Vehicle buckets
TL;DR: A salvage Lexus and a salvage Toyota don’t lose value the same way. Buckets are how AuctionMate handles that — five depreciation classes that adjust title-brand discounts based on the vehicle’s parts ecosystem and resale demographic.
The five buckets
| Bucket | Vibe | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| A | Work / utility — high parts availability, broad mechanic familiarity, depreciation curve close to flat | Ford F-150, Ram 1500, Toyota Tacoma, work vans, Rivian R1T |
| B | Mainstream — the default for most cars on the road | Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Nissan Altima, Hyundai Sonata |
| B+ | Accessible luxury — premium brand, mainstream parts ecosystem | Lexus RX, Acura MDX, Audi Q5, mainstream Mercedes |
| C | European luxury — premium parts cost, narrower mechanic pool | BMW 7-Series, Mercedes S-Class, Audi A8 |
| D | Exotic — collector market, parts scarcity drives extreme depreciation when titles are branded | Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, McLaren |
If a make/model isn’t recognized, the math defaults to B (mainstream).
Why buckets exist
When you apply one flat discount to every salvage title — say, "every salvage car loses 45% of clean retail" — you understate the cost of repairing a C-bucket BMW (where every replacement headlight is $1,400) and overstate the cost of repairing an A-bucket F-150 (where the entire bumper assembly is $200 from a wrecking yard).
The result of a flat discount:
- Underbids on A-bucket trucks (you walk away from money on the table)
- Overbids on C-bucket luxury (you discover the recon math after you’ve already paid)
Buckets fix this by adjusting the title-brand discount per class. A salvage A-bucket truck loses less of its value than a salvage C-bucket sedan — which matches what actually happens when you put them through a rebuild and resell them.
Where buckets affect the math
Buckets adjust the title-brand discount when the title is anything other than Clean. They affect:
- Adjusted retail — what the car can realistically resell for
- The verdict — Strong Margin / Thin Margin / Below Cost / Parts Only depend on margin, which depends on adjusted retail
- The margin — C-bucket and D-bucket cars reach a thin margin sooner because their reconditioning is more expensive
Buckets do not affect:
- The verdict math for Clean-title cars (no title discount applied)
- Your buyer fee (set by the auction’s tier table)
- Shipping (set by zone)
Overrides
For most cars, the auto-detected bucket is what you want. You can override the bucket per lot when you know the car better than the default — a 25-year-old Nissan Skyline GT-R isn’t a B-bucket Sentra; its parts demographics are closer to D-bucket exotic.
Updates
The bucket discounts are reviewed as we learn more. Public defaults change at most once per quarter and are announced on this page.
Related
- How the verdict works — what the bucket adjustment feeds into
- Glossary — every term used here, defined