Absolutely! Anyone with the motivation can take on a project. All you need is the desire to do it. Today there are countless resources available online to answer just about any question you have in your build process.
You can Build your own Ride anywhere you can safely park and work on a project. Whether you have a garage, driveway, barn, or yard, you can build your ride anywhere you like.
It’s important to have space to be organized and ideally sheltered to preserve your hard work and help keep your project on track. If you have the space but no shelter, there are a number of low cost options from basic tent or canopy style shelters, all the way up to metal building kits.
To work on a project you need to start with a basic tool set. Wrenches, socket set, screwdrivers, jack & jack stands, hammer, and drill, will all inevitably be a part of your builder journey. Specialty tools and specialty services are common requirements of a project. All of these tool requirements will be dependent on the difficulty of the project.
Level of difficulty is entirely subjective and up to the individual builder, their knowledge, and comfort level. If you are just getting started we would recommend taking on a project with a lower level of difficulty. Test your skill level and knowledge with our “Wrench Rating” quiz. Sign into your account and check the dashboard.
You can sign in using the orange “Log In” button located on the top right corner of your browser window. If you see the “Register” pop-up window after trying to place a bid or comment, click the “LOGIN” link at the very bottom. There you can enter your email and password.
If you are not yet registered for the site you will not be able to login until you have completed the registration process.
All users need to provide an email address. This is the address where you’ll receive notifications, communication from our team, and the address that is shared with the other party when you win a project listing or plan to sell one.
Click the orange “Log In” button or at the top right corner of your browser window. You will see a pop-up window that has a link for “Forgotten your password?”. Enter the email address of your account, and we will email you a link to set a new password. Make sure you have access to the email account, as this link expires 24 hours after we send it to you.
Contact us at support@buildmyride.com and we’ll help straighten it out!
In addition to the final purchase price paid to the seller, buyers pay a 5% buyer’s fee to Build My Ride. The buyer’s fee has a minimum of $250, and a maximum of $5,000
First start by signing up! Click the orange “Log In” button in the upper right corner of the screen. Next, click “Register Now” in the pop-up box. Once you create a username and password, you must verify your email. Look in your inbox for the verification email. (This may take a few minutes. Still don’t see it? Look in your junk, clutter or any other place your email service may have filed our message.) Once verified, you can return to Build My Ride, register your credit card and begin bidding!
You must be registered to bid. Once you’ve registered and you’ve found a project you’re interested in buying, click one of the “Place Bid” buttons on a project listing page. A pop-up will prompt you to enter your bid amount.
Your bid must be higher than the previous bid. Depending on the current bidding level, there will be a minimum increase over the previous bid. Once you’ve submitted your bid, we place a hold on your credit card for 5% of your bid amount until the close of the listing and you are the winner.
Bid increments increase as follows:
All bids on Build My Ride are in United States Dollars (USD).
Yes, however you will need to pay in full for the vehicle promptly following the close of the listing. This applies to any buyer around the world. Additionally, logistics, import fees, transportation, legal dues, taxes or tariffs, and/or other items needed to export/import the vehicle are entirely the buyer’s responsibility. Please be aware of all these rules and ensure that you have everything figured out prior to bidding.
You can contact the seller privately through the project’s listing page. Click the “Contact Seller” button in the “Nuts & Bolts” section of the listing, and you’ll be able to send the seller a private message that won’t appear on the listing itself.
No. If you are outbid, you must manually place your next bid. The price of the project will immediately increase to your bid amount. For example, if the current high-bid is $5,000 and you place a $10,000 bid, the current high bid will immediately go to $10,000.
We place a hold on your credit card when you bid in order to account for the possibility that you may be the winning bidder and will need to pay the buyer’s fee. The hold is for 5% of your initial bid amount, with a minimum of $250 and a maximum of $5,000. If you aren’t the winning bidder, the hold is released from your credit card at the close of the project’s listing.
We cancel holds for non-winning bidders immediately upon the close of the listing. The duration of the hold is based on your bank and may take a few days. We expect that it should be no longer than 7 business days. If in the odd chance the hold has not been removed, please contact your card issuer directly with any questions about the release.
If a listing doesn’t have a reserve, you’ll see a “No Reserve” tag along with a “No Reserve” text near the bidding box. If you don’t see this text, that listing has a reserve price. Reserve prices are not published, and we ask that buyers refrain from asking sellers about reserve pricing during the listing. The only time you’ll know if the reserve is met is if the project sells at listing close.
If the reserve isn’t met, and you are the highest bidder, we’ll get in touch with you and the seller of the listing. We’ll try to negotiate a price that will satisfy both parties. If we reach an agreement, we’ll put you and the seller in contact.
Only the high bidder is eligible to make a post-listing deal. Bidders are encouraged to bid as high as they are comfortable during the listing period. This is the best way to ensure they end up with the project they want.
At the close of a listing, both the buyer and seller are given each other’s contact information to complete the transaction. Read more about it in the Seller HUB.
In most cases transportation costs are the buyer’s responsibility. We recommend gathering personal travel and/or shipping cost estimates before bidding. Collecting a project may require special equipment so be sure to consider what will be necessary to retrieve the project.
Please be sure to verify that a general timeline will work for the seller before bidding. Some sellers may be happy to continue storing the project to allow you time to retrieve it. Some sellers may also be willing to bring the project to a nearby location for it to be loaded onto a carrier transport.
We recommend wire transfers or cashier’s checks for payment. We also recommend discussing the timeline with the seller to ensure that you’re both comfortable with the timing and steps.
If in the case a title is involved in the sale of a project, some states require titles to be notarized by the seller before it can be transferred to you. Be sure to understand the requirements and reference state DMV websites before sending important documents.
Read more about it in the Seller HUB.
Definitely! Please be respectful and decent to fellow builders. Crude language and personal attacks are grounds for immediate site ban. Conversation should be focused on the project listing and generally constructive. It is critically important that the Build My Ride community is supportive and encouraging for current and future builders. A partial list of things that are highly frowned upon and will be moderated accordingly include:
The Wrench Score is our way of demonstrating a user’s experience on Build My Ride. It’s based on a combination of positive interactions on the site, including comments, bids, and buying/selling activities. You can find a user’s Wrench Score in their profile, as well as next to their name when they comment and bid.
Our Basic listing on Build My Ride is free for a limited time and sellers receive 100% of the final sale price. Our Pro listing provides professional photography services. Build My Ride also provides unique marketing options that can be included in your Basic or Pro listing to enhance the project’s value for additional fees.
Currently, Build My Ride only offers vehicles for sale located in the US and Canada. We may look into adding international sellers in the future, so please check back.
Currently, Build My Ride does not offer vehicles for sale in Puerto Rico, but we may expand to vehicles here in the future.
To submit your car for sale, go to the “Sell a Project” link in the header. Your project listing will require standard info like make, model, year, and VIN. Our unique approach to listings will require you to share the known history of the vehicle prior to your ownership. Tell us the story of the project! Where did it come from? Why do you have it? Why are you selling it?
We will ask for details on the work that has been completed so far and the parts that are included with the project. We also ask for what the car will need in order to be “completed”, which we define as safely running, driving, stopping, and looking decent. A complete project is a safe and roadworthy ride! We provide a checklist of nearly all possible parts for the vehicle and ask for you to check off included parts so that we can calculate the “Parts Inventory” percentage.
Project cars aren’t always pretty, and they have problem areas that are important to document with detailed photos and video. You will probably end up with more detail photos than the usual wide exterior and interior shots. Potential buyers need to know exactly what they are getting into and how much it will cost, so please don’t hide anything!
With this in mind, check out our photography section of the Seller HUB page for a better idea of what to do. Refer to our photo guide or hire a professional to come shoot your project. We can help with that too!
Yes, it will help a lot! The more details the better, and a video is a great way to do that. The videos should detail the exterior condition, interior, engine bay, floors, trunk, and spare parts. If the engine runs or the vehicle is safe to drive, videos of those should boost your listing performance. This can be broken up into several videos, or all in one.
We suggest filming in landscape mode, with the phone held horizontally, not vertically, and using YouTube or Vimeo to host the video.
After you provide us with all of the details requested in the listing process, we’ll write the description. We will send you a final draft for approval, and we do our best to make our listing descriptions simple, objective, and direct, focusing on only the most important details to help bidders make their decisions.
You can reach us at support@buildmyride.com.
Although we don’t offer the ability to precisely schedule your listing, we allow our sellers to provide preferences. If you’d prefer a certain start date, or if you’d prefer if your listing wasn’t live during a certain week (for example, due to a vacation or business trip), let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate you.
All listings are scheduled for seven days. The exact duration can vary, as each new bid within the last minute resets the clock to one minute remaining. This will continue until the bidding stops.
You can’t edit your listing yourself, but if you need to, just reach out and let us know what you want to have changed. Throughout the duration of the listing you can leave additional comments, photos, and answer questions to help improve the clarity of your listing.
We recommend being an active participant in the comments section. We suggest that you respond to questions in your listings Q&A section, or directly from users through the Contact Seller option. Active sellers generate the most successful sale. Continuing to be positive and constructive with your answers which will increase bidders confidence.
Yes, we offer sellers the choice between a “reserve” and a “no reserve” listing. A “reserve” is a minimum price that a seller is willing to accept for a project. The reserve is unknown to buyers during the listing period. A “no reserve” listing has no minimum price. This means the project will sell for the amount of the high bid.
If you choose a reserve on your listing, we’ll ask you to suggest your reserve price. If we can’t agree on a reserve price, then the project may not be the right fit for both of us. We understand that there is value in your project and additional money may have been spent under your ownership, but the goal is to generate the most fair price for the project for both the buyer and seller.
If you decide later that you want to adjust your reserve, contact us at support@buildmyride.com.
No, never reveal your reserve, especially in the public comments or Q&A sections. Disclosing your reserve will almost always slow bidding, especially as the listing nears or reaches that value.
Anyone who has registered on Build My Ride may bid on your project. All bidders must have a verified email address and valid credit card on file. All winning bidders are expected to pay in full within one week of the listing close date.
Your buyer may be from outside of the United States or Canada. International buyers are expected to pay in full for the project promptly following the close of listing. Additionally, any logistics, import fees, transportation, legal dues, and/or other items needed to export/import the project are entirely the buyer’s responsibility.
No. Projects listed on Build My Ride are for sale exclusively throughout the platform. If a buyer or seller attempts to make a deal in an attempt to subvert the platform, they will be permanently banned from the site. If you want to buy a project on Build My Ride, just bid the maximum you’re willing to pay!
Once we email you with acceptance of your project listing, it cannot be withdrawn without a cancellation fee. If you notify Build My Ride that the vehicle is no longer available after the acceptance email is received, you will be charged the cancellation fee of $250.
If your reserve isn’t met, we’ll get in touch with you and with the high bidder on your listing. We’ll try to negotiate a price that will satisfy both parties. If we reach an agreement, we’ll put you and the buyer in contact.
Only the high bidder is eligible to make a post-listing deal. Bidders are encouraged to bid as high as they are comfortable during the listing period. This is the best way to ensure they end up with the project they want.
Once the listing closes, completion of the transaction is between the buyer and the seller. Build My Ride provides the buyer and seller with each other’s contact information, and the two parties can complete the transaction via e-mail or telephone. Read more about it in the Seller HUB.
In general, Build My Ride recommends wire transfers and cashier’s checks as the safest form of payment. If the buyer is local, for example, meeting at their local bank branch to draft a cashier’s check, withdraw the funds directly, or complete an electronic money transfer are also common practices. In each of these cases, please perform your due diligence, potentially including verifying a cashier’s check with your bank, or waiting until funds are received before releasing the project and or signing over its title.
Please research the timeline and steps for transfer of title ahead of the listing. This is to ensure that you know the selling process.
Note that some states can take several weeks to reissue a title. Some states require that you notarize the title before it can be transferred to the buyer. Pay attention to the rules and reference state DMV websites.
We always recommend drafting up a Bill of Sale that describes the Make/Model/VIN of the project being sold, purchase price, and the terms of the transaction. These may include date(s) and or additional parts or items that come with the project. Both the buyer and seller should sign and date the Bill of Sale and each should keep a copy for their records.
It’s very uncommon that a winning bidder fails to follow through with the purchase. In the unusual event that it occurs, the winning bidder forfeits their 5% buyer’s fee and they’re permanently banned from Build My Ride.
If your buyer fails to follow through, we’ll immediately work with the next-highest bidder(s) in an attempt to sell your project at an agreed-upon price. In the event that we can’t make a deal, we may offer to re-list your car free of charge.
We view the purchase of the project car as just the beginning of the journey. The listings will remain intact forever and we encourage additional comments on the listing page, offering advice, etc., to the builder. Check favorite listings regularly for updates and watch the project evolve into a road worthy ride!
We recommend you use a shipper of your choice. If you don’t have a preferred shipping method we are here to help. We work independently with a collection of transportation brokers and may assist in the process. If you require shipping assistance please contact us at support@buildmyride.com
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