Teach me the art of flipping cars.

This is a possibility for me in the very near future to make some extra money on the side.

I do have a car trailer that I will have finished hopefully by the end of November, so I'm willing to go south and bring vehicles back up north to sell.

Some of you do this all the time, so I wanted to know any tips and tricks to doing it. What cars or trucks seem to get snapped up? Do you just wing it or is there a market for some vehicles?

I'm only going to have a couple thousand dollars to start with, hopefully that will be enough to get something decent with minimal work.

Personally I just wing it. Find a car for $500 2 $1,000 that needs some cleaning and minor mechanical fixing that should cost a competent wrench Turner around 2 $300. Puts total investment at around 1300. Sell is $2,500 car. About 20 hours worth of Labor is what I figure. That puts it at $60 an hour with a prophet. However I just traded $1,000 Volkswagen diesel for $500 and in 03 Miata. Puts me in the Miata for $600. Come spring without doing anything to it its a $2,000 car. Sometimes you got to gamble.

Not that I have any experience to speak of, but it seems to me a good strategy would be to target cars that are desireable but rust prone. I'm thinking like 70s Japanese iron, 60s/70s pickups, maybe 80s 4runners and Toyota pickups, ect. Rather than fix and flip, I think your value added service is providing cleaner projects than what is typically found up north.

The only difference between a $1000 car and a $2000 car is a good wash and cleaning.

SVreX wrote: The only difference between a $1000 car and a $2000 car is a good wash and cleaning.

This. Keep an eye on auctions,and keep this in mind.

I flip a couple cars a year, but I'm very selective about what I buy. Small sedans and hatchbacks,c things I don't particularly like, sell very well around here with minimal effort. Usually, a little fiberglass and a trip to the detailer can turn a $500 beater into a $1000+ little ride. Even more so if your state has safety and emissions inspections. Going rate in PA for a running driving car with good inspection stickers is $1500 minimum.

Sometimes things you don't see right away can hurt at inspection time, but tires, brakes, check engine lights are the main issues to tackle.

In reply to SVreX:

Sometimes just better pictures

In reply to RevRico:

We don't have inspection in Illinois, so it's not a huge deal.

I am not fluent in auctions, so I'd be a little nervous going that direction starting off.

Make sure it's got a high center of gravity, and if your tires are sticky enough and your suspension is loose enough, you might be able to turn a Scandinavian flick into a Scandinavian flip. Get the weight to swing from one side to the other, turn hard, and you should see the world from an entirely new, upside down perspective. There's things you can do to help that, do it on an off camber piece of road, put ballast high in the car, maybe use an impact, either from another car or with a curb, to help pitch the car over. Follow these guidelines and you'll be flipping cars like flapjacks at Denny's. One last piece of advice, I highly advise adding a rollcage and wearing a helmet. Flipping cars can be highly dangerous, take every possible safety precaution.

Alternatively, go watch Wheeler Dealers. They do a pretty good job turning a profit in most episodes, but rarely does it make good money when you consider the value of Ed's time.

1: Buy Car.

2: Buy Forklift.

3: ???

4: Profit!

I have tackled cars needing mechanical work and made a tidy profit. I recently made 2 Subaru WRX's into one. I sold enough parts off the leftovers to pay the initial outlay plus more and then I sold the running car for $6500.

If you do this find a car that you can pick up an engine for $500-$600. Things like an Sentra SE-R that can be swapped with a 2.5L out of Altima. Avoid cars that pop certain items chronically because you won't find the parts cheap in a scrapyard.

Rust free 60s-80s trucks seem to be the hot ticket around here.

Start here: https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/wheeler-dealers-usa-master-thread-links-to-all-of-/108455/page1/

My secrets are revealed in all of the threads, but I'll summarize here. I specialize in "cool" cars. If it's not something someone would seek out on purpose, I'm not interested. I have friends that flip, one does just Hondas and he loses as often as he gains, and another that does pickups and he ends up holding on to them for months and years at a time. You want to get in, fix it, and get out quick. Don't bother with normal cars, because everybody does that and you compete with car lots.

The biggie though is, no matter what you buy, your profit is all in buying the car. If you overpay, you will be stuck with it or have a really hard time selling it. Don't be afraid to walk away! Just this year I've passed on an 85 Corvette, a 66 Impala, a 66 Mustang, a 68 Mustang, and more all because they wouldn't come down to my price. Most of them are still for sale! I aim to pay half of what I think the fixed car is worth.

A good ramp helps

This is tougher than it looks. I'm always impressed by people that roll cars accidentally on the road since I had more trouble than I expected doing it with a ramp.

Dont go into it thinking it is not work.

It's work, my tip is at the end of the work; if you have an interested buyer figure out how to put it in their hands. Not as much profit? Oh well, better than sitting on it when you should be reinvesting.

It's a literal crap shoot. I've pretty much broke even in all the deals I've ever done flipping. I've made lots of cash on some and lost my ass on others. Carfax has saved me a few times and I recommend that mainly for cars with more than one owner. Also worked when I bought my S2000. Airbags had deployed but no rebuilt/salvage title so it's a clean title but because of that it's worth half the value the dealer had it for sale. Also worked when I almost purchased a deal too good to be true and found out it was a car that had been salvaged just recently.

If worse comes to worse just enjoy whatever you are flipping and if you lose your ass it won't seem so bad. I've always purchased cars I've liked for that reason to flip.

Previous threads on the topic of flipping:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 1

Be careful about state laws. In some states, if you sell over a certain amount of cars a year, you have to get a dealer's license.

Read up on this. Trust me.

car39 wrote: Be careful about state laws. In some states, if you sell over a certain amount of cars a year, you have to get a dealer's license.

car39 wrote: Be careful about state laws. In some states, if you sell over a certain amount of cars a year, you have to get a dealer's license.

Yeah, they call it "Curbstoning" in Michigan. That said, I've known several folks who do it fairly regularly and have never heard from the state about it. There's also the option of hanging on to the signed title from the person you bought it from and then passing that along to your buyer. I'm pretty sure that's not legal, but I've seen it happen quite a bit.

Illinois is 5 title transfers per person per year, but add up wife parents grandparents, etc and you can work with it. On the flipping on the last persons title, that's the curbstoning bit. I would also hazard to say that explains a whole lot of the "I'm selling this for a friend" lines in Craigslist and eBay.

No limit on 30 year or older cars in my state, another reason to stick to cool stuff.

In reply to Javelin:

You're lucky then, it's three vehicles no matter what the age here in Nevada. That's pretty much put the kybosh on my vehicle buying antics. I might have to register some of the short term ones in my wife's name .

I was a mechanic and I used to do this occasionally. I would buy fairly clean late model cars that had a mechanical catastrophe and were headed to the junkyard. Once it was a neon that broke a timing belt, once it was a grand prix that overheated until the heads cracked. I would fix them, drive them a few months to get any other problems straightened out, and sell for a couple grand. I never messed with cool stuff. I dealt in cars that had a big audience. The kind of cars people buy for their kid that just got their license. It made for easy sales.

Saw the Title and Immediatly thought 'bout Gary Powell Puttin his Camero on its roof outside of turn 1 at Senoia, Oh Well 'nuther story 'nuther day.