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I mentioned on Twitter Car Dealers that I had told my rep that I was going to be leaving. It has been something I have been thinking about for a good 12 months and everyone always talks about how they are going to do it and how much they hate AT and they are evil giants. Well no one is doing anything about it. I was waiting for someone to do it first and then I would follow suit...... BUT NO ONE DID IT. So I have done it on my own. You all moan, but still pay your invoice every month don't you? After a VERY long phone conversation and some retention deals, I stuck to my guns and said no. I now have just over 4 weeks left before my adverts come off autotrader. I am going to put a little more time and effort into Facebook. Online classifieds are going to be Motors, RAC cars and maybe ebay and a new website that is currently under construction. I am going to be using the local paper too. I am really excited to see what results are going to come from this and can't wait to see what difference it makes to my profit. I am full prepared if I see a negative impact, if that is the case I will phone my rep and say, 'look, you were right, I am coming back' . But how do I truly know unless I give it a go? If anyone else decides to join me let me know . James

Simon, you need to consider the following. Trade insurance (most policy's cost £1k + Trade plates (unless you are planning on taxing each car) If you are working from home you will need planning permission (it won't be long before your neighbours report you) If you are going to be working from premises you need to work out your in going costs. warranties (whether you will use a 3rd party or be covering the warranties yourself) Prep (repairs/mot's/bodywork) unless you know a couple of tradesman or can put lots of work their way you will most likely be paying retail prices. With lot's of overheads, and a lot of time and money going into a car to bring it to retail standards it's not as cut and dried as just buying it for 500, selling it for 850 and bingo 350 profit, unless your lucky, and don't forget the customers who will try and beat you down with a big stick. 5K is a small budget for this game, not impossible but hard, if you get a lemon you won't have much to fall back on. It might sound like I'm trying to put you off but after considering the above if you feel it's viable for you then I wish you every success, we all have to start somewhere. Kind Regards.

And you have to contend with the new Consumer Rights Act 2015.

hi simon,for once in my life im going to be blunt dont do it keep the boring job a £5000 investment is only going to get you bogged down with scrappers in no time or an expensive big lemon are you thinking of working from home what are you going to do if the first car you buy non of the electric windows dont work like on that car programme last night what would you do like on another thread on here where a body computer has had probably water ingress and failed and its a dealer part plus then having it coded it modern cars you need more than an interest to keep in front of them and not have customers back at your door put the £5000 into an isa mine made me £134 or buy a car you can run and sell at a later date soz

I started with less than that 3 years ago and now have approx 30cars in stock and am selling 30/40+ a month and making a good living. It can be done. No one helped me, no one bailed me out and I have learnt a hell of a lot along the way. I I had another means of income for the first 2 years so never needed to take a penny out. 5k is simply not enough for a full time job.

If you are keen to do it then 5k is ample to get you started but my advice would be do it part time until you get a few sales under your belt. Start with just 1 car, maybe a car you know something about ie what faults to look out for because you previously owned one maybe and try and get a profit out of it. It takes a lot of hard work this game and a very thick skin. Good luck.

The guys have basically cover it on the comments above Simon. There are some major costs incurred with setting up included in the thread above including the fact that at some point you will have to register for VAT. But even if you do manage to keep under that threshold , £500 cars are the cars we move through the auction for a reason! If there was some type of profit in them without customer comeback then we would all be doing it. Sorry, in my humble opinion you either 'do something right or don't do it at all'!

Hi All I also cancelled AT and my last advert was 1 week ago. I advertise on other platforms as mentioned above. Last week sold a Jeep within 2 days through different advertising platform and also a Vauxhall Meriva that I just could not sell through AT. Had Meriva ( Low Mileage 2 owner & service history ) that long it put me of buying anymore of them tried all AT variations their price, Rounding up, Rounding down, Put what I wanted and 12 month Warranty, Guy told me it was 12 month warranty sold it to them Definately worth trying elswhere also you can always do pay per advert with AT. Just look on Lowest AT package @ £600 per month thats = 12 adds on pay as you go. Also how many cars you need to sell per week on AT basic package. My personal opinion is pay as you go is most prob better ROI. others may disagree. With Motors does anyone know if they count cars that are sold in the numbers of cars on landing page. I personally dislike sold cars being on site others may use as reference to sell theirs. But Hey Ho we are all different thankfully. Any other thoughts? Jim

We do a few deliveries and sell cars over the phone. I think also it will play a huge part in the future of the trade. For many people cars are simply white goods. My main concern with them is customers going legal on us and wanting to cancel although as of yet not an issue. I do have very good faith in my cars but sometimes things just go wrong or alternatively customers can be a bit loopy. We had a Mazda MX5 that we delivered from Cheshire to the South coast. Customer was a bit annoyed when they realised it was a 2 seater and not a 4 seater MX5 like the other ones they had looked at in person....

Everyone wants 'EASY' Thats why Amazon is so successful ,'Click - and its delivered' , I'm trying to push with my video's that you can see a full walk-around HD video of the car , up to 60 images , accurate descriptions etc etc , but not sure if people are 'just' ready as yet to click and buy a used car , maybe the younger generation coming up may think a bit different - but Jim I think you're right we have to be ready to grasp it and with slight tweaks to the regulations is what is needed to give us all the confidence to sell without worry And in all reality most of do the job right so no need to worry about cars being sent back ! I have a customer in Torquay who always buys by looking on the website - "I fancy this - how much for mine " and the car gets delivered to his door ! #RavingFans #easy