Once more into the breach, the tales of a 1993 VW Corrado SLC/VR6

Stick a fork in it, I've been paid.  Buyer is contracting with BaT for shipping and I've already talked with them.  I've sent the buyer the list of parts I have, hopefully he decides to buy some of them and I can pack them into the car. 

Last night my wife asked me if I was going to replace this with another car.  What I could use is a car I can put my son/dog in and drive in the winter and I don't feel badly about having the dog in it.  Something that gets better mileage than the land cruiser but then my head gets in the way, as the purchase price of said vehicle would pay for all the gas in the world for the land cruiser. 

So I'm going to really try and not buy anything at all, unless something interesting drops into my lap for a smoking deal.

Oh man, that hurt. 

Doc, if he does not buy the parts shoot me a DM and I will get the info to a vr6 corrado friend and see if he wants some.

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

sent ya a message

In reply to Javelin :

F yeah it did!  It underperformed at least $2-3k on my bottom estimate and more like $6-8k compared to what I really thought it'd get.  I don't think even the buyer understands what a smoking deal he got, as he's not really a corrado guy.  So he probably doesn't understand the rarity of all the euro parts, the recaro interior, all the maintenance, etc, etc.  Oh well.

I did sell some of the parts from my basement today.  FCP Euro told me they'd take the bilsteins back for a store credit, so I'll probably do that.  Then I've got racks of other stuff to sell too.  That's where I'll do ok money wise. 

Found a local Mk4 R32 that needs some work, trying to figure out a time to go look at it.  Guy is like me, actually has two (one's prepped as a race car) along with a ton of spares.  He'd rather sell it all but I don't want to get into that again.  If I do this (and I shouldn't!) I just want the street prepped one and some selected spare parts

Sucks that it didn't go as high as you hoped.. I think I understand from the comments how rare the climatronic conversion is bc people were losing it over how low the car went for.

In reply to Gambit :

Yeah, I really think it'd should've gone for at least $18-19k.  Market just isn't great right now.  End of the day it's going to someone who's excited to have it and I did ok on it.  Didn't take a hair cut on it and once I've sold off my parts stash I'll have done alright.

Sorry about the sale. The market is definitely softening over all.

My buddy's shop looks after this R32. 494 at the wheel!

Mk4 R32's are cool, I've always kinda liked them. 

Currently dealing with trying to sell off my parts horde.  Lots and lots of work!

In reply to docwyte :

You need a Subaru Impreza for that.  You can also rallycross it.  I have said car.  

In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :

That's a NO to the NOPE.  I'll never, ever own another Subaru.  I had a '07 STi for a bit and it was the biggest POS I've ever had.

So, can you review your bring a trailer experience?

I know the sale price was way lower than expected. 

How were things otherwise? What can i expect as a seller if i go that way?

docwyte said:

Well it sold, for nowhere near what I thought it would. 

Would have done a bit better just a few months ago when people had a little more certainty of the future. Just how it goes sometimes. There is also a joke here about it being green, but I'm sure you've heard that before.

Don't forget the best days of Corrado ownership are the first and the last. 

In reply to Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) :

Yeah, I know about the green not being the "best" color, I'm guilty of that as well.  Green is my least favorite color on corrado's, I would've prefered any other color instead but this car was clearly the best one around so I sucked it up. 

I definitely think it would've sold for at least $3k more 4 months ago.

Thought that was the line about boats!  My ownership experience this time was fine, I just didn't use the car that much and it's performance at altitude is, well, lacking.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

So the Bring a Trailer experience, this time (I tried to use them with my LSx swapped 951) was pretty good.  I paid the extra money to have them send a photographer to me.  Getting ahold of that guy was a little challenging but it worked out fine and he took great pictures.  Definitely worth doing that as he had a complete check list of what pics to take, so everything was covered.

Communication with them was pretty good and easy.  Setting the reserve is probably the hardest thing, they don't give you any guidance and won't let you set a reserve they feel is too high.  They'll tell you a lower number and if you don't accept it won't accept your listing, that's what happened on my LSx 951.

I kinda wish I'd set a higher reserve on the corrado but then it probably wouldn't have sold, so there's that.  The buyer is using their shipping service, so far the communication with BaT on that has been good.  Waiting for a shipper to pick up the job and then schedule it, if that takes too long then I'll reach out to the buyer and tell him he's gotta get the car out of my garage.  I'm not willing to store it for 4+ weeks waiting for a trucking company to accept the bid and then work the pick up into their schedule.

The big question is would I do it again?  Hmm, while it didn't sell for what I wanted that's not BaT's fault, it's just the market right now.  The car got more exposure than if I'd listed it privately and I suspect I would've struggled to get the $16,500 I did, so yes, I'd use them again

So I'm slowly selling off the basement stash of parts.  It's reminded of a few things....

#1  Parting out a car is a lot of work

#2 People suck

#3 I never want to own a car again where I need to maintain my own parts supply for it

Yea you will make up the difference but it will be painful. Corrado people can be the best and worst lot of them too!

In reply to Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) :

I knew I had a lot of stuff in the basement but now that I've gone thru it and started to sell it I'm amazed at how much $$ I had tied up in parts down there.  I also don't want to ship stuff like the passat sunroof and body parts.  Luckily most of the big stuff I don't want to ship has been picked up by local people.  The rest of it I'll just give to a friend for some beer.

The little stuff I'll start taking pics of and listing a bit at a time.  I've still got the OBD2 Passat conversion kit, Shine Racing springs and both sets of Speedline wheels to sell.  That's the end of the bigger money parts, after that I don't care so much as it's $50-100 here and there and it's easy to pack up and ship.

BaT shipper came yesterday afternoon and took the corrado away.  I spoke with the buyer yesterday morning and he bought a few parts from my stash that I put into the hatch for him.

I've sold some stuff locally and here's the pile of boxes that I need to drop off at the UPS Store today...

I'm still waiting to get paid for one set of wheels.  After that the last big ticket items are another set of wheels, shine racing springs and the neuspeed short shifter.  Then it's all smaller stuff but combined will add up to real money.  I've sold all the body parts and the dash locally with the exception of the front/rear bumpers and the core support.  I'll list those on craigslist and FB again, if they don't sell I'll just give them to my friend for free and get them out of my basement.

Happily just dropped all the boxes off at the UPS Store and one to my mail (wo)man today.  Need to take pics of the other stuff in my basement and make another FS post.  That's what I hate about FB the posts just get buried in everyones feed....

OK, well I've heard from the buyer a few times, he's really enjoying the car.  So glad it went to a good person.

I've basically sold all the stuff out of my basement.  I'm not willing to ship the bumpers and didn't find a local buyer for them, so I'm just giving them to one of my local friends along with a bunch of other stuff.  I've got a few small items here and there that might be worth $50-75 but I'm kinda burned out on the selling/shipping process at this point. 

Top tip!  Don't offer shipping when you list something for sale on Facebook.  That creates a button for the buyer to "buy it now" basically and then forces you to link a bank account to Facebook in order to get the payment from them.  You also have no idea where the buyer is and what shipping will really cost you.  I canceled a sale because I refuse to link my bank account to FB, I'm sure the buyer isn't happy with me.

So, how'd all this end up?  I got $16,500 for the car from BaT, which was barely break even for me on it.  Between my purchase price, shipping costs, body work, parts etc I was into it for probably right around $16,500.  I might've even lost a little bit on it.  What I found when I sold off all the basement stash was pretty eye opening however.  I had no idea just how much I had invested in spare parts/mods etc down there.  Granted, some of the parts were off the parts car and were pure profit, but a lot of it wasn't. 

I was helped out by Crutchfield agreeing to let me return the Blaupunkt radio I'd bought but never installed, VX Tuning refunding me for the headlight lens/bezels they hadn't shipped me yet and FCP Euro giving me a store credit for the bilsteins I bought from them.  If you count that, plus all the stuff I sold I ended up with a number that was very close to $30k between parts/credits and sale of the car.  I think I'm just a bit positive overall on all this stuff.  I lost money on some of the parts, broke even on others, made a little on some stuff, parts car stuff I made money on.  Still, Gulp!!!

There are SO many other cars that I'd rather own in the $20-30k range compared to the corrado.  This is a good lesson for me to not buy a car that requires me to maintain an extensive set of spare parts again....

So my math was off a little bit, my total was more like $31,xxx, pretty darn close to $32k.  Which is a whole ton of money to have tied up into a corrado plus parts stash.  My friend came over and I loaded her up with all sorts of parts, bumpers, rad support, starter, spare rear wing motor etc.  She set me up with an assorted variety of mexican beer, which I appreciated.  That left the interior plastics, which I offered up again for some beer, so basically free.  One local guy flaked out on me and didn't even bother to tell me, only told me when I reached out to him.  Another guy who said he had a cousin local to me couldn't figure out that all I wanted for this stuff was beer, even though I told him twice.

I still have some small, low value stuff to sell ($50 here, $40 there...) but I'll wait until I'm motivated to deal with people again, or just throw it away.

So, yeah, selling stuff still sucks, even when you're basically giving it away.  So even though it made me feel somewhat bad, I just put all the plastics along with some other odds and ends from my basement into the garbage can.  I made the best effort I could to help out another enthusiast and I feel quite happy about all the space in my basement now.  I need to organize things a little better, but mostly I've got the 996 rack, KTM rack, Land Cruiser rack, etc...

Sucks about the plastics, would have gone easily out here. These are 10k cars where you need 40k of spares  I'll just build another mk1 or just buy a *really* nice one some day.

In reply to Paul_VR6 (Forum Supporter) :

Even when you buy a really nice one, which I consider my old corrado to be, you still need an extensive set of spare parts.  There are just too many NLA parts out for these, so if one of those breaks and you don't have it in your stash, you're screwed.  God forbid you need a windshield or get into a front end fender bender. 

I was unwilling to ship the plastics, I didn't deal with it time wise, packing wise and then dealing with some jerk who's mad that 30 year old plastic that they didn't pay me for showed up with a mark on it or worse.  I wanted someone to come and pick them up and give me a 6 pack, not that hard to do.

Luckily there are enough guys out here with hordes that part doesn't worry me as much. But with your location its probably a bit harder.