership upgrades, working with brokers and wire transfers, we cover the nitty gritty details of payments (with actual receipts) here.
Step 7 - Wait for the Car to Arrive
Typically it's a few days after the auction, but it can happen surprisingly fast. This section covers preparing your garage for the delivery, and what to expect from the delivery process.
Step 8 - Title Transfer, Registration and Inspection
The local DMV is actually a pleasure to work with. Now that you're shocked, read on for more details about the exact process here in NC with examples. We'll cover types of titles, title transfers, safety and emissions inspections, and insurance.
Step 9 - Drive for Fun!, Decide When to Sell
Now that you're ready to leave your garage, here's the steps to take to limit your financial exposure as you find out if you even want to keep the vehicle. There may be a reason it only cost $500 for a winning bid. This section shows you how to figure out if you want to keep it.
Step 10 - Sell It
There are some great options out there now for selling salvage title and clean vehicles. They operate on enormous volumes, with incredibly tight margins. You're not going to get your money back, but you're not going to lose it all either. Follow these real world examples and you can see roughly how much it will cost you to drive that $3k porsche for a few months before you sell it back for scrap.