Car auction stories and how to buy auction cars.

We are not sure how long this was going on but I can guess that this was happening for months. The mechanic stated he originally asked a dealer to buy auction cars for his friends and family. Which is a violation of the car auction rules. The mechanic claims that he was then approached by the dealer and was offered money to steer the dealer towards the gems in the car auction. This then grew into the car dealer talking the mechanic into creating gems for him. The way it worked was the mechanic would build a problem into the vehicle well before car auction day. The mechanic would disable the vehicle in many different clever ways to avoid detection. The mechanic knowing how the system worked would make the car appear to have major drive train problem even though it did not. Let me give you some examples. We caught him letting out the hydraulic fluid on the clutch system of a manual transmission vehicle. This would stop the vehicle from going into gear and would cause the vehicle to appear to have a clutch or transmission problem. The vehicle would then be pushed through the sale and bought by his dealer buddy. The mechanic would then go to this dealers lot and fill and bleed the clutch system thus restoring the vehicles full retail value. Another trick he was using was to put 2-cycle oil mix in the fuel system. This would cause the vehicle to blow blue smoke and you could only assume that the engine was worn and burning oil. We discovered this after he was caught on the first offence and the owner of a jaguar stated that his engine did not smoke until it was dropped off at the car auction. This vehicle was checked and diagnosed by the mechanic in question. We sent a fuel sample out and it was confirmed that just the right amount of oil was added to the fuel system to cause smoking but still let the engine run well. You can think of it as like a 2 stroke outboard motor that you mix oil in with the fuel, it smokes heavily at idle. This mechanic new when to rig the cars. When the car auction would receive heavy loads of vehicles this is when he would strike. The car auction mechanics would be rushed to check the vehicles and have them ready for the next car auction day. This would allow the shady mechanic to red light a few vehicles without suspicion. He would then supply the dealer with the run numbers of the vehicles so he would know which ones to bid on. To end the story the mechanic was not prosecuted in exchange for his information on how the scam worked. The car auction thought it would be more valuable to know how this dealer could buy auction cars and influence mechanics to break the rules. The car auction makes plenty of money but loses more money then you would think. Many dealers are willing to take big chances to buy auction cars cheep.