trade vet

7.5% flat on a prime,bit expensive,the punter could settle it off early with one of those Sainsbury’s 3% deals and you get zero. Our Santander guy is good,probably just obeying orders,they prefer big accounts.My old pitch have been using them a long time.

Hi Grant £600 commission on a £6k balance,what rate was that ? I have previously given loads of business to B/Horse,Close,Santander,so 2 weeks ago when we got our licence for the new pitch,I spoke to Santander because I like the rep.I told him there would not be much maybe £200k at most as it is a small 25 car pitch.He just said sorry you are too small,just use a broker.I am presently wading through Evolution brokers very cleverly worded T and C’s.So checking them out,I was interested to see they are also retail dealers.They actually trade as Mike Brewer Motors ,could that be a conflict of interest ?

The bottom line is that prime lenders will want regular volume business and probably to fund you aswell..I am told that it is no longer viable for them to service small dealers.Just get commission from your broker who I doubt will have made a fortune from you this year unless you are doing north of 500k.The good’ chucky commission ‘ years are long gone.

Love Farther Ted,I doubt whether the PC brigade would allow it to be produced today. Anyone a fan of Seinfeld and Curb Your Inthusiasm

Bought 2 out of UKCG trade section today.He who dares etc. 59 XC70 Volvo D5 big miles,nav,leather.good history,44+tip and a cheapie 56 C2 Citroen,30k,one owner,950+tip.( how much !,I can hear)....both of them are OK and ready to go,how lucky was that !

That’s great Mike.....I do like quality cheapies,let us know your latest star buys.We took a mint one owner 50k Xreg Golf In last week.The punter insisted on getting a new test on it before he put it in ( we told him not to bother),it went straight through !

Hi Stocked Up I can recall Comerfords adverts aswell.I am up the road in Newcastle.So is Big Mike on here your father . I don’t know about nice,it is a manual diesel.Typical up north vehicle.Where we are,manual Mercs are popular !

I seem to remember back in AT mag days up here a BIg Mike’s,might have been Hartlepool....I do like bangers by the way,I now have an 06 Rav to run around in,it was a grand plus the cost of a new ticket....

No he should not !

Hi Mike and welcome 40 years in the job it says.You must have some tales.( nearly as many as me).You couldn’t have been doing bangers for 40 years,I will ask before someone else does.......what went wrong ?

For quite a few years we have or had a guy( he could be due again ) who buys the same 100k ex lease medium size car as his swapper.He is from a far distance away from us ( according to him).This guy is straight forward to deal with and his swappers are as sound and clean as when they were purchased.The interesting thing is, the swapper has done about another 200k in 2 to 3 years ?

Hi Zak ...He used to be at Blackbushe on a Friday from memory,but I have not been for a good while.Never spoke to him but he seemed to be a popular guy,go and have a word with him.( He does wear a trilby hat)

Proper car dealers don’t like cars.We like buying them ( especially with juice in them) and selling them ( especially the ones that don’t come back ) and nowadays we like making an annual net profit,which sadly very few appear to do.

You are lucky Mark,with my in laws,I would be expected to buy back the Disco and do the 1 series for free.!

When you think about it,supplying fake stamped up service books may not be a prosecutable offence.I bought a BCA WBAC FSH Car last year.Our guys pointed out that although the mileage appeared genuine,the dealer stamps were not because the dealer closed down 20 years ago !

Christmas,‘ minority religious festival’....can you imagine a Brexiteer politician saying that.There would be a media outcry about racism.I could imagine Trump saying that in an election campaign when comparing London and put on millions of votes.

I do find it funny,we have all been there.With friends and family or ‘charity deals’ ( my wife’s description) you cannot win,even if you have given them a free car.

Oh dear....but what will the in laws be saying......’doesn’t know what he is doing’....and ..’they should have gone to a proper garage’.......You must be feeling like Theresa May.

Great post AA....it was definateley like that.....All the main dealer sales managers were on the ‘iron lung’.

We had an interesting haggler in this morning.We have a mint old swapper up for £1500.This punter ( not of these shores) has a scrap swapper and we offer £200 to be polite.A while later he offers us £100 plus his scrap.Our guy says no thank you and you may be better off going elsewhere.Now I suppose you have to make allowances for cultural differences but I did get a annoyed when 15 minutes later he comes back in and then offers £1000 plus his scrap.We did not explain that we considered his new offer as an insult as he would not have understood.We thought we had got rid of him then 30 mins later a phone caller asks ‘ what is best price’.....I left at that point.

Well played...and good luck.

£800 for a half page in Midlands AT mag ? That was a bit salty !

Come back/where are they now. Whatever happened to Betginge,I think he was a sort of angry version of BHM......good value. What about Green Giant,he gave me some stick,came over as the dealer principle of Jack Barclay but I suspected he was an F and I man at a Skoda dealership. Rt Honorable Jim Reid,he ‘spit the dummy’with me,I think he went on to better things,probably now advising Elon Musk

One of my favourites was one from Tradex describing a pitch nearbye keeping stock for years and some Clio which had been there so long it was used as a marker post.

Not many traders bought a guide back then,you just used to ‘pick them up ‘from main dealers.£5000 got you 10 descent cars to retail.However a 20 car open pitch could cost £20k (key money) and you paid in ‘readies’.I do remember the old guys then ( a bit like me now) complaining that the trade was shot,you had to pay VAT and the authorities were clamping down on clocking da da da.