{"id":1078,"date":"2017-04-20T11:51:47","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T16:51:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rctc.edu\/echo\/?p=1078"},"modified":"2025-09-24T10:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:08:09","slug":"car-auction-is-a-win-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/car-auction-is-a-win-win\/","title":{"rendered":"Car auction is a win-win’"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Lydia Hansen
\n<\/b>Managing Editor
\n<\/b><\/p>\n

\"Automotive

Automotive Mechanic students Jason Nelson and Logan Christopherson repair donated vehicles in preparation for the annual car sale, April 21-22. (Echo Photo by Isaac Sindt)<\/p><\/div>\n

Looking for wheels?<\/p>\n

Then you\u2019ve come to the right place. RCTC\u2019s Automobile Mechanic program might have just the ride for you at their car sale this April.<\/p>\n

These are cars that have been repaired by the students in the program. Over the course of the semester, the students work on various parts of the vehicles, ensuring they are once again safe, drivable, and reliable.<\/p>\n

\u201cSafety is of utmost importance,\u201d said Dave MacLeod, an Automotive Mechanic instructor of 17 years who organizes the program\u2019s car sale. \u201cWe won\u2019t sell a car until we are sure that the brakes and steering are all safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The cars in the program that eventually appear in the annual sale are donated to the program, usually from community members unwilling to pay for necessary repairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t charge for labor, so we can do expensive repairs for just parts only,\u201d MacLeod explained, adding that, \u201cour cars are repaired to be dependable. Some programs will have cars that do not go out on the roads, so they\u2019re not real repairs. You can learn from them, but we do live repairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

This arrangement is advantageousfor the program because cars can be fixed up and put back on the road without investing so much money in them. The proceeds from the sale of the cars then go back to the program to help fund further repairs, expansions to the program, and the tools and expensive equipment used by the students.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a win-win situation,\u201d MacLeod says.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that the car sale is a sealed bid sale, not a live auction. The vehicles will be available for public viewing at HB 124 in the Heintz Center auto labs from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. April 21 and from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on April 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can bid on as many cars as you want,\u201d MacLeod said, \u201cbut you don\u2019t have to take any of them. The bid is not a binding contract. It\u2019s just an offer.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Student

Automotive student Justin Brown works on a vehicle\u2019s undercarriage while classmate Cody Johnson looks on. (Echo Photo by Isaac Sindt)<\/p><\/div>\n

Public viewing ends on April 22, but the bidding window doesn\u2019t close until April 25, giving people time to do research on the cars and make up their minds. On April 25, bids will be opened and the program will call the highest bidder on each vehicle to see if they\u2019re still interested.<\/p>\n

This year, MacLeod estimates there will be about 10 vehicles at the sale. This is about average for the program, though he said some years they\u2019ve had as many as 30 vehicles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt depends on how many we have ready,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

This can vary considerably from year to year, since repairs are only done as the students progress through the units of the program. Cars with bad transmissions, for instance, wouldn\u2019t be repaired until they reached that unit.<\/p>\n

In addition, after the vehicles have been repaired, the program has to hold on to them for a year before selling them, in accordance with various rules set by Minnesota State.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce we\u2019ve met all of (Minnesota State\u2019s) criteria and the cars are deemed good, reliable transportation, then we put them on a sale,\u201d MacLeod said.<\/p>\n

The price range for these vehicles is usually well within a student budget, with most going for about $1,000, though some range up to $5,000.<\/p>\n

The kinds of vehicles available also varies a great deal. The Automobile Mechanic program works with whatever is donated, so one year there was an old ambulance at the sale, which MacLeod said he actually purchased himself for $25,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing we see very seldom is pickups,\u201d he said, \u201calthough we do have one that could be on the sale this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in the market for a vehicle, stop by the car sale April 21-22. They might have just the car you\u2019re looking for, repaired and ready for the road. And remember, it\u2019s a sealed bid sale, so it\u2019ll only cost you as much as you\u2019re willing to pay for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lydia Hansen Managing Editor Looking for wheels? Then you\u2019ve come to the right place. RCTC\u2019s Automobile Mechanic program might have just the ride for you at their car sale this April. These are cars that have been repaired by the students in the program. Over the course of the semester, the students work on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[51,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-campus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rctc.edu\/echo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}