Tony F

I suppose you will never know exactly how many customers have not phoned you because the car they are interested in shows up as having outstanding finance. But if you think that this may contribute to the lack of enquiries, then simply unsubscribe from Autotraders hpi service. The hpi reports will still appear to customers, but minus the finance part. If its still quiet after you have removed the package, then the only advice is pretty much all of the above...see David Horgans post. It can be very easy to fall into a rut, and the hardest thing can be self motivation and self criticism. Hope it picks up for you.

You can just phone dvla and they will tell you over the phone if the cars in trade. They will also tell you if the car can be taxed at a post office with a V62. I have done this many times, just make sure the customer has paid in full for the car before taxing and registering to them at the post office. We always download and partially fill in a v62, which we keep together with the history etc in the car folder for a customer to view. The only time this does not work is with ex-crown cars, with or without v5's.

You can backdate it no problem. Do it online. The fact its been taxed for that period means it wont trigger any untaxed fines your way.

^^ not if dvla have already been informed that the car is in trade. Why cant you just lose the plate when you sell it. Ask dvla for an age related plate at the same time as registering it to the new keeper?

^^^Same advice from us as David above. ^^^They are a nice bunch of people there but don't waste your money and dont be sucked in by the 'AA dealer promise'. It just doesn't work! Tried them twice now and we cancelled 2nd time round in Jan after almost 3 years. The only reason we kept with them was that they hosted our website for free instead of autotrader, which subsidised the overall package cost. Also they insisted on a 3 month cancellation period at the end, which was never previously mentioned and which ensured we will never use them again unless its for free.

We are just recovery whores and regularly switch between AA and Rac depending on whos giving us a deal. However when I called out the Rac last year with a failed fuel pump on an Audi TT, they would not recover me until I had taxed the car first. Thought it worth mentioning.

A CF247 customer on 'a business trip'? not exactly the type of customer profile that springs to mind when dealing with CF247. maybe the business trip involved scoring a bit of gear down the local estate and he got mugged for his phone. Anyway hope that deal comes through for you

^^Pretty much same for us. Busy March and busy 1st week of April. But this week has completely and utterly died. All we have had is a few fake emails from CG, and strangely, 2 or 3 no show appointments, which rarely ever happens to us. Hope it picks up, but Easter has never been a busy period for me, and May has always been quieter than April over the years for some reason. Also have started to destock non ulez compliant diesels now. Really starting to feel the negativity towards them, which is a shame as half the local grubs we deal with don't even know where London is, let alone drive there.

Technically a vendor cannot use and hide behind the 'sold as seen' disclaimer as a way of not disclosing a known fault. Its mirepresentation. If the car has been entered by the trade/lease co then it would have been appraised at some point. They cannot say that they were not aware of a fault especially if its serious. Admiting that they were unaware of a fault shows negligence on their part, especially when a fault could be a serious safety related issue. Bca will either fob you off, but sometimes may speak to the vendor on your behalf. But usually its the vendor you have to go after, I usually start with the last owner for information and work backwards. Btw Bin (and provisionals I think) fall outside of the auction rules and the fall of the hammer etc. I think it becomes just a contract between vendor and Buyer. Also, when I entered a couple of bits of shit in Bca last year, they had a manual stamp for the entry form asking if we were aware of any known faults with the cars, even though we were selling them 'sold as seen'. I did ask what the significance of the declaration was for, and they just said ita new new thing theyre doing now.

^^^ just make sure its not a free road tax car first, as it will go straight through otherwise!!!! Works fine, have been doing this for ages now and has previously been discussed recently on this forum

Yesterday morning we still had the full report appearing. We cancelled the autocheck yesterday and this morning only the basic report appears. Does the full report still appear for the dealers that are still subscribed to the autocheck package, or a/trader now reverted back to the old system for everyone?

VGhiya, We cancelled our autocheck package today, and would not even take it for free until autotrader alter the format of what is displayed. yes its good value at aroung £15 pm, but the point remains that if you subscribe to the autocheck package, and once a customers clicks on one of your cars and scrolls down the advert, there will be an alert showing whether there is a mileage discrep or any outstanding finance including stocking plans. This is displayed before the customer has even opened the autocheck report to read it. Certain types of customers will simply be alarmed and put off the car once they have seen a disclaimer stating that there is finance outstanding or a ‘mileage discrepancy’ and they will not enquire about that car. At least if a/trader gave the customer the option to open and read the Autocheck report without any prior disclaimers, a simple explanation can be offered within the report explaining what mileage discrepancies and finance outstanding may or may not mean. The intention behind it is good but this has been ill thought out by a/trader whereby they are giving the customer a 'little knowledge' which we all know can be dangerous.

Another innacurate mileage discrepancy. A p/ex we have, has been previously checked with mileage at 74000. 3 days later checked again at 70400. You can guess whats previously happened, with someone asking whats the mileage on that car and someone replying seventy-four!! This mileage discrepancy is now stays with the experian check and the real problem is that it will be right in the face of any customer looking at the car on a/trader. It is highly likely that this information will put the customer off even making an enquiry, thereby eliminating the opportunity to inform the customer that its a human input error and the cars s/history and vosa check can disprove the experian check etc. I think we are very close to opting out of a/traders 'free' checks and reverting back to either hpi or paying the 20quid for 5 checks direct with experian. At least with our own hpi check printout, we will have control over explaining any genuine issues with the customer without losing the opportunity of a sale. Theres nothing wrong with transparency, but we all know that a little knowledge is dangerous in the wrong hands.

If you have been happy working from home then I wouldnt be jumping into a unit and extra exs unless forced to do so. You should try and resist the council in the first instance. Try searching your post code on google maps, you'll be amazed how many business can show up around you that are at residential addresses. Show this to the council plebs. It may help a bit. Good luck

Unlimited vehicle check through autotrader/experian seems to be good VFM at around £15 month. But heres a scenario that happened, that may affect anyone that is sloppy with mileage input or rounds down the miles on the dealer portal adverts. We normally put the precise miles on ads, and I was about to click the ad live when I decided to double check the miles on the car again as I wasn't 100% sure. The car mileage was 2000 more than my advert, so we ammended the ad. It then ocurred to me that if the ad had gone live before correcting it, it would have automatically had an Experian check through autotrader. This would then have flagged up a mileage discrepancy as the car had been previously hpi checked a week or so ago at the main agent and/or say BCA. What a dealbreaker to a potential buyer. Can you imagine the hassle trying to get experian to correct the data. Just worth remembering this, especially if you round down your mileages.

Many happy 'returns' of the day Grant (not) :>) We usually average out 1 refund a year. This year its 1 a month. sign of the times mate

Hi All I think most of us that have been around a while have been through similar situations many times--and it can be tough one to swerve round sometimes, especially when you know its a decent car. It causes unwanted stress on top of an already stressful job, especially in these days of reviews. We have a disclaimer within our t&cs that reads 'PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ALL PARTS AND MECHANICAL ITEMS OF THIS VEHICLE ARE WORN RELATIVE TO ITS MILEAGE AND AGE AND WILL REQUIRE ONGOING ROUTINE MAINTENANCE ACCORDINGLY'. In other words, Used car=Used parts On the flip side ( and a very shortened version of events) we had a screamer bout a year ago who cooked and put a rod/piston out on his engine on a £12k c180 estate after 4 months & 3900 miles. (lack of coolant we think). He was adamant we were liable quoting the 6 months consumer law, court & £7.5k for a new engine etc etc. He also mentioned the car had been through a health check at mercedes the previous month, which he emailed us a copy amongst the numerous emails and letters. This proved to be his undoing, as the health check had given the car a 100% completely clean bill of health with no faults present. We gently explained that based on his own report from mercedes, the fault could not have been present at the point of sale, and maybe he should check his levels more regularly. We never heard back from him again.

Wife has a 12 plate e class convertible the past 4 years, privately owned. I am nearly always driving a grands worth of something diesel that has come in p/ex, which I tax and use for 6 mths, and can dump anywhere, throw the dog in the back, go to rubbish tip etc. I did treat myself to a Cayenne diesel, which I kept for a year and sold over xmas. But i was totally underwhelmed by it and got bored driving it around after a month. Give me an old banger anytime. Oh and I have a mint Boxster 3.4S that I keep telling myself is the weekend car, (but it is really a stock car that I cant shift)

Did you shit the bed? lol..5.00am? If I am stillawake at 5 its cos I haven't fallen asleep for the night yet.

^^^ Insomniac??? :>)

100% agree with Nick. At least 90-95% of email leads are fake and hidden behind anonymous emails so that if you decide to track the email ip address they all lead back to central usa head office. Amongst all this dross there will be the odd genuine enquiry coming through. However, if you can get your head around the fact that this is the game car gurus play, then just crack on. Its free and it generates 6-10 deals a year. We would never pay for it though. We reply politely to each 'enquiry' but this year have changed our reply to a simple short message asking the customer to email us their phone number and we will give them a quick call to discuss a deal. Not one customer has ever replied.

Just last week we had one attempting to scam us. Phoned and wanted to do a card payment over the phone for £4695 on one of our cars. Don't you want to see it first we asked. He explained his wife had viewed the car last week and could he just pay for it now and collect it later. We had not actually shown this car to any customer in the past few weeks so I knew what he was up to. I explained that we do not take cards over the phone for that amount and that he would need to make a bank transfer...at which point he prentended that he could not hear me and his phone then cut off. He never called back. We have it recorded too through Autotrader portal. F*cker. I really wanted to pretend to have taken his card details and then waited for him to turn up....

If you tax at post office then you have to register it at the same time and they keep the v5. If you don't want to mess around going to the post office then any number inserted in front the doc ref number will work on line. I have done it plenty of times. Hope this helps

This is screaming out for second opinion. We often point out to our customers. 8 times out of 10 its not the car thats the problem, Its the garage youre using.

Correct Trade Vet. It was a big thing specially as there had been no vat due on used cars up to the late 70s. I was at the main dealers back then and all warranty prices were inflated and retail cars and p/ex values were continuously written back to reduce vat liability. Also, if someone shows a warranty (ficticious or not) at £400 on their invoice it means its a seperate sold item so it attracts ipt tax at 20% instead of 12% had the product been included 'foc' within the car sale price. One bit of advice I can offer though is that some dealers still don't know/realise to include their auction indemnity fees as part of the overall purchase price of a car. Doesn't sound like much but say eg 10cars, 10 lots of £300 indem is 3k a month, which means you would be giving the vat man an extra 5-600 a month unnnecssarily. Hope this may help a few.