Frequently asked questions

Auction Intel aggregates listings from Australia's five biggest vehicle auctioneers — Pickles, Manheim, IAAI, Grays and Slattery — into a single search. It indexes both live and historical listings, calculates a bid ceiling for each lot based on prior hammer prices, and tracks WOVR status, damage reports and VIN history. We're not affiliated with any of the auctioneers; we're an independent data layer.

Yes for browsing. Search, the Deals Board, sold-history comps, and live-listing photos are free. Some features — saved watchlists, VIN-check history reports, and a higher hourly check quota — require a free account.

Directly from the auctioneers' own public catalogues + bid-history feeds. We scrape Pickles, Manheim, IAAI, Grays and Slattery continuously (every few minutes during sale windows) and persist historical hammer prices going back several years. Market exit-value comparisons are sourced from a mix of non-salvage auction sales and Carsales asking prices (discounted to private-market equivalent).

For repairable write-offs: ceiling = expected resale value × WOVR exit discount × odometer factor − estimated repair cost − transport − buyer fee − target profit margin − risk buffer. For clean-title lots: ceiling = historical hammer median × odometer factor − transport − margin − risk − buyer fee. Every dollar that comes out is shown on the card so you can audit the math. Tunable per profile (conservative / default / aggressive).

No special licence required for buying as a private individual. You do need a valid Australian driver's licence for ID, a registered account with the auctioneer (free), and the ability to pay (bank transfer / EFT typically required within 24-48h of winning). Trade buyers needing GST credits register as a dealer separately with each auctioneer.

Bid Live (Pickles term — Manheim calls it Simulcast, IAAI calls it AuctionNow) is a live auctioneer format: lots are called one at a time with ~60 seconds of competitive bidding per lot. You need to be watching when your lot comes up. Timed Online (Manheim's BidNow, all Slattery, all Grays) is an eBay-style format: lots are open for days, you place a max bid, the system handles the rest. Auction Intel labels each lot LIVE or TIMED so you know which workflow applies.

WOVR = Written-Off Vehicle Register. It's a federal database tracking every vehicle that's been declared written-off by an insurer or assessor. Four states: No WOVR (clean title — never been written off), WOVI-Inspected (was written-off, has since been repaired and passed inspection), Repairable Write-off (can be re-registered after WOVI), Statutory Write-off (cannot be re-registered, parts-only or export). See our full guide for details.

Not until it's been repaired and passed a WOVI (Written-Off Vehicle Inspection) in your state of registration. The inspection certifies structural and identity integrity — chassis straightness, VIN match, airbag deployment status, etc. Costs ~$400-$700 depending on state. Out-of-state WOVI certificates aren't transferable.

No. Statutory WOs are legally prohibited from re-registration in any Australian state. They can only be sold for parts or exported overseas (Dubai, PNG, and other markets are common destinations). Pickles and Manheim both run dedicated stat-only auction streams. Use them for parts donor cars; don't try to put one back on the road.

Varies by auctioneer, hammer bracket, and salvage vs non-salvage. Rough range: $220-$1,100 flat fee on lower hammer brackets, then 5.5-8% of hammer above ~$10,000-$20,000. Full GST-inclusive tables for Pickles, Manheim and IAAI are on our buyer-fees guide. Auction Intel's bid ceilings already subtract these fees automatically — what you see is what you can pay.

State government stamp duty (3-5% of hammer + fee, varies by state), registration transfer fee ($30-$100), yard storage if you don't collect within 3-5 days ($25-$50/day), and transport. Interstate transport runs $500-$1,500; within-state $200-$600. Budget all of these into your bid ceiling.

Yes — all the major sources run physical inspection windows before each sale, typically 1-3 days at the storage yard. Pickles, Manheim and IAAI publish viewing days for each sale on the source listing page. Auction Intel doesn't gate any of this; click "Open on Pickles" (or Manheim, etc) from any listing to see the source's official viewing schedule. Highly recommended for any lot over a few thousand dollars.

Auction Intel lets you paste a VIN into Smart Search — we'll return any matching listing (active or historical) and surface WOVR history, prior hammer sales, and damage photos. For full PPSR + NEVDIS reports (encumbrance, stolen flag, registration status), we provide them per-lookup; signed-in accounts get a quota of free checks per hour. Industry-standard reports through PPSR.gov.au cost ~$3.40 each direct from the government.

Auctioneer-specific but always bad. Pickles and Manheim both retain credit-card pre-auth on bidder accounts; non-payment results in immediate account suspension, the lot being relisted at your expense, plus a percentage-of-hammer cancellation fee. Repeat non-payment leads to permanent ban. Auction wins are legally binding contracts in Australia.

Pickles (all formats — Bid Live, Timed Online, salvage + ex-fleet + industrial), Manheim (Simulcast, BidNow, all categories), IAAI Australia (AuctionNow), Grays (timed online), and Slattery (timed-only). Plus Carsales for retail-asking-price comp data (used internally for market value estimates, not surfaced as auction listings).

We poll active timed auctions every 60 seconds and update current_bid on every listing. Live-auctioneer (Bid Live / Simulcast / AuctionNow) lots close in ~60 seconds each — by the time you see a current_bid on those, the lot is essentially sold. That's why our Deals Board treats bid-live lots as TARGETs (set your ceiling now, enforce it in the auctioneer's live UI when the lot comes up) rather than as bidding opportunities you can react to in real time.

No. Auction Intel is independent. We read public data from those sites the same way any user could in a browser; we're not a reseller, a partner, or a feeder. We don't get a commission on anything you buy. The site is funded by a planned subscription tier for power users + per-VIN-check fees.