I am in the market for a truck. I have been watching TDA website and am noticing that very few bids ever make it to the reserve price unless it makes it to the buy it now price. Do they negotiate prices at all? Has anyone ever purchased from them and can give me any info on buying from them?

They will negotiate a little.

Lot of threads on this. If you search you'll find a dozen in the past year, if not more.

http://texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=2156714&forum_id=46
Be careful 1ags' boost was at TDA.

Be very careful

http://texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?forum_id=46&topic_id=1650885

http://mobile.texags.com/Forums/46/Topics/1865601
http://mobile.texags.com/Forums/46/Topics/1835044

Many of their cars have clean carfax's but have been in wrecks. Many have undisclosed problems. I am surprised they have not been shut down. It's not a question of if.

One of my coworkers (Iowa) bought an Escalade from there.

She told me "My husband's going down to Texas to buy a newer truck for me,and maybe another for him, too." (he makes Arab money), when I asked where (TDA) I was like "Ummmm, you should PROBABLY rethink that idea.". So, he only bought her one. LOL! Flew down, check in hand, drove it back.

No problems. Yet.

(he makes Arab money
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but he buys used from TDA?

Sounds about right

The whole philosophy around eBay Motors is not that a buyer will bid up the car past the reserve price and be the winner when time expires. eBay promotes it as a lead generation service, and that every time someone bids on your vehicle you have contact info for the bidder and you the salesman should try to close them on a price. Once you close them on a price, the next step is to change the buy it now price to be the agreed on price and get the customer to click buy it now and use paypal to leave a deposit.

Very rarely does someone click on the original buy it now price or bid a vehicle up over the reserve price.

Partially true, they actually do not want you to BUY IT NOW, you know why? Because they don't want to risk negative feedback. They want the salesman to close the deal over the phone get a credit card deposit then end the auction 'outside' of ebay. They don't want to risk their feedback rating.

They have it down to a science.

I used to say “just be careful and do your homework” about TDA. I still believe you can find a decent deal there. I sold them my Accord in perfect shape and whoever bought it got a fantastic car.

However, knowing what I know now that I didn’t 2 years ago, the risk vs reward is just too high for me. I prob won’t buy there again.