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The customer always wants the 'cheapest', cheapest isn't always cheapest. A guy near us sells CAT C's etc and people compare prices with us, as much as we explain the quality of our product and service I'm supprised at how many people still say I can save by buying the other car'. They then probably go on to complain as the 'sold as seen car that was in an accident 6 months ago doesn't drive properly and they want their money back, hence cheapest isn't always cheapest. Also ive experienced customers say they don't want a warranty as they have a 'mate' in the trade, just an excuse to say they don't need a warranty, the best bit is they might come back a year or so later with a problem and they have the cheek to say they wasn't offered a warranty!! Rant over! Problem is cowboy traders.

My quick feedback doesn't work on mobile, well its not responsive or has a mobile website. Hopefully someone has forgotten to turn on the mobile redirect I'd suggest the phone number on the car details page is far too hidden and small. On my experience this should be big and bold similar to "make an enquiry". Not sure why your phone number is hidden away at the top right, seems a little strange. From an SEO point of view it would have helped having a news section. Actually i found this in the end, but is strangely hidden under a sub menu in contact us. You have no page titles on your seo landing pages such as http://www.autoecosse.com/subaru and the H1 is Welcome to Autoecosse Subaru. You might be better off having a better search term such as "used subarus for sale in TOWN".

There is a place for everyone in the motor trade, however any used car selling from a dealer(of any description) for £100-£1000 is scrap! Yes , I agree that most of these cars will come from dealers part exchanges via the auctions houses and they do help generate a few more coppers for the main dealers, however unless the buyer is a qualified mechanic they should not buy any car at this price! The difference between the £100 scrap car and the £1000 car sitting at the road side for sale is the profit margin that the 'dealer' has , less of course the margin VAT, did I say VAT????? Yes, the buying public have to take responsibility, would you buy a boxed unlocked iPhone 5 from a guy you don't know in the pub for £100? If the answer is yes, you understand that you have to deal with the consequences if the the iPhone 5 wasn't actually his mothers unwanted birthday present! We pride ourselves in doing our job right! But due to the fact that a used car , is exactly that ...a 'used' car and has worn mechanical items on it, we also have our share of problems after the sale, however it's NOT about what happens to the car that matters, it's how we deal with what happens that really matters!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24777273 This article on the BBC website gives the example of the girl who buys a Micra for £1000 only for the clutch to fail within a few weeks and then to find out later that's been an insurance write off!! However she was given a replacement car but the brakes failed on that when her mum was driving it home! Now I'm not condoning the actions of this dealer (if in fact it was a licensed dealer, which I doubt) but I'm sorry it's maybe just me, but what quality of car can you actually buy on the market for £1000? Customers must realise this! What do they expect to get for £1000? Some services &MOT's cost more than a £1000 so how do you expect to buy a reliable car for this type of money? If you have only afford to spend £1000 on a car my advice would be, keep your money and don't buy a car or if you have to have one, expect it to let you down, expect it to cost you money to run, expect it break down when you are least expecting, that is the life of the £1000 car!

Perhaps I'm too suspicous, I suppose it could just be a coincidence that some road side trader has parked his Citroen with a for sale sign in it, in the lay-by directly opposite the Citroen Main Dealer :-)

I give up, if your moral compass isnt working then i cant point you in the right direction. even if they didnt take business off me, i still wouldnt want a line of someone elses cars parked out side my pitch that i was paying a fortune in rent and rates and they were paying nothing for exactly the same real estate. And if you think these people are just trying to start a business youre kidding yourself, the person i saw the other day had a loop with at least 50 car keys on it, he had a business and it was a big one with no premises, no overheads, no come backs and probably no taxes or vat. If someone operates a business where the only point of contact is a pay as you go phone and a spot on the A6 where the car used to be parked, to my mind there can only be one reason

The M3 Touring. BMW seem to have made a few as one off internal projects but none have ever made production, which is a huge shame given how well the C63 and RS4 sell, and I bet the BMW would be a better drivers car than either.

Funny how a customer who's knows the in's and out's of the car they are trying to buy knows so little about their own part ex..."how many onwers???............eeerrmmmm, 2 before me I think" (HPI says 5)....service history?? ............yes..it's been serviced (by the first 2 or the 6 owners)............."The airbag light is on"........................"Yes, it does that now and again, hasn't for a while, thought my garage had sorted it" ........MOT? ....."Well into next year, will have to check!!!" (2 weeks left). They only advantage is with every lie their p/ex value falls more and more.

The engine light is so common and when the handbook is referred to usually says DO NOT DRIVE which would sound quite scary to someone who doesn't understand. Customers lie about their part exes all the time thinking we won't check them, happy to sell us their 'scrappers' for retail money!

Would a roadside trader take customer off a dealer with a site? I guess it depends on your stock profile, if your selling cars £5000+ your customer isn't going to pay to much attention to a line of cars priced at £100-£1500. Also where do these roadside traders get there stock, I guess many are part exchange cars from other dealers, either purchased direct of via auction. We may not like them but without them we would have a lot of money tied up in p/x stock that we don't want to retail. We all know the trading standards recieve lots of complaints about used cars, would be interesting to see a breakdown of these in relation to price, miles and type of dealer. Roadside trading could be a first step to building a business and I think it's unfair to class them all as crooks. Lets not forget that Main Dealers have their fair share of problems dealing with complaints, the internet is full of stories on customer getting fobbed off by MD's then getting a result when the brands customer services get invloved. Also the paying customer has to take a degree of responsiblity, if its cheap, its cheap for a reason.

Kido, you have missed the point, im not having a pop at the traders who are confident enough in their cars that they are prepared to sell them from home, where they could be found at any time of the day or night by disgruntled punters, or visited by trading standards should there be a dispute. I'm talking about the pond life who park their cars on a public road near a reputable garage and try to hijack their customers with their no overheads, shiny shit mobiles, and their only means of contact is a pay as you go mobile thats sim card which will be in the bin as soon as Joe Gullible hands over his cash. I am also willing to bet that most of these road side private/traders who do go on to open their own garages are the ones who will also go on to star in tv programs too, like watchdog and rogue traders

I think these video overviews of what has been done during a service or what needs to be rectified are a great idea. They open up the professionalism of dealership's engineers and show customers there's nothing to hide. As a consumer I would believe a dealer a lot more of I was shown the wear of my brake pads before they were replaced or the wear of my tyres. I think it's a brilliant idea and one that needs to be rolled out across the industry to improve transparency. In the end, customers who trust you are customers who are likely to return, surely?

It does come across as a little coincidental...

i this to protect their stock lines too?