Leaderboard

I too am sad to hear that Wheelerdealer1 is leaving the Trade - he cannot compete with the fly-by-night home traders that are sucking the lifeblood out of the industry. His story here It is, indeed, a sorry situation when any old bandit can pretend to be a Motor Dealer, buy a snotter out of the auction, stick a few hundred sovs over the bonnet and 'retail' it, without any consideration as to Warranty, VAT etc And yet they get away with it because there is no Official Registry of Bona Fide Motor Traders. No Licensed Motor Retailers and Repairers. No Society of Proper Blokes Selling Proper Cars. You get the drift. Am I in favour of having Official Licensed Traders? Well, I'm not so sure. For one it would be difficult to police, as there are so many levels within our business from Super Duper Franchised Megastores to the One Man Band and who would do the policing? As long as all Traders do the job properly, we should all be able to co-exist and earn a living. There will always be the chancers who see it as an easy way to make a few quid, but this has always been the case. So I'm not sure that having Licensed Traders would change anything. We can do a bit about it by making it difficult for them to get cars, although I don't expect any help from the Auction Houses on that score. I had one of these 'Home Traders' pop in this week (like most weeks, tbh) seeing if there were any 'choppers' he could buy to sell on. I asked for his VAT No. He didn't seem to have one. We had a brief chat about the moral and legal responsibilities of running a business these days and then he left. That was 10 minutes of my life I'm not going to get back, but it won't stop him. You see, I don't think the problem lies with us. It's the punters. As Wheelerdealer1 says, there are vast numbers of people who don't care about the quality, they just want it cheap. They have the VoucherCode mentality and for them profit is a 4 letter word (especially if they spell it prft). They're the ones you dread when their first question is "what's your best price?" before they've even seen the car. They don't care that you've prepped it properly, because you don't want them to die screaming in a ball of flame on the way home. They don't care that the Warranty you give will actually cover the parts it says it will, for longer than an Australian innings. They certainly couldn't give a monkey's willy about your overheads. They want your car, for the same price as the deathtrap they saw down the road, or they're going to buy that one. And they do. Maybe we need 2 separate categories of businesses and customers. The properly-run, legitimate ones can only deal with reasonable, sensible people and the greedy, scuzzy numpties can all just bugger off together.

I remember a few years ago one of these consumer protection TV shows showing some can of a poor punter who had been fleeced by a fly by night. The car in question was a Mondeo Ghia TDCi Estate with (cough cough) about 70k on the clock. A book car if ever there was one. Poor Johnny Punter then got his violin out and described how what he though was a bargain in terms of price from a 'repuatable' dealer had indeed turned out to be a lemon. Dominic or whoever it was then jumped in to the rescue to save the day and all was well in the world for Johnny Punter. It was as this point that of an idea for a new TV programme for people like Johnny Punter and the best price brigade simply titled ' You bought it, tough shit!'. I'm convinced, that hosted by GreenGiant, this would be a winner.

'small independent dealers' Need some feedback from small independent dealers out there ! can you help ? Please send me an email with your contact details /weblink/Tel no etc. Thanks ,Appreciated . umesh@autochange.co.uk umesh

Hilarious! Hours of fun to be had with this...

Sorry didn't do an update. ..... So the plot thickens I offered to pay for her train ticket so that we could carry out the transaction on my premises. She took me up on my offer. She didn't like trains so she self funded a plane to collect her convertible BMW priced at £10,200 . She transferred all the money with faster payments when she was with me. It came through instantly and still remains there. And I waved her goodbye as she drove off. Happy ending

RandomJord there is a 'massive difference' in what you do .. you may be a a home trader with a unit ..but you have a 'proper business' unlike the ones we're all talking about who don't have a 'legit' car sales business but simply a 'extra income' , not forgetting they don't pay vat probably plus all the rent/rates and everything else associated with a proper business ! you have a business model that suits you , nothing wrong with that !

Hi Craig Really simple, Road tax the Merc first either at the PO or online, but do not send away the V5 , instead, send the orginal receipt for road taxing along with the completed V317 and V5c's to DVLA, that way both cars are taxed! DVLA will then recognise that it is the new keeper that has road taxed the car and transfer this road tax to the private plate on the MERC, SIMPLES :-)

Like Chris I used to wash cars for a little local Ford dealer at weekends, then started covering weekends then holidays etc and just before I was due to go off to Uni they offered me a full time job - I wasn't that interested with the £50 a week basic and £15 per car sold but they really sold it to me with a company car and as much petrol as I could use!!