I worked at two dealerships... if the car is there for a while and doesn't sell, it goes to the auction. Also if the car is older than what that lot likes to carry, they will send it off as well.

Also, as was mentioned, finance companies will take huge groups of off-lease cars to the auction at once. I couldn't tell you how many titles I did the paperwork on that were "Honda Finance of America" or "GMAC" as the previous owner. Those are obviously off lease and a very occasional repo.

How do you plan on buying from the auction? I worked at dealerships in SC but the auctions they attended were not open to the public. You had to have a dealer license. Is this a big, regular auction or something like a police auction because those are totally different? The dealer auctions were every week, same day each week. They went to the Adesa auction in Charlotte every week and a few others if something good was on the list.

Auction cars cam be anything, they are certainly not old or beat up. I would think those cars would be at little auctions, not the dealership auctions at all.