Courtesy of Yelp.com

Keith H. of Los Angeles, CA

4/24/2009

Do your homework and you will most likely be okay.   A great selection of newer low mileage vehicles (especially Saab’s for some reason) and older higher mileage fleet vehicles.

Some words of advice:  Take care of the DMV yourself, I have bought two vehicles here, (one good deal, one great deal) and never received the title for the vehicle I paid them to take care of DMV on.

I recommend showing up to a couple auctions before bidding to get a lay of the land.

15% buyers premium is rather high, but occasionally they sell vehicles with a 0-10% premium.  KPA also offers a buyback contract for vehicles which allows you to take time to get the vehicle inspected and potentially lose only a couple hundred as opposed to a couple thousand if the vehicle is a lemon.  However this is not available on motorcycles.

Oh, and don’t listen to the dudes who walk around in vests talking about how such and such car is solid, and if they had the money, they would buy it in a second.  Not sure they actually worked there – maybe volunteered, but both times that happened, they were talking about vehicles that had major problems.

Do your homework!!!

Courtesy of Yelp.com

Michael F. of Pasadena, CA

• 1/4/2009

  Have you ever wanted to own an old Police car and cruise around Blues Brothers style? Then this place is for you.

  Went down there to buy a step van to help promote my business. Wound up picking up a decent 1995 “9C1″ Chevy Caprice police package with 101000 miles that was only used by the Escondido fire department for $900. Also wound up getting a mobile command center 1980 Chevy step van formally formally of the Escondido PD with 94,000 for $1600. These prices are before they tack on their buyers premium, taxes, license, and smog fees. The 15% buyers premium on most vehicles is pretty steep. Most auctions I have been to only charge between 5% and 10%. Some of the vehicles had lower buyers premiums if the auction company had a deal with the consigning city. The two vehicles I bought had a 10% premium. The cars from the city of LA had no buyers premium.

  Overall the prices the vehicles were selling for seemed to be good deals. There are all kinds of vehicles. They even had some really nice late model Saab convertibles from Disney Studios  that I thought went cheap (under $10k). Newer clean police Crown Vics went from $1500-3000 depending on condition, mileage, and condition. Older late nineties Vics were going for under $1200, and I even saw one go for $300.

  In addition to the steep buyers premium, this place loses points for only having Porto potties for their customers. Their building is huge and you would think they would install proper restrooms, especially with the large amount of bidders hanging around all day.

  They also lose points for spray painting over the city and police decals on the vehicles. I can understand on the black and white cop cars since they will probably be painted anyway, but not on the solid color vehicles. Getting vehicles repainted costs a lot of money. Decals do come off with Goof Off and a razor blade. Both vehicles I bought were solid white and they sprayed over the decals. I’m going to try to get the spray paint off without damaging the original paint, so we will see. Perhaps if they don’t want to scrape off the decals, they should cover them up with masking paper and have the customer sign that they will remove them later.

  The lot guys were really helpful in getting the cars jump started for the drive home. Both vehicles I bought had dead battery, probably from sitting in some city yard waiting to go to auction. As with any auction, I recommend going to the preview.

  Updated – 3/15/2009

  Turns out the spray paint comes off with Goof Off Graffiti spray, a bucket of water, and a Scotchbrite pad. It won’t hurt the decals if you decide to keep them on. I’m still leaving a star off because of the Porto potties. I have gotten some other deals here through.