Thanks for the tip benzman. I appreciate it!
…
p.s. What country are you specifically exporting these cars to?
Do the people in this country expect perfect A-1 cars, or are they expecting average run of the mill cars that only need to last them a year or two?Thanks Caddyman…
I wasn’t aware of the Mexican entrepreneurs, however what’s most popular where I’m hoping to start off are Ford F150 King Ranchers. I wanted to focus solely on the those as well as Expeditions.
To minimize overhead, I’m going to partner with an established dealer and use their license to access the “off limits to the general public” auctions
One thing I’m not sure of is where to begin the research on what the Mexicans do. Any suggestions?
Mr. McAnick,
I just saw this message this morning. However, I’ve posted my personal email. I look forward to hearing from you!
Thanks
I wanted to suggest visiting a used car lot in a border town (would be Nogales for me) But then I thought about all the drug related crime in Nogales, best to research this online.
If you’re planning on latching onto cars under someone else’s license and reselling them on your own then it could be considered “curbstoning”, which can land you in jail.
Yes, you will need to tag and title everything you buy this way. That probably will also entail buying insurance. Depending on the laws where you live, doing anything else could get you and the dealer you’re working with in trouble. You don’t want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg…
I do plan to open my own lot eventually when business permits. However, would it still be curbstoning if I have no intentions on selling domestically? All of the vehicles I plan to sell are destined for overseas.
I thought curbstoning only applied when selling domestically w/o a license.
What about going the other way? Buy the cars at auctions…but instead of fixing up, tear down to individual componentry. Sell what works online; take what doesn’t to the scrap yard (after seperating out the “good” metals for max value).
Not sure about the return on labor, but there seem to be a few cars “worth more dead than alive.” Basically talking about a chop shop w/o that whole pesky GTA issue…
Sounds like a good idea. I wouldn’t have thought of that honestly.
The Mexicans who are into Luxe Trux just by new ones… The mass market is not interested in King Ranchers and Expeditions or Suburbans… They concentrate on 8-10 year old 4 cylinder and 6 cylinder vehicles, stick-shifts if they can find them. They load them on small transport trucks, 3-4 cars, and drive them across the border after paying any “import fees”… On I-25 southbound, from Denver south, you will see dozens of rigs like this…Also, one truck pulling another on a tow-bar. Your market for the big sleds must not be in Latin America…
I cannot speak for the legality of overseas sales and curbstoning but since the point of sale would be in the U.S. with a state title it would seem to me that the curbstoning laws would apply.
A call to your state AG’s office or some research on this might be in order.
About a decade or so ago a good and now deceased friend of mine was arrested not once, but twice, for curbstoning and nothing could have been further from the truth.
He bought an old non-running car from a mutual friend who promised him the title in a couple of weeks. Several days later another guy wanted to buy the car and it was sold with the understanding he would get the title when the original seller provided it.
No problem the next buyer stated. After a week or two the new buyer got impatient and lodged a complaint with the Sheriff’s office.
This led to my friend being arrested, released, and then rearrested again the next week. Eventually the title was produced but it cost my friend 2 trips to the jailhouse and a hefty fine for curbstoning.
It also broke up a couple of friendships.
You are correct “oldschool” it is not always morally correct to take advantage of someones misfortune or ignorance.Having been shafted a few times myself(the perps laughed at me after the deal was done,stick to my guns now although) Be fair,capitalism isnt always correct,there is this thing called Karma(and conscience)-Kevin
I dont like exporting cars made here, for here, but I’ll help anyway.
get yourself an older car that will work for awhile, and deliver pizzas.
unless you export vehicles by the hundreds, I doubt you’ll get much cash.
Look for a good paint job because paint is the selling point. Good interiors and good maintenance don’t sell as well. People who sell lots of cars will usually say it.
You want to avoid anything that has had serious frame damage. Any damage to any part of the body that doesn’t unbolt (anything except bumpers, doors, front fenders, hood, trunk lid, and maybe the roof panel) is undesirable, and any damage to the frame rails (the main structural part of the floor pan) the pillars, and the points on the frame where the suspension or engine attach is unacceptable.
You probably want 5-10 year old cars with low depreciation (at least, low depreciation in your target market). 5-10 years means they’re cheap enough that the salvage title doesn’t mean catastrophic damage was done, but they still hold enough value that it could be worth it to ship them. A salvage title is based on the damage being up to a certain portion of the value of the car…a fender bender costs almost as much to fix like new on an old car as a new one, so the older car can be totaled by damage that wouldn’t total a new car. That said, if you know what you’re doing, you can fix many types of damage for far less than what your insurance company would pay.
Don’t deal with flood damage unless you’re willing to replace every single electrical part on the car, and possibly replace the carpet and upholstery.
Engine damage…depends what it is, and it depends how costly it is to replace the particular engine. You could find an otherwise perfectly good car for a few hundred dollars that could get back on the road for a few hundred more with a junkyard engine or transmission.
This is absolutely NOT a business for a novice to be getting into. If you don’t know enough that you could do all, or almost all, the work yourself, you WILL get screwed at some point.
Unless he’s in on your business and is doing this at a reduced rate on the assumption that he shares in any profit, the fact that you’re farming out the work basically guarantees you’re going to fail. I don’t care how low the shop rate is, on cars that are worth fixing (no new car gets a salvage title without damage that makes it utterly unworth fixing in any ethical manner) you will absolutely not make money paying someone else’s overhead AND then shipping the cars overseas.
If you want to get into this business without being a skilled mechanic yourself, find another source of cars. I met some Pakistanis in Japan who were buying cars to ship back home. They could do that because inspection laws in Japan make it tough to keep driving an old car, lowering their value drastically.
The problem with doing this is that there are already tons of people doing it.
Learn about the mechanical workings of cars. Even if you’re just acting as a buyer here, you’re going to fail if you don’t know how things work and therefore don’t know what to look for.
Try buying a heap of a car yourself and getting/keeping it running for a while. You will learn more, faster, that way than by any other possible means. Think: anything British, French, Italian, or fuel-injected and made before the 80s.