Picking up the new S4

After failing to get anywhere with finding a transport company to pick up the Silver S4, (some additional background on this AgS4 here) I decided to take it upon myself to go and get the car and bring it back.  The auction site was going to start charging a daily storage fee if the car was not removed from the site so I had some additional incentive to get moving.

I rented a Budget truck along with a trailer and set out to the auction site to get the car.  After providing the dealer number to the staff at the auction site they gave me the title to the car and said they’d bring the car around to me.  I went to prep the trailer and a short while later a payloader came out of the yard and dumped the car in a rather undignified manner beside the trailer.  I was a bit aghast at the car being carried out via a forklift, but given the condition of the majority of the cars at the site it was easy to understand why they would move the cars with that equipment.

The pictures provided by the auction service were not thorough enough to illustrate all of the ‘issues’ the car had, the first concern was that the front passenger tire was flat, and I had not thought to bring an air pump.  No problem, I can just put the spare on.  The lugs bolts were seized and it took a swift kick to the Audi lug bolt removal tool to break the lug bolts free.  After all the lug bolts were removed to my surprise the wheel wouldn’t budget.  I usually have my wheels coming off and going on so frequently that once the bolts are loosened the wheel practically falls off, not this one.  A few swift kicks to the tire failed to cause it to budge.  After some more kicks it was becoming clearer that the wheel was not going to be coming off.  The tire was in pretty rough shape as it was, in fact the rear passenger tire had a bubble on the side wall, so I decided that I’d drive it as it was up onto the trailer seeing as how it was only going forward about a car length and a half.

S4 at Auction Site

The auction site had said the car started with a jump.  At the first jump attempt the motor barely turned over.  Luckily I’d thought to bring a winch for just such an occurrence, but I sure didn’t want to pull the car up onto the trailer if I didn’t need to.  I gave it another try and the motor weakly turned over, but to my joy the engine caught and it began to run.  Up onto the trailer it went.

S4 at Auction Site on Trailer

With the car in place I set off to bring it home.

S4 at rest stop

S4 at Rest Stop

About eleven hours later I had the car back at my residence.

Purchasing an insurance auction car

With the damage to the Santorin car being sufficient that my insurance company decided to total the car I was on the lookout for a replacement.  I was hoping to find a Santorin 6-speed so that following the transfer of components to the replacement car I would be back to where I was before the damage occurred.  It didn’t take too long to realize that finding a base S4 similar to mine would be exceptionally difficult.  I had specifically ordered my S4 without a sunroof and some other comfort options.  A Santorin 6-speed without a sunroof is probably a very rare car.

I opted to consider other colors with Silver being the first choice and other colors a possibility so long as the car could be purchased for a low enough price to make repainting the car a different color feasible.

I also left open the possibility of purchasing a Tiptronic (Automatic transmission) so long as the purchase price was low enough to allow me to fund a 6-speed swap into the car.

I was put in touch with an auto dealer who frequented auto insurance auctions and gave them the specifics of what I was looking for and what the maximum price was that I would pay for a car.  After a couple of weeks they sent me some information about a Silver S4 in Connecticut that was a theft recovery and would be going up for auction soon.

The fact that it only had 43,000 miles on it, was a single owner vehicle, and appeared to have minimal damage made it an appealing car.  I could live with the Silver color, but the tiptronic would need to go.  I wasn’t enthusiastic about bidding on a tiptronic so when it first went up for auction I passed on participating.

At the conclusion of the auction the highest bidder had offered $1600.  At that point I was kicking myself for not getting into the auction.  I’d been willing to spend up to $5,000 on one of these cars and whoever the high bidder was had just got themselves a great deal.

I went back to the auction site the following day to see if any new cars had come available and I saw that this Silver car was scheduled to go back up for auction.  A bit puzzled about this I contacted the auto dealer to inquire what was going on.  They informed me that the insurance companies have the option of accepting the high bid, or not and re-listing the car in the hopes of getting a higher price.  Now I was interested in this car since I’d figured about $2,000 would be needed to do the 6-speed swap, and if I could purchase this car for around $2,500 I’d be near my maximum for acquiring a replacement vehicle.

A week later the car went back up for auction and the dealer entered the auction on my behalf with a maximum offer of $2,500.  This time the bid price went up to $1700 and then stopped.  I was a wondering if I had been the high bidder when I received a phone call from the dealer telling me that I was the high bidder, but that the insurance company still had the right to refuse the offer and try to list the car again the following week.  I was told that they would hear from the insurance company some time during the day as to whether or not the offer was accepted.

About an hour later I heard from the dealer again letting me know that the insurance company had accepted my $1700 offer for the car.  Now I just needed to figure out how to get the car.