How I Sold a 1976 BMW 2002 on eBay for Almost Double What I Paid for it

It was probably mid July when I finally decided that it was time to sell the BMW 2002, I figured I would be able to sell it for maximum gain in the middle of the summer while car events were happening, while people weren’t thinking about what they might have to do with the car for the winter. I decided to try to sell the car on a national stage, I decided to list it on eBay.

One of 50+ photos from the eBay auction.

I’ve done a lot of eBaying, hundreds of transactions, but I’d never listed a car for sale. There usually seem to be anywhere between about ten and twenty BMW 2002 models for sale on eBay at any one time. I see parts cars going for as little as a thousand dollars and really nice standard, non tii, cars going for as much as ten or eleven thousand. I figured I’d be happy to get twelve hundred. I hadn’t put any money into this car during my ownership, I mean, I didn’t even put gas in it. So anything over $700 and I guess I would be happy.

I listed it for a week long auction, at the time it cost me $80.00 to list the car, without a reserve, I started the bidding at just $0.99, hoping that would generate some interest. It was the summer of 2006 when all of this was going on, if you were to list a car today via regular auction it would cost 50% more than what I paid just a few years ago.

Bids trickled in over the first few days of the auction. There were six bidders during the first few days, by Friday there were 13 bids totaling $458.00. Hmmmm, I thought, is this going to end badly? Could I really lose money on this thing? Someone was going to get the car, it was a no reserve auction. I wasn’t completely worried, as most auction action occurs in the last hour.

Saturday morning the car had been bid up to $705.00 with a couple of hours left to go. I needed just a few more bids and I’d cover my listing fees and at least break even. It was more or less glued to eBay that whole morning and into the afternoon. As the last hour approached I kept refreshing the screen, no more bids. As the closing minutes arrived I kept refreshing, no more bids, the lat minute, my last chance to make a profit, no more bids came in. The auction ended at $705.00.

I got the “Congratualtions! You’re item sold!” message in my email and saw that a guy in Arizona won the auction., he was an experienced eBayer with 102 transactions under his belt and a 100% feedback score. I sent him an email reminding him that a $100 deposit for the car was due within 24 hours as per the fine print in the auction description and asking him what his payment intentions were. I was a little annoyed that my first foray into “flipping cars for profit” wasn’t more profitable, in fact I had lost money when including the eBay listing fees.

On Sunday morning I checked my email, nothing from the winning bidder, I checked my PayPal account, nothing there either. I checked once more on Sunday evening, nothing, no communication. I went to bed very annoyed at this point. Am I going to have to relist this car and chalk up the first $80 listing fee as a loss?

On Monday morning I checked my email and I had a message from the winning bidder. It was a long message about how he now realizes that he shouldn’t have bid on the car, that he couldn’t afford to ship it to Arizona, and he didn’t really have the space for it either, so he was not going to be able to go through with the transaction. The best part? “If I send you a check for $100, the deposit you requested for the car, could you please just leave me positive feedback for the transaction, I’m really sorry I can’t go through with it.”

I figured I could live with that, if he sent me a check for $100 I’d recover my listing fee and actually make twenty bucks. I emailed him back and told him that would be fine, I’d leave him positive feedback when I received his check. I immediately relisted the car that same day, now anxious to unload the car once and for all.

The second auction shaped up nicely. Again I began the bidding at $0.99 to create some early interest, with no reserve. By the third day the car had been bid up to $550.00 and things cooled off the last few days. I had a few questions about shipping the car… how much to ship to California, how much to ship to Tennessee. Dumb questions in my opinion, aren’t people better off just calling a shipping company with both zip codes to get a rate? I was amazed I got as many of those questions as I did, at least five of them.

The day before the auction was over I got a phone call from a guy in Miami, Florida asking about the car, I had included my phone number in the eBay listing. The guy was originally from Colombia. He had all sorts of questions about the car, the paint, the extent of the rust and what not. I was completely open with him, I’m all about full disclosure in the beginning, it will always save potential headaches in the end.

BMW 2002 replacement panels for sale in California.

I told him that if I were going to put this car right I would order all new sheet metal from a place in California I found on the web. This company cuts panels out of good, dry, solid cars and offers them for sale. You’d be much better off just doing it all right the first time as opposed to trying to patch the damage and having to deal with it again in the future.

This guy worked in the shipping business, for an air freight company based in Miami. He explained his plan to me. He was going to put the car into a cargo plane his company had extra space on bound for Bogotá, apparently he got some great rate and was almost getting free air freight to South America. He was shipping the car to his brother and dad back in Colombia who have an automotive repair business and auto shop. They would restore the car in Colombia much cheaper than he could restore the car here in the states. A tough plan to execute in my opinion, sounded like a lot of hassle, and you can be sure parts for BMW 2002s in Colombia are very difficult to find.

He wanted me to give him a “Buy It Now” price, but I told him the auction had to run its course. By the last day, Sunday, bidding was at $1140.00, during the last hour bidding reached $1275 and that’s where it ended. I couldn’t have been happier, almost twice what I paid for the car. I sent off the obligatory email to the auction winner, it was the guy who had called me the day before. I explained that I expected to receive a $100 deposit via PayPal within 24 hours and that I’d help him set up ground transport from Minnesota to his air freight warehouse in Miami. I got his deposit via PayPal a few minutes later and we emailed back and forth. He was going to contact me on Monday and let me know when he was going to have a truck pick up the car form my warehouse.

I was really happy about this transaction. I had spoken to the buyer, had his deposit, how cool is this? This car will have a whole new life in Bogotá, Colombia. On Monday he emailed me and told him he was working on everything, he’d be back in touch on Tuesday. Tuesday morning came along and my phone rang. 305 area code, Miami.

I’ve got to go off on a tangent here and at least touch on the humor I found in the whole situation… a Colombian was calling me from Miami to ship something down to him that was eventually going to end up on a plane and sent off to Bogotá, Colombia. I was always such a big Miami Vice fan as a kid… I just had to laugh at the whole thing. It was like I was Johnny Depp in “Blow” but I was ‘moving product’ the wrong way. Hilarious.

What wasn’t hilarious was what they buyer had to say to me. He was really sorry, but he lost the space on the plane that was going to fly the car to his brother and dad, and he didn’t have anyplace to put in it Miami. I was a bit put out by this news, was I really going to have to relist this car, a third time? He apologized profusely and told me I should keep his deposit for my trouble and that he was really sorry.

So here I am, just collecting deposits on this car. Unfortunately my profit was only $20 per deposit collection because I was paying $80 to list the car each time… but really, if I increased my non-refundable deposit amount I could rack up more cash from winning bidders who couldn’t go through with the transaction than I paid for the car.

This time, instead of re-listing the car I contacted the under bidder to see if I could sell him the car. His last bid was $1250, but the best part was that he lived in Minneapolis, a local buyer! How could this go wrong? I emailed him and got a response the next day. He was interested in coming by the warehouse to have a look at the car on Thursday about 4:00.

Just as I was pulling the car out of the warehouse two Mexican guys got out of an old Volkswagen Golf. This was the under bidder and his friend. We exchanged pleasantries and walked around the car for a while making small talk. They went back and forth in Spanish as they opened and closed the doors, popped the hood to have a look underneath.

BMW 2002 shock tower rust in trunk... ouch.

“La oxidación no es tan mal como dijo” (The rust isn’t as bad as he said) the guy’s friend noticed.

They had no idea I could understand every word they said, how could they know that I had been an exchange student in Chile?

I guess I described the car as a real rust bucket in the eBay listing, but it really was… maybe the fender edges weren’t rusted out and there weren’t rust holes on the bottoms of the doors, but it was rusty where it counted, real structural rust. I decided to keep my bi-lingual abilities a secret and just see where all of this led us.

View of rust from underneath wheel well.

I opened the trunk for them, so they could see the shock towers. “This is the real issue, right back here” I pointed. They came around for a look.

“Podemos reparar esto, no es tan mal” (We can repair this, it’s not that bad) the one said to the other.

They went for a drive around the parking lot, I was praying the shocks didn’t go all the way through the trunk. They got out of the car and we talked money.

“It’s $1250 then?” he asked me.

“Yeah, $1250, with free shipping” I joked.

“Okay, I’ll take it” he replied.

It was the quickest car deal I’ve ever seen from anyone from Mexico, I was really surprised he didn’t try to bargain or talk me down. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wad of money, fifties and twenties mostly, a couple of hundreds. He counted out $1250 and handed it to me. I had a Bill of Sale form ready so we printed our names and both signed. I ran inside and made a photocopy. I came out and gave it to Jose, that was this guy’s name.

He had a big smile on his face as he pulled away, I suggested he go very slowly the mile or two back to his garage, he lived really close, which was a really good thing in this case. The smile on my face was pretty big too.

The smile on my face was there because I was able to pass this project on to someone else, better suited to really do it themselves, Regrettably, I don’t know how to weld. Jose welds all sorts of things, so I’m sure he will do just fine. I also sold the car for more than I paid for it, for more than I had in it, which is always a big reason to smile.  The smile on Jose’s face was the smile of acquisition. He was taking home a new automotive project, he had big plans, this was going to be his baby, he was going to restore this car to its former glory. You see,  smiles even make the collector car world go ‘round.

In the end, I got $1250 from Jose for the car, plus $40 total profit from the two eBay deposits the non paying bidders gave me so their eBay feedback ratings wouldn’t suffer. I got almost $1300 for a car I was able to store free for a winter and I never even had to put gas in its tank. A very solid $600 profit on my first such outing… I couldn’t wait to do it again.