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As I have been ranting on Social Media, Green Giant has asked me to vent my fury on Car Dealer Forum as one of his guests, like a guest blogger I guess (wow that's a lot of guests and guesses) As it is still holiday time I thought I would have a holiday RANT, read on......... In June , Gail and I jetted off to Spain for some sunshine as Scotland has experience one of the wettest and coldest summers of all time. I could tell you about the 40 degree heat , the cloudless skies or almost perfect villa we stayed in however the biggest bugbear is this :- As part of ordering the flights through Jet2 they offered the cheapest deal on car hire also, so we ordered a fantastic deal on a VW Golf Petrol or equivalent, when we reached Alicante Airport in scorching heat we were forced to wait in a queue the size you would expect to see at Wimbledon (actually maybe there were people camping in the queue), one hour and 30 mins later we reached the front stupidly thinking the hold up would be the fact that they had recently abolished the paper part of the driving licence and you had to gain a code from DVLA (which we had done , see smart cookies) BUT NO, the queue was due to the hard-sell staff, upselling insurance cover and upgrades on the cars that had already been booked ( yet we try and make a few quid from a GAP policy and have to jump through hoops). So we get to the front of the queue, after 3 hours on the plane and another 1 hour coming through security and passport etc and did I mention the 90 minute queue? We had all our paperwork ready , driving licence and went for the straight to the point "we don't want any upgrades" package, so now looking forward to a lovely Tsi Golf or similar , the guy says we don't have any petrol Golfs on books, so would a diesel one, do , "of course" thinking I could save a bit of cost on fuel with better MPG, " that will be 50 euros extra for the week" and £140 EURO for fuel as it comes with full tank of fuel, EH NO! You will have to find an equivalent petrol, I said, he mumped and grumped and back he came after 5 mins holding the keys to a Seat Leon, so I said is that the same price as the petrol Golf, YES he replied, RESULT I thought, but NO, another way of milking money.... the LEON has a larger fuel tank than a GOLF, no he obviously didn't know that I'm a car buff! BULL!!!!!!! the car has the same 50ltr tank in both cars,8 EUROS MORE, but he wouldn't budge and the fact that I was going to get back a percentage of the fuel back anyway as we only planned small trips using the car I left it at the agreed price! Now I won't bore you with the 'the car is brand new ,has been fully checked and there are no marks on the car' remark from him only to find a car with 20+ kms on the car obviously through the normal wars of Spanish driving and high kerbs, I went to reception and got them to change the damage marks on the car paperwork, all 5 of them and note that it had no parcel shelf (helps when you are experienced at checking in cars at the garage!) So drama over, the car did really well, actually I really enjoyed the poke of the power and the comfort of this small car, lovely wee engine with a turn of power and frugal, so much in fact that we returned the car with over half a tank of fuel, which I wasn't caring about because the reception guys said ' return it with any amount of fuel , we credit you for what you have not used minus a fuelling charge , which was best for us because I'm a nightmare trying to find a petrol station near the airport, so bingo! We have now been back from holiday for more than 6 weeks and still no sign of the credit for the fuel even though we have sent Jet2 numerous emails with a picture of the fuel gauge showing the exact miles and fuel left in the car when we dropped it back. So being a Social Media monster I took to twitter last week with my rant, they did the normal thing take you offline with a DM say everything is ok and they are looking into it, which is the same message now 8 days in a row! So the point of this story is this! DON'T EVER BOOK A RENTAL CAR THROUGH JET2 , THEY RIP YOU OFF! AMEN!

The proposed change to 4 year MOT's is much more important for many in the aftersales side. Just look at this year , it's predicted that 2.4M NEW cars will be registered in the UK this year, fast forward 3 years, thats 2.4M MOT's that won't be carried out, so who is missing out? Yet again its the Motortrade, not only this but there is an issue with not checking the cars with a figure of 23% of all cars either fail or advised on their 1ST MOT of low or dangerous tyres! So if customers are not checking their car because they have to and with service intervals now longer than they ever have been, who is going to be responsible for all the lives that will be lost due to blow outs on the motorway? If you've also put a Hyundai through it's first MOT , how many have required road springs because they are broken? A backwards step in my mind, also a step closer to 4-2-2 MOT's which will be a disaster! Jim

We often show cars as DUE IN on our website as soon as they are purchased, this certainly increases interest and often helps secure a viewing very soon after it arrives, if done properly it works a treat, but watch out for your older stock that may well bite you on your bum with costs that you just didn't see when appraising it, but it is GREAT for stock turn and even better for cash-flow! On a side issue we always show our cars as sold on our site until they are collected, as this also gains confidence with customers to show that others are buying from us. great post, Jim

Everybody wants it cheap. Get a plumber in and it's "how much for cash".

Hmmmm