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you can't get prime finance on a 13 year old car. If I take a 13 year old car in px and someone wants to get strapped up to it, who am I to deny them. EPV, every car is a potential boomerang, its all part of the job. You need to win more than you lose. I have no more fear selling a 13 year old, diesel X5 than I do selling a 5 year disco. Actually, scrap that, I'm more fearful selling the 5 year old Land Rover/.

Jay, youre an newbie asking for advice. I think you are correct, you do need to take it on the chin, and a bit of your time will be wasted. But if you want to get more advice, dont mock the professionalism of the traders on here.

I used to have all these. Costs, costs, costs, you name it it was all there. Every penny. Horrible read. Then I deleted them all. Now I only have my stock book in Excel and I have to say: Ignorance is a bliss. I genuinely don't know what I am earning per month or year or per "unit sold". I know it may not be an obvious decision from a management point of view but my every year is better than the last. Just don't ask me exactly how much better.

I mean.... It takes fucking 10 minutes to do a finance application. We get paid a premium for selling cars over a private seller. This is one of the reasons. I genuinely struggle with so many questions people post on here. What's next.... charging £50 for customers viewing cars? Are you seriously a car dealer Jay?

Thanks for the advert mrs maybe Thanks for all the replies i will be getting it retail ready it has opened my eyes to how much mistakes i am making thanks

Point taken Noacross ( although I am a seasoned or hard boiled pro,I am not sure about being wise) however although the company I founded goes on without me,they still do plenty of repeat business.When I call in I often meet the regulars.Maybe its a northern thing,mind we have been going for many years.....I am not a G&T guy ( wife is) I drink like a budgie......I am presently watching the cricket and following you guys.....thank you.

You are right Noacross,I am anti sub prime.They don’t become repeat punters and they usually have non retailable swappers.The first and final straw for me was an outfit called Welcome Finance who wanted our business which was long ago.Their rep met the punter at the handover and took ages signing up with all the refs and ID.The punter then drives off and the rep gave us a cheque for balance .....all very good.Next morning the car is parked at the door with the keys and docs in the letterbox and a note saying ‘ I don’t want it etc’.So I phone Welcome and tell them to forget it and that I will refund them immediately.They said it’s OK,we will just stop the cheque ! ( as if it was normal).After that any chucky duffers had to promptly arrange their own finance if they wanted to buy from us. I am sure First Response are OK,but I was always interested in prime finance,good rates and terms,good retailable swappers and repeat business.....maybe I was wrong.

I get this, "rat fucked" would be the modern street slang? Sadly, many punters are as likely to service/repair a car as they are their TV? Let'sbe honest, who do you know that is not connected to the motor trade that actually goes into a motor factors for any reason other than to buy stickers or speakers?

I'm kind of with Nick on this one, I don't really have a desire to know exactly how much I made per car, it will be somewhere between x and y. I like to know bottom line over a period of a few months, this business isn't linear. That said I do keep a close eye on costs and how I can reduce them.

I’m with a few of the other guys. It’s all part of the service I’m afraid. Instead of charging customers why not change Finance company and save time in doing the application ... motonovo has the option to send a application to customers inbox.. you do very little that way

Wherever possible take a deposit subject to finance being obtainable and going ahead, if we can't refund deposit. It is annoying I get loads of finance apps and the percentage that complete and buy a car is far lower than total number of online applications received and I am led to believe I write a pretty good amount of finance business monthly. There are other brokers out there that do a bit more of the legwork and chasing up for you. One of the ones that annoys me is when you do a deal with CF247 / Zuto and they ring up asking you to invoice and send v5 etc, you do all that and then the customer just decides not to go ahead. That is a real waste of time.

All part of the job, if they fail that's life move on - Totally pointless charging then refund if they fail.

Your price is £1525 OVNO. Get rid of the OVNO. Don't give punters too much hope. Drop the price to £1500 exactly to appear in more searches or to £1490 so you beat hundreds of cars at the £1495 price point. Stay a bit back from the car when you photograph it On your ad you have a mileage of 52414, the dash shows 52466. Keep the figures exactly the same or round the mileage to 50K to appear in much more searches. Put a bit more text in your ad, tell them about your convenient location or list more of the options of the car. It's a heatwave and I can't see the words AIR CONDITIONING anywhere. 8 stamp service history, take a photo and show it. EVERY LITTLE MINOR DETAIL MAKES A DIFFERENCE in car sales online and means people will simply go buy somewhere else if you don't have an eye for detail.

Nice to hear from you Screenman Just as the country was pulling up its trousers following the crash and building confidence.. Brexit = years of instability, no confidence, uncertanty. The worst possibly outcome for business.

Yep. Last week I had two punters who BOTH had engine failures, both diesel CRVs - I’ve never heard it before but two punters in two days. One thing connected these two punters - both had owned their car for about 4 years and both NEVER serviced their car. One was a horrible greedy c*** who I couldn’t do business with but the other (nice fella), as I handed over the FSH pointing out the next service was due in 8000miles or 9months he said “I don’t get cars serviced cos they don’t need it with modern oils”!!! This from a fella who’s old car is on eBay with a scrap engine & has just had to get a loan to finance his £4000 purchase from me. Punters are oblivious to the fact engine actually use oil.