[neofromcapone]

No test-drives; dealers place their auction bids depending on MotorExchange's car inspection report. The 3 page detailed car inspection includes checks on the body, engine, transmission, suspension, brakes, electricals, accessories etc. A MotorExchange engineer also test-drives the car as part of his evaluation. In the report, an approximate estimate ($$$) on things that need to be replaced / repaired is included.

Do they have a way of marking this on the car, once it sold to the dealer?

Say I am in the market to buy a used car, the dealer shows me a car and also this report. It would help me in evaluating & shiortlisting a car.

@GTO, great article rating it 5 stars too, hope MotorExchange start the auctions on a B2C in the near future.

[RS_DEL]

Originally Posted by mac187

great concept. A good thing of not having individual buyers bogus bids, these would just raise the price of the vehicle without logic. Also individuals who are desperatly looking for a particular model end up bumping the price beyond resonable levels a la Bugs cost in Bangalore!

A couple of questions if you will care to answer them:

[]Are you a used car dealer by any chance?

[] How can you say individual buyers are short on rational decision making? If I were to grant your contention that some individual buyers are prone to the malady of irrational decision making , is it alright for such irrational buyers to enrich the dealers and not the sellers? You seem to hold the view that the benefits of the irrationality of such a buyer are the birth right of the dealers?

[] Also please note competing business bidders are as adept at bogus bids as individual buyers/end users, probably more so. An end user in all probability will not engage in such activities for the simple reason he is on tight budget, which is why he is looking at used car and would be hampered by his budgetary constraints from playing such games. Also the website does take a security deposit and has legal safeguards in place for ensuring discharge of contractual obligations of bidders both business and end users(should end users be allowed by them at some time in the future).

[GTO]

Originally Posted by vsk2009

Our purchasing capacity is very less

I suggest you refer to the new car sales reports; simply put, the Indian car market has been on fire all through 2010!

And remember, used cars are way more affordable than new.

Originally Posted by moralfibre

I guess their site is quite full of bugs as of now. I tried to register and it timed out. When I tried to re-register, it says email address and phone number already in use. When I try to reset my password, it says phone number does not exist. Quite weird.

Not happy to hear that. Also, their interface is very outdated. Looks straight out of the nineties.

Originally Posted by mac187

great concept. A good thing of not having individual buyers bogus bids, these would just raise the price of the vehicle without logic.

Not really. Individual buyers would also need to submit a deposit at the time of registering. That 20K deposit is more than enough to guarantee genuine bids. Place a false bid, lose your deposit!

Originally Posted by Mr.Beat

Is there any means of customer satisfaction guarantee now? Wherein they would guarantee that their report is 100% accurate and any other repairs will be covered by the company?

I guess Stratos had asked Akshay this question in our meeting. Will leave it to him to respond.

Originally Posted by neofromcapone

Do they have a way of marking this on the car, once it sold to the dealer?

Say I am in the market to buy a used car, the dealer shows me a car and also this report. It would help me in evaluating & shiortlisting a car.

I'm pretty certain, and as would be obvious, MotorExchange would have certain measures in place to ensure that their evaluations only help sales on their website. It's only fair.

[Stratos]

Originally Posted by Mr.Beat

Is there any means of customer satisfaction guarantee now? Wherein they would guarantee that their report is 100% accurate and any other repairs will be covered by the company?

No, they do not provide a 100% guarantee but their exhaustive three page car check list provides a detailed idea to the customer before he offers his bid. If in any case there is a genuine issue with a vehicle which the customer found out after he bought it, MotorExchange guys talk to the seller to settle the dispute by lowering the offered price.

The above checklist also provides an estimated cost of repairs that is needed to bring the car back into right shape. Usually, dealers who buy these cars repair it on their own.

[Slick]

Nice concept and as many suggested it should be opened to individuals, Individuals are sure to bid higher than dealers as they would buy the car for themselves hence they wont be bothered about profit margins. therefore I think Individuals will have an edge.
Their deposit is Rs.25,515 per member and with that deposit one can buy up to 10L and is the same for both 4 wheelers and 2 wheelers.
Again an excellent thread GTO, thoroughly enjoyed reading. 5 stars.

[Swanand Inamdar]

Nice piece of information there. Lovely concept too. I only, like others, wish these auctions were open to individuals also.
However, I am a bit vary of buying a car without a TD. What happens to a person, who has won the bid and then during delivery, finds that it is not to his liking (when no TD is offered before or during the bidding)?

Secondly, this might sound naive, but does Ebay offer TD of the vehicles that are listed for auctions?

All in all a great article. Thanks GTO. Rating it a well deserved 5's as always .

[Stratos]

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

What happens to a person, who has won the bid and then during delivery, finds that it is not to his liking (when no TD is offered before or during the bidding)?

I doubt that they revert the auction just because the bid winner did not "like" the vehicle. The details are provided to potential bidders before they bid for a particular vehicle.
But, just as I stated above, incase there are genuine faults with the vehicle which were not notified to the buyer before he placed his bid, MotorExchange talks to the seller to settle the deal in an appropriate manner (lowering the price, possibly).

Originally Posted by Swanand Inamdar

Secondly, this might sound naive, but does Ebay offer TD of the vehicles that are listed for auctions?

No, Ebay does not offer test drive of vehicles. The seller decides if he wants to allow the bidders for a test drive or not, but Ebay has nothing to do with it. They just put up the listing for the seller.

[Jaizcrzy]

Nice concept. Tried to register and gave the info. Got a call in about 10 minutes.
Questios asked:
Rep:Are you a dealer or Individual?
Myself: Individual
Rep: are you looking to Sell or Buy?
Myself: Buy
Rep: Ok, thank you sir. Phone disconected

I could get time to chk my mail id to check if i am able to get into the site for further details. Will have to try my luck

[nishad.hameed]

seems something like ebay B2B motors does. any difference can you spot GTO?

[scphanse]

Originally Posted by ACM

Super Report GTO.

If they do allow individuals to get into this after bringing in place the required checks and charges, then this would result in cutting out dealers in a big way. This would increase exponentially as more and people get net savy.

One big reason why an individual buyer may not be comfortable with this arrangement though is that he / she can't check out the car in person. Yes there is the certification, yet for a user buyer owning a car is too emotive a process for an Individual to buy a car without checking it out in person, while for a dealer it is just a transaction so personal inspection is not really essential.

Rating this bit of educational info 5 Star.

While I love this concept and hope it catches on, the numbers saying that they are doing good..
I totally agree with acm when he says car buying for most if not all people is a very emotive process. I for one would definitely like to check out/inspect the vehicle before placing my money on it.
What if there are problems afet a purchase??- Just a thought.
-salil

[P1tBull]

Originally Posted by Jaizcrzy

Nice concept. Tried to register and gave the info. Got a call in about 10 minutes.
Questios asked:
Rep:Are you a dealer or Individual?
Myself: Individual
Rep: are you looking to Sell or Buy?
Myself: Buy
Rep: Ok, thank you sir. Phone disconected

I could get time to chk my mail id to check if i am able to get into the site for further details. Will have to try my luck

Thats weird. A guy from Motor Exchange has been calling me for quite some time to get me to sign up. I am not a dealer either. I've put it off till now as there have not been any KA auctions that I have seen yet.

[Urban_Nomad]

^^ So what is it then? Are we 100% clear individuals cannot register or what?

Also, is there any way one could get a list of dealers who are registered on this site and can maybe place bids on behalf of an individual?

[gypsyFreak]

Just got off the call from MotorExchange. This entire facility is for dealers only as of now. For individuals there is no facilities at all. The guy said they might come out with individuals later.

[Delta Wing]

A recently idle thread come alive. The concept, if implemented in fairness, is nice but in reality, it may not be good for individual buyers. I had visited the similarly conducted Carwale auctions twice. I am in Pune, happened to pass by Navi Mumbai when the auctions were on last year, very near DY Patil Stadium. There were around 30 odd cars there in the yard for sale. Cars were on sale as is basis, no history available, just the year, mileage on the meter and the actual car. Most of them not worth an outright buy for an individual, only 5 odd in reasonable shape and 2-3 in seemingly good condition. They show you the car, give you the keys, you can start the engine, drive in the yard (not outside like a TD), the drive being not more than 30-40 meters. I checked out a Fiesta (diesel), thrashingly noisy. Checked an Octavia, noisy and very bad interiors, oil dipstick dripping black semi-solid, steam gushing 'pfft-pfft' from hole. Checked out a Civic S MT, fantastic exteriors, very immaculate interiors, 2006 car, done 6000 km, basic bid at 7 L. Engine not as silent as I expected, could hear and feel the idle inside, everything else was in order. Drove in the yard, didn't like the engine noise. Am no expert on Civics but the showroom Jazz I TDed was more silent, the City was totally inaudible till 1200 RPM. Something not right is what I decided. In the next visit, similar experience, different cars. There was a Camry that wouldn't let the key turn the ignition, other passable cars. The yard had a workshop with about 40 odd cars inside with works on, you're not allowed in.
Am not an auto expert, heck not even knowledgeable, just noticed that many cars had a strong earthy, musty, moist smell inside, way different than a car standing in the sun for hours. Intriguing for 2004 to 2006 registrations of Mumbai, no? When I asked, was told that the cars were not flood affected. But no history. How do you gamble as an individual? Even the regular dealers offer some kind of TD and assurance. Anyway, if you liked the car, you got back, put in a token money of 500 Rs. for every bid you wanted. Outbid, full refund. Successful, you pay full and take the car and don't pay, lose the token and get debarred or something.

Then the auctions stopped. Reasons could be many. But for individual buyers, that too not very clued up in autos, very dubious situation. With the 120 point checkup, situation may be better in this particular case but the prices may not be that close to a prize grab. The sale is still as is and without an external or authorised evaluation or TD, I wonder at the efficacy. Auction for dealers could be another story. Known vehicles locally, known histories, known showroom owners, dealers may have many ways to get around the difficulties by just being in the business, perhaps known auctioneers. The used car market for individuals is inherently risky with every detail available. With a sketchy/scary element of 'as is' introduced? Who can say.

[GTO]

Motorexchange receives approx 60 crore rupees in new funding!

High Points

- MotorExchange closed its $13 million Series C funding, led by Tiger Global Management, with participation from existing investor Canaan Partners.

- MotorExchange had previously raised Series A round of funding in December 2009 from Canaan Partners and other investors including Austin Ligon, Founder CEO of CarMax USA and a Series B round in December 2010 from Canaan Partners again and Epiphany Ventures.