If you have ever been to auto auctions in San Diego, this should be the place you go. Make sure…read moreyou take someone with you that knows auto mechanics. There are some excellent vehicles here and also there are some junks too. You have to check them out first. If you just bid on a vehicle that you did not check out, you are going to buy problems. This is the only auction that I know of that you can start the engine, completely check out the car before the auction. The other auctions don't let you open the hood! This place are like all the others, cash only, no refunds or exchanges so do your homework and you should do good.

DO NOT BUY A CAR FROM THIS PLACE, YOU ARE WARNED. They sell bad vehicle with alot of issues. They…read moredont tell you about them. The people are awful to work with. Hope this place goes out of business

Today I had a lovely opportunity to waste my time. Their online website posts opening bid prices…read morebut when you get there they increase the opening bid price by thousands claiming it's a "reserved" price. For example: I was interested in a 2016 Chevy Cruze that was listed online starting bid at 5500. Well, when it was that cars turn to be auctioned the bid started at 7900. Yes, I'm just as surprised as you. When I confronted them (Mike and the auctioneer guy) about it asking if they usually raise the online price? They said it's the reserved price. What? I asked. Reserve price? There is nothing online stating that there is a reserve price. He said it's the buy it now price, it's the reserve price. Then told me to ask anyone, it means the same thing. I told him those two words mean two different things. Buy it now means buy it now I don't want to fight in an auction. Reserve price means even though you'll bid at this price, you'll still have to pay X amount for reserve. Common knowledge... or atleast I thought it was. Long story short: scam artists; they bait you in at a low price online, wastes your time while waiting for the car you want to see and then raises the starting bid by thousands. Then tries to gaslight you when you ask too many questions. I would give negative stars if I could, I'm being generous with 1 star. Guess I'll be taking my money to a dealership where I know it's safe. FALSE ADVERTISEMENT!!!

Do not trust this place. You're better off with Craigslist cars. Rude staff, and bad cars…read more Read their Terms and Conditions, and you'll soon realize why there are so many negative reviews. Also, don't put down any money for any car as a "reservation."

Took over 20 phone calls over 3 days to get someone to answer the phone. Did not get my car in the…read moresale and had to wait another week. Sell fee was very high and charged me for a detail, I drove the car to the auction from my detail shop! It was extremely clean and did not need a detail. Service at the front desk is awful! I will never use this auction again, no wonder this auction has only a couple of hundred cars a week! It once had 2,000 plus a week.

this company is the worst, manheim beats them everytime in every area of the auction business…read more everytime I have to interact with them I regret it. I know lots of transporters who refuse to go to adesa anymore to pick up cars due to all of the problems locating cars

well i too have had a bad experience. bidding online requires a deposit of 500, so i did that after…read moreyou win and pay for car you then can reques t a withdrawal of your 500. it has been over a month that i put in my withdrawal and it still says pending. i call auction and they told me that they would contact ip or it couldnt get that. it has been another week. still pending!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Next whom they use for online bidding doesnt have any contact info, says 24/7 support but no way to reach them

I've bought several cars from here. Sad truth is u take ur chances at this business. I bought one…read morevehicle and soon as I drove it out the gate I had the thought to look under the hood. Good thing I did. The engine was running but I couldn't see anything moving! Nothing! I realized the main pulley was broke so no belt movement. That blew me away as I had never seen that before. How could the engine be running as im hearing it clearly but there is no visible movement??? So, I couldn't even drive it home bcos if the belts aren't moving the water pump is not pumping and it would overheat in a few blocks. So I had to get it towed and the mechanic told me I was looking at a bill of approx 3800 dollars. I didn't pay but 800 dollars for the car. Do u think I got any money back? Hell no! I was screwed. Brownfield screws people every week. One guy came in the yard with a pistol to get his $ back but he just ended up in jail. I don't condone his behavior but I certainly understand. And this is just one of my experiences with these hoodlums and thieves. ​

Settle in for this one…read more We set an appointment to pick up our car. Get there and PEDRO tells us okay I just need to grab the plate, take pictures, and I'll bring it out. That alone took 30 minutes. After searching the car that had close to nothing already in it since we had taken all personal items except what the lot needed: our registration and our license plate. After searching the empty car for 10 minutes we head back inside and tell them we are missing our license plate. PEDRO then says they will go look for it. 30 minutes go by. We now ask AURA, another worker, what is going on and if anyone is looking for the plate she advises us that she'll go ask the manager in which to our surprise NO ONE WAS LOOKING FOR THE PLATE. So now after ANOTHER 20 MINUTES. I asked PEDRO if they needed help finding the plate since it seems they are either low staffed or incompetent in keeping documents together. He then straight up says "we may have lost your plate" . After another 30 minutes of them "SEARCHING" for the plate we give up and give in our information in case they "find it". So we go outside and sit in our other car as we are trying to figure out how to drive the car we picked up home, they have one of their forklift drivers come out and ATTEMPT TO OPEN OUR CAR WITH AN EXTERNAL BATTERY TO LOOK FOR THE LICENSE PLATE. We walk up and ask them what they are doing they say "looking for the plate" and our response is "without telling us after we already picked up the car? We are sitting right there with the key to the car." The driver just says "oh" and proceeds to look in the car again for the PLATE THAT WASNT THERE!!! At this point I'm LIVID. You clearly lost the plate and NEVER communicated that you did or were even in need to look for it. The VERY FIRST THING PEDRO SAID was that he need to grab the LICENSE PLATE before getting the car. After driving home, we had recently moved and needed the registration to the car to register it for our parking lot. Just take a huge guess as to where the last place the registration was seen? AT COPART. So not only do they have my plate but now also my registration. GOD FORBID I HAD GOTTEN PULLED OVER DRIVING HOME!!!! This place sucks, the employees suck even more. NEVER SEND YOUR CAR HERE OR LET USAA SEND IT HERE EITHER!!!

Tried purchasing a truck to fix up but they didn't tell me I needed a broker, 18 wheeler to ship…read moresaid car to the broker and pay lot fees and travel fees till after I paid for the day pass, then had me wait for 30 minutes before another worker told me that inspections of auctioned cars was over and I needed to go turn in my vest, worst fuckin place to even look for a cheap car

I didn't believe the reviews felt like I had to experience the place myself and now the one star…read moretotal makes complete sense definitely some illegal stuff going on here I was somehow outbid by thin air and the price I bid for was bumped up a thousand plus by the thin air and once I "lost" the bidding I was then offered the car still by the auctioneer on the way out they don't try and hide it they are completely scamming if you aren't apart of their family I would completely avoid this auction and save yourself the time

Terrible service. They are the company that takes care of auto donations to several charities…read more They don't process things like they promise - you have to continually call to get the release of liability completed. On another note the tow truck driver was very nice and on-time.

Tried to sign up for their auction service. They tried to charge me $200 to activate my account…read morealong with some sort of ID verification when I have a few friends who had absolutely no hassle with their activations. Avoid this company.

I missed the "pick up" date the day after the San Diego location auction and the next day was a…read moreholiday and the yard was closed. I returned the day after (a Friday) and was told I needed to go to Escondido to pay for a vehicle that was sold and stored in San Diego. This was at 4:00 PM and the Escondido location would be closing in 30 minutes. That was on a Friday. The next possible day to pay for the vehicle was Monday and now there were going to be 5 days of 'storage fees' due at $25/day, adding $125 to the already existing buyer's fees. Altogether, the fees were more than I bid on the vehicle. This is just more bullshit to suck money from unsuspecting individuals who are not familiar with these con artists and thieves. This is the worst customer service I have ever encountered. They are not to be trusted. STAY AWAY!!!

Had a situation with a misunderstanding of a car I bought. I talked to the boss the next day and he…read moretook care of everything and I was refunded and will be back soon.

This review is for those considering selling a vehicle to a Kardona buyer. I have no experience…read morebuying from their auction. Summary: The buyer I interacted with utilized unprofessional sales tactics and took advantage of my lack of experience with the car salvaging industry. I understand the need to operate profitably but this seller simply lacks integrity. He does not deserve your business. I'm sharing the lessons I learned here so others can prevent sleazy buyers from taking advantage of them. In October 2020, our 2008 Subaru stopped working (radiator issue). Due to the age of the car, we did not want to hire a mechanic to repair the vehicle. So I began looking online for how to scrap old cars. There were two main options advertised online for people in our situation. The first was to donate the vehicle to charities who will either repair and giveaway the car or sell it for scraps to raise money. The second was to sell to "cash for cars" type of companies; most of which claimed the car should be worth at least $500. We found the Kardona buyer through the 2nd option. During the interaction, the buyer seemed like a respectful person. Negotiated hard but was still friendly. I knew he was negotiating aggressively, but since I wanted to get rid of the car fast, I was willing to undersell a little. I wanted $500 based on my online research. He used sleazy curbside negotiation tactics and lies to try convince me the car was worth only a few hundred dollars. When I told him I wasn't willing to sell that low and I wanted to contact a few other companies for quotes, he made up some lie about how all the buyers are tracked with GPS and any other buyer that comes out will see that we already spoke to someone and therefore not offer us a higher offer. He also stated that the car would not be repaired and would be sold for parts. This last statement was the ONLY reason I settled for his lowball $350 offer. I didn't believe his sales lies BUT as I explained to him, I had just renewed the vehicle registration early ($150) and would be entitled to a refund from the DMV since the new registration period hadn't started and if the car was scrapped. In my mind, his low-ball offer plus the money I could recoup from the DMV would satisfy us. The DMV refund process takes a while. I applied the same night I sold the vehicle to Kardona, but it was only a few weeks ago that I was informed by the DMV that I will not receive my $150 refund because the car was NOT scrapped for parts. According to the DMV, the car had been sold twice since I sold it. If you are in a situation where you need to get rid of an old vehicle conveniently and would like a reasonable offer (not the highest but also not offensively low), I recommend contacting the following instead of Kardona: 1. Local junkyards (iPull-uPull type businesses) 2. Webuycars.com (affiliated with CoParts (the company insurance company sell salvage cards to) and will give you a reasonable quote without needing to meet in person.) 3. Contact the different "cash for cars" type companies, obtain quotes and use them to compete against one another. Many will try to use "curbside negotiation" tactics to pressure you into selling without shopping around (similar to the Kardona buyer's tactics). Hold your ground and insist you only want quotes for now. My 2008 Honda was totaled in a car accident in March 2021 and I was able to sell it for $750 (still a low offer but reasonable for how much time I was willing to spend on selling it; insurance company's salvage value estimate was $950.) I learned through this process that most the "cash for cars" type companies operate with or under CoParts. You can browse CoParts auction site to see what price range they will be able to sell your vehicle for and use that to set a fair and realistic negotiation price. Don't ever let a car buyer convince you that your vehicle is only worth $500 or less. PURE LIES but happens all the time. If my totaled 2008 Honda could sell for at least $750, the 2008 Subaru with minor damage definitely should have been worth more.