There’s buyer’s remorse, and then there’s the buyer’s remorse that comes from spending more than $16,000 on a BMW at an auction only to find it’s not what you expected.
That’s the situation that TikTok creator Isaiah (@turbozay) found himself in after splashing the considerable sum on a BMW that appeared to have engine troubles once it came into his possession. The video, released on Friday, had close to 180,000 views as of Sunday morning.
It starts with an on-screen caption, with one of TikTok’s automatic caption readers intoning, “Drove six hours to get scammed at auction.” It then shows a snippet of the six-hour drive, followed by the BMW in question.
The creator then switches to a whiny, exaggeratedly high-pitched voice, saying, “Bro, I just drove six hours!”
Then, he says, “Started up,” and then after the engine labored and then stopped, he said in the same voice, “No, not again! So clean, bro!”
Then, with a caption showing “-$16975” and an angry face emoji, he says, “I thought I hit a wick!”
His accompanying caption notes, “Blew up right after I won the bid.”
He’s saying “not again” because he has another video, from July 22, which shows a similar progression of putting down serious money—in this case, nearly $14,000—on a BMW that also turned out to have engine issues. In this case, he said the auction process “finessed” him, but also characterized it in the video as being “scammed.”
That video’s caption darkly said, “Life is a gamble,” followed by “I lost.”
@turbozay Blew up right after i won the bid😭 #bmw #carslover #carflipping #auction #v8power #bmwlife #bmwm #catsoftiktok #fyp ♬ original sound – bigfloppareal
Are car auctions risky?
While car auctions can be a place for people to get good deals on used cars, it comes with risk. An article from Ridesafely offers 16 different tips for people looking to buy at auctions, and notes that buying cars at auctions “can be demanding, daunting, and even deceiving.” While they acknowledge the risk, they also point out that it also has its rewards.
One of the tips involves understanding what “as-is” means: “In a nutshell, ‘as is’ means ‘as is’ – no guarantees or warranties once you drive that vehicle away, and therefore, no turning back if you later discover that you have bought nothing but a pile of metal rubble. If you cannot handle such a loss or disappointment, you might want to avoid bidding.”
Some advice from commenters
Commenters were ready with advice for the luckless BMW buyer.
“Looking for a 6 series at an auction is just crazy in itself,” said one.
Another offered, “Register it, put insurance, burn it, get back 30k,” which made additional comments wonder about the logic of this obviously illegal suggestion.
“Rule #1,” someone else posited. “Never buy a used BMW at an auction unless it’s Carmax.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to the creator via TikTok comment.
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