BHM

Absolutely dead sales wise. A few penniless credit card men on the phone, dickhead emailers & a couple of viewings from tyrekickers - one immediately admitted he was on a skive from work & mine was the 5th he’d looked at! Another example is a phone call on a £4500 truck - “I’ve got about half of the money, I’ll phone you if I manage to get the other half”. What f***ing phone in the first place!?!! Snap. Watchers mean zilch, it’s buyers we all want.

That gibberish must me a mixture of Welsh & English.

Don’t think you’ll be having it off in summer with cabriolets - I find I sell them in the shitty months. Come summer all of the tyrekickers come out and the few who want one think they’re paying summer rates.

Absolutely true. £x only buys £x worth of goods irrespective of your financial standing.

Ebayer; Hi would you consider selling the van for trade price? Also does it have full service history? My response; Hi, you want me to work for nothing AND you’re also fussy about service history. You don’t want much, do you? Thanks & good luck,

There’s no such thing as a free meal.

I wish my margins allowed me the luxury of £65-70 of stationery per unit. If that’s seen as reasonable I’d hate to see some of the other overheads.

I agree with the big-talking R-R Sport driving brigade but the other side to this is that I wouldn’t necessarily believe every persons or companies accounts. I’d guess there’ll be a few who are struggling ‘on paper’ but seem to get by quite adequately.

I’d more or less agree with this except for some people need being rude to (I call it straight talk) to correct their attitude or expectations. 95% of the time a punter turns up to see a particular car & nothing else so they’re half-sold before viewing. Its straight, frank, honest talk for me all of the way. Anyone talking-up their cars or making false promises is asking for comebacks. Clean/valet/touch-up/paint correctly within the expectations of the price/mileage band. Irrespective of profit, or loss, a retail car should be mechanically fit & SAFE. This is what the boards of ‘wipe the car with £150 profit’ boys at the auctions must be failing to achieve. As for opening hours I run on appointments so my phone is answered when it suits me. Phone calls at 9pm are ignored (very few phone the next day) & my phone is definitely off on a Sunday. Those who want to run their business 24 hours supplying the pissed & bored with free entertained are welcome to do so. Finally, learn that a deal is not a deal until your palm has been crossed with silver - all of the big talk, promises, emails & even a handshake count for sweet f.a. until you have their money in your pocket.

My opening line on any poverty model Aygo/107/C1/Polo/Fabia/Corsa that I’ve had the misfortune of having in stock. “Sir, I don’t know if you’re aware but these are a 3 cylinder engine and run as rough as a badger’s arse but they are cheap to run & cheap insurance”. The dog rough engine is of little consequence to the average CHEAP small car buyer who wants CHEAP running costs, CHEAP tax & CHEAP insurance. CHEAP b******s. The only rougher sounding engine than an Aygo is that two cylinder effort in them French two seater micro cars - someone at the block said it was a Kubota mini excavator engine but at the time I had a man excavating my compound with, funnily enough, a Kubota digger & it was a damn sight smoother than this French horror.

Welcome! I trust your experience of the motor trade has made you as jaundiced as the rest of us

I do the same with the £1 pricetag, with “SOLD” written across the top of the adverts but about once a fortnight a thicko asks “How much 4 cash m8”. F***ing mongrels.

Auctions - pay them for delivery. DA - drive them myself as there’s no way I’d hand over money without seeing the merchandise first.

The stench of finance on these cars is overpowering and the average potless cretin who gets out is laughable when they start the big man’s talk about money. These punters are never pound note men, always wanting to use their flexible friend. Hasta la vista, baby.

Arfur, that’s exactly what I was thinking.

Here! Here!

Haha, but what f***ing website is that? He’s so out of date he can’t text - tbh I suspect he can’t read them due to dodgy eyes judging by the work he produces.

It’s a few touch-ups for me, them smart repair guys are a pain in the arse unless you can guarantee them regular work like a main dealer. If you’re selling cars up to £4K you shouldn’t be doing much paintwork cos it’s not worth the effort or cost. In this game there’s a lot of crap talked about regarding bodywork - the average man in the street wouldn’t know a good job from a bad job, they don’t notice if it’s dull, if it’s got run marks, prep marks or a few shades out. Punters can see dents & stonechips, they can’t see dodgy colour matching, rub marks or wavey filler. The few times a year I pay for paintwork I use a guy who’s absolutely fucking useless. He only works half days cos he’s a piss head and his work is full of rub marks, overspray, poor colour match but he’s cheap, is prepared to use a mountain of filler & he’s a nice old boy. I have NEVER had an adverse comment from a punter about his paintwork.

I’d rather give my cars a run out myself than give some time wasting chancer the satisfaction of using up my time, fuel & potential risk to my clean trade insurance. DanW did absolutely the correct thing - I’m certainly not here to supply free entertainment for the ‘Champagne taste, lemonade money’ brigade. Some punters seem to think they have the right to browse & test drive to their heart’s content yet clearly aren’t in a position to deal. They get miffed when they’re turned away.

What’s all this nonsense about refunding because of a phone call or two from an arsehole? You boys don’t make the job any easier for people such as me who stand by my word, my cars & my deals. As for valeting cars, changing oil etc for goodwill!?!! What goodwill will that garner from a greedy bastard hundreds of miles away? If he hasn’t already been so, this customer should be f...ed off at the next opportunity. END OF.

Ebay auctions became a total & utter waste of time about 6 or 7 years ago. Far too many messers, private punters with no money playing about on their computer, plastic traders, Eastern European chancers, the usual Asian games and big talking African exporters who can’t even arrange to take a car from the North East to London, never mind across continents. Tbh it doesn’t surprise me about traders messing auctions with the intention of bidding the seller down - unfortunately some of the characters in this trade are absolute vermin & try anything to chip down a price.

6F2, Type 1 etc. are grades (sizing) of stone, little to do with the material. Seconhand asphalt (tarmac) is called Road Planings. By the sound of it the chippings you describe as being like the purple ones in peoples’ gardens sound like slate chippings by your description - they come in grey (sometimes called black), purple & green. If you’re covering even a modest area to about 40mm you’ll need a surprising amount - a few bags from your local garden centre won’t go far.

Politely sack him off, fuel consumption is his problem. If he starts whining then sack him off impolitely. As for Jocks whinging unfortunately it’s become a national pastime for them. I think they see sniping at anyone south of the border as a sport, I guess it’s the Nicola Sturgeon Effect. They used to be great but something has definitely changed in their attitude based on my experiences with them I’d reconstruct Hadrian’s Wall - out of the last five, 1 was great, 2 were arseholes who bought but I’d never want to see again & the other 2 I sent packing within a few minutes of them arriving. Funnily enough my worst ever customer was a Jock taxi driver from Edinburgh who bought a petrol Octavia estate - the most horrible greedy b****d I’ve ever met who expected the earth & was a cheeky twat. I only persevered with him cos I’d had the car for 6 months, although I did walk away at one point cos I nearly smacked him, his Mrs sort of apologised & said “he’s always like this”. F***ing horrible greedy c*** that still boils my piss whenever I think about him.

Tbh I’m not concerned about units moved - it’s profit that does it for me. I’d turn over more by slashing prices but my attitude’s the same as yours.

A few years ago I’d of agreed but unfortunately nowadays I’m nearer the 2 month, rather than 1 month mark. Unfortunately 100% turnover p.m. nowadays is just a pipe dream for me. Occassionally something flies off the shelf but cars sitting for a few weeks is the norm and we all (I assume) collect a few ‘sticky’ ones along the way - whenever one goes I always realise that I’ve yet another sticky one coming up behind it.