Selling privately means fielding lowballs from strangers for weeks. Trading in means taking one number from someone who does this for a living. An auction is the third option: a fixed deadline, a floor you control, and buyers bidding against each other instead of against you.
Before you list anything, run the Smart Estimate. It gives you three figures — the dealer trade-in, the competitive-bidding range, and the private-sale ceiling — along with every factor behind them.
This is the part that changes the conversation. Once you know a trade-in is leaving three thousand dollars on the table, the week of waiting looks very different.
Estimate my carYour reserve is the minimum you'll accept. If bidding ends below it, the car doesn't sell — no obligation, no fee, nothing lost but the week. Buyers can see whether the reserve has been met, but never what it is.
Your closing time is when the hammer falls. Seven days is typical; evenings draw the most active bidding.
Set your opening bid low. It feels counterintuitive, but a low opener pulls more bidders in early, and bidders who have already committed keep bidding.
When your auction opens, verified dealers in your market are notified, and it goes into the public book. Both bid in the same place, and every bid is visible with a timestamp and the bidder's type.
Dealers bid lower — they carry reconditioning, floorplan and warranty risk. But when three of them want the same car, that gap closes fast. Competition is the entire mechanism.
At your closing time the highest bid wins. If it cleared your reserve, it's a sale, and you and the buyer get each other's details to arrange inspection, payment and transfer.
If the reserve wasn't met, nothing happens automatically — but you can still accept the high bid if you've changed your mind, or relist with different terms.
Ownership transfer, safety certification and provincial paperwork work exactly as they would in any private sale. We introduce the buyer; you complete the deal.
Listing is free, and there's no fee if your car doesn't meet its reserve. A completed sale carries a small seller's fee, disclosed before you open the auction.
Only if bidding clears the reserve you set. That's the entire point of the reserve — you decide the floor before anyone bids.
You see every bid, its timestamp, and whether it came from a registered dealer or a private buyer. Dealers bid under their business name. Private buyers are masked until the auction closes.
Older, modified and enthusiast vehicles vary far more than a curve can capture, so the estimate flags lower confidence. The auction itself handles it well — that's exactly the case where a room of bidders beats a single appraisal.