Leaderboard

Best practice on something that needs to go to body shop anyway. A few years back we paid for one of our driver to go on a smart repair and dent course. I remember a Corsa he tried doing a PDR on the wing of. By the end of the day he had ending up painting the wing and door. I still don’t know why! Reminded me of this

Be very careful charging/jump starting modern cars. Better to start them regularly and give them a run when the roads are clean

Exactly,but AD has this skill which is rare at our end of the market to get punters to commit with a deposit before viewing.

We all get ‘stickers’.If you think they are no longer good value,don’t be frightened to chop them brutally.You often then shift them quickly and get a good retail swapper to help you out.The big operators need regimental stock turn policies because ‘the wallys’ they employ are not allowed to make decisions like ‘knock a grand off that one’ etc.

Advert live to deposit paid. But I’ve stopped counting years ago. I used to be a busy fool trying to turn over cars really quickly but eventually understood that one car sold for £1500 gross is much better than two for £750 because of all the little added costs of multiple sales. Also having cheap stocking facility has reduced the pressure to have to be paid quickly so I can buy new stock.

I thought it was just me not taking deposits. Well, I don’t take them from punters who aren’t here, I just tell them to phone when they set off because everything’s for sale until it’s sold - some punters can’t believe I’m not desperate to take a deposit. If a person’s here & want it reserving for a day or two then I do take a deposit. I’ve got to say though, I’m horrified by the 7 day money back guarantee. If you haven’t had one or two already you’ll soon get them with today’s punters.

We deal with main dealers quite a lot for new cars plus we buy quite a few late used and I am sure they are brainwashed the same way outside of the dedicated fleet departments. I find there are 3 types: - Arrogant, you are trade, we don’t have to deal with trade types, we are a main dealer don’t you know! - No idea how to deal with trade. No I don’t want a video, I don’t want to make an appointment to view, I don’t need a PCP quote. - slightly old school, talk you round the car, have a slight deal, job done in 10 minutes.

I've never in my life been to a main dealer to buy a brand new car and I've been tempted to go once or twice, just to experience it... I simply can't bring myself to waste some poor salesman's time like this though so I'll wait a few years until I finally decide to splash £40K on a new diesel Merc just before they stop taking orders for them. And even then I think I will be one of the easiest customers they'll get to deal with... EDIT BUTTON IS BACK!!!!