Local car auctions continue to be America's best kept secret. So many people continue to get ripped off at big time dealerships even with their new recession marketing campaigns. Others use used vehicle malls looking for affordable transportation. On the other end, we have a new American subculture that uses craigslist and ebay to purchase new vehicles. However, local car auctions are also a growing subculture, although it is not as popular as the three other listed ways. When I first moved to Florida from New York, my neighbor told me about local car auctions and how they have the best deals.

He explained that basically most local car auctions sell vehicles that had been seized by the police, IRS, DEA, or other government law enforcement agency, and that the vehicles are good because- let 's face it- criminals making illegal money with drug dealing or not paying taxes bought them originally. My neighbor was very frugal, which is a nice word for "cheap"- he had been known to always find the dirt cheap deals in every industry, so I listened to his theories about local car auctions. This was 15 years ago, and by now the secret is out- if you are looking for bargain vehicles, you bid on them at local car auctions.

One question that comes out a  lot about local car auctions is how low can the price go? You may have seen advertisements saying "buy an SUV for $600" and other ridiculous sounding low prices. The truth is local car auctions do have deals like that- it all depends on which vehicles are being offered and who you are bidding against. Local car auctions selling police seized vehicles are very much "every man for himself" and everything is "as-is". So if you do not have competitive bids you can walk away with a $600 SUV.

However if you are looking for a more general answer about how much vehicles really cost at local car auctions, there are two rules of thumb: 1) vehicles prices at local car auctions will obviously be below retail price and 2) the winning bids are usually 20% below black book price. You obviously do not want to get yourself in a situation where you are having a macho display of competitive spirit (also called a pissing contest) where you are going over these two rules at local car auctions.

Another curiosity about local car auctions include the condition of the vehicle. This is where people get salvage bidding confused with police seized local car auctions. Police seized local car auctions do not have vehicles salvaged from the bottom of a canal. Although the condition is "as is" you can inspect it onsite and run the VIN number if you have a wireless internet connection or internet phone to read its history. The good places already do that for you to confirm that the vehicle is not stolen. Ultimately, you really cannot go wrong getting your next vehicle through this process.