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All aboard the Be Back Bus Wasn't a Honda was it?

You should have taxed it on DD then just cancel the DD online in you bank account settings soon as you stop using the car, works a charm !

Just spotted this poll by AM What is your dealership's average used car days in stock before retail or decide to trade? 1 to 14 days = 15.9%15 to 30 days = 4.5%31 to 45 days = 13.6%46 to 60 days = 29.5%61 to 75 days = 15.9%76 to 90 days = 6.8%90+ days = 13.6% Any Thoughts ?

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.

What about the I'll let you know either way brigade?

I had a woman yesterday go home and think about it. She rang back 2 hours later and paid a deposit over the phone. Keep the faith...

looking at the answers -I Think a lot have misread the question ..??

"No money back no Guarantee" Just write this on your receipts and all will be fine

Thoroughly agree. I don't know why it works like this but it really seems to. Unless in then busy times we totally ignore/dismiss the idiots and thus don't really give them much thought beyond yet, yet in the quiet times they are all we have so we get involved ultimately leading to disappointment. Had a decent day yesterday, Astra Coupe Sxi in the morning and V50 Volvo in the afternoon. The second deal almost hit a snag, a typical Volvo 'expert' at first reckons he's had them for years, telling me which engines go in which model etc. Decided he loved it despite wondering why it had a 5 speed box not 6, he paid deposit after test drive and I valued his p/ex etc, he was about to leave and said 'don't forget to drop me some diesel in it' 'it's the petrol model' I said, as he and his wife went rather red and mumbled a few expletives. Anyway he insisted he still 'liked it' and I agreed to give him 24 hours to make his mind up - I woke up to a really nice email insisting they wish to proceed and thanking us for our sociability, thank god!!

Also don't put the P/X in trade. The DVLA need to think your customer owns both cars. Explain that the customer will receive 2 V5's in the post (show them what the V5 is to be sure) and they need to send the one for the Renault back to yourself. Once you receive this you can put the Renault into trade.

Whoopee just sold one, first for 10 days lets hope things are on the up!

Dunno, but the plane is going through next week as a Grade 3

The most Ill knock off is £200 to get a sale and keep up the turnover some people will ask for more but I just tell them to leave it there then! They forget I'm selling a car to make a living not like a private seller who would knock hundreds off!

1. Ebay 2. AA Cars 3. local paper (works well for the old boys) 4. Own website 5. RAC Dont do A.T and binned Motors.

Its always tough call ... but as Max says some people just like to feel as if they've had a deal .. Last week customer travels from North Wales nearly 3 hours asked me over the phone what was BEST - NO PX Deal , explained this was a unique car and its priced right at £10500 - so sorry but that is the deal , says OK comes over test drive , couldn't fault the car ,says I want it but I want a deal !! I reconfirmed our conversation that I had not misled him in any way , so what should I do a deal ... eventually agreed to fill the tank full of fuel £50 - happy bunny deal done BUT he felt better as he'd got a deal !

I'd say 50/50 mate. The way I approach it is tell them that with the advent of the internet and autotrader national search then they can price check every Fiat Panda/Renault Scenic/Mazda 3 in the country, so we cannot afford to be expensive and thus we price as competitively as we possibly can from the offset. Obviously this means there then is no room for discount here like they may be at other garages who price over the top. You can also say, if they are nice, that they must agree because if we were expensive you wouldn't be here would you? They'll soon get it.