Police and sheriff’s office auctions have a sort of aura around them wherein they can be the greatest thing since buttered biscuits or sound way too good to be true.
The reality is, of course, somewhere in the middle.
There’s always at least one person who’ll tell you about how they, their cousin, their meemaw or former roommate got a smokin’ deal on the greatest car ever bought or sold. Thanks to a police auction.
These stories, like the offhanded purchase of a winning lottery ticket, are the anecdotes that keep hope alive. Rarely told are the stories of the clunkers, foul-smelling horror stories or outright lemons that also come at these auctions.
Like most sales of this nature, the sheriff’s auction is “as-is, no guarantees.”
Does It Pass The ‘Blues Brothers’ Test?
There are two automotive sides to the sheriff and police auction: The sale of impounded or confiscated vehicles and the sale of surplus police (and sometimes other government agency) vehicles.
The former is far less predictable than the latter. Each is summed up with some quotes from Dan Aykroyd movies.
Let’s start with the “Blues Brothers” on police vehicle auctions. “It’s got a cop motor, cop tires, cop suspensions, cop shocks.”
The decommissioned police cruiser is, for many buyers, the whole point of the sheriff’s or police auction. In general, these vehicles have lived a lot like the criminals they chased — fast and rough, but also have been well maintained.
The odds are in the buyer’s favor that this will be a serviceable used car that will be more reliable than most.
As-Is
Being used cars, these are still some risks involved.
There’s no telling whether the vehicle has been in a wreck (most police vehicle repairs are not Carfax reported) and no guarantee it wasn’t decommissioned for any reason other than hitting its policy-stated service duration.
Most of the time, though, sheriff and highway patrol vehicles are a better, if higher mileage, choice than are town and city police cruisers.
Sheriff’s and highway patrol tend to drive a lot of highway miles versus in-town mileage, whereas police cruisers see almost nothing but stop-and-go traffic.
Also not included on the odometer are the high number of idle hours the engines in any police vehicle will have undergone. By hours, this can often be more than the actual drive time for the vehicle.
But if you don’t mind a pretty plain interior and a seat that’s had a lot of butt-time on it, decommissioned law enforcement vehicles can be a great option for those looking to save some money on a used car bid. Even if your name isn’t Elwood Blues.
The Real Gamble
Seized vehicle auctions are a little more involved.
“Everybody can relax, I found the car,” one might say. “Needs some suspension work and shocks, brakes, brake pads, lining, steering box, transmission, rear-end …”
These are vehicles that have been impounded and left unclaimed, seized as part of asset forfeiture claims, or that otherwise ended up in the ownership of law enforcement.
They range from Maseratis to Civics, and they are most definitely “as-is.” Sometimes with added bonuses like torn-up interiors from evidence searches or extra junk in the trunk.
Little is known about these vehicles.
They might have sat in an impound lot for more than a year. They might have been seized from a drug dealer or from a grandma who didn’t pay taxes. They might even come from a random street in a random town where people just got tired of looking at it and called it in enough times for it to get towed.
The point is, these cars have a history, a story to tell. But they ain’t gonna tell it, because all you’re going to know is that it’s at an auction and it has this many miles on the odometer. The rest is guesswork on your part. Which, to be honest, can be fun.
Bidding Against Dealers
What isn’t fun is who you’ll be bidding against. Most police auctions for seized cars are full of used car dealers hoping to find some deals they can polish up and put on their lots.
These are professionals who know what to look for and how to assess an auction vehicle quickly. They’ll likely know its value at sale and will be willing to bid up to a percentage of that point.
And they’ll be the reason you, who are not a professional, will probably not end up with the good stuff.
Just realize that you’re less likely to find a great deal at a police seizure auction because the good stuff is going to be bid on by professionals. They know what they’re looking at. You can potentially walk away with a cheap car, but it may end up being more like that “Ghostbusters” ride from the quote above.
A general rule of thumb of impound and seizure auctions is to assume that whatever it is, the person who owned it probably treated the car like they did their lives: fast, furious, and without much worry over legalities.
But hey, we all know somebody who has a story about the gem of a deal someone got on a police auction vehicle.
And unicorns probably do exist; we’ve all heard the stories about them. So that $100, owned-by-a-grandma ride at a sheriff’s auction for no bad reason probably exists too. Maybe.
Aaron Turpen can be reached at: TurpenAaron@gmail.com
