Mecum Thursday, Another Duster goes for big bucks

MinnesotaMopar said
It is on my bucket list to someday buy a quality car at one of these auctions. Can somebody verify how the fees work?

Using this car as example, the buyer pays $73,700 for the car and another 12% buyer's fee for a total walkaway price to the buyer of $82,500. (and gov't sales tax, title fees etc of course)

Meantime the seller gets the $73,700 minus a 10% sellers commission and therefore actually gets only $66,330.

So the buyer is actually paying about $85K and the seller is actually getting $66K. Is this right?

This then brings up the question when discussing car values around the water cooler do we say this car is worth $66K or $85K?

Why would you personally want to buy at these auctions? That's just like asking to pay full retail highest price available for something. And you don't get to inspect the car as well with a private sale.

These auctions are dumping grounds for cars with "issues". Yes, there is "eye candy" with nice $150K cars. But there's much more lesser vehicle you don't see on TV that are bad.