Tony F

Mate, sound like u are going to need a bit of serious help with this one. It sound complicated. You may need to get an independent written assesment statement to prove she carried on driving the car ignoring any oil pressure lights, which is why the engine has now seized/stop/failed whatever. Funny how her claim stops at £1 short of the 10k max allowed in a small claims. She obviously has someone helping her with this. Good luck

Mine hasn't changed yet. Maybe they are going through everyone bit by bit. I am dreading the change in case it affects and deletes the list of extras I have built up in the pre populated menu. This happened once before with a/t a couple of years back.

Hi Nick, If its this box you are refering to, then you can click the corner with the mouse and enlarge it. Tony

Hi Andy, We spent 3 years with AA cars, using their branding and signed up to their 'dealer promise' etc. Just cancelled in January. Nice people to deal with but a complete waste of money. We gave them a good chance and even had previously used them again about 6-7 years ago. Only reason we kept it going was they included free website within package which meant we were not paying autotrader for website hosting. Once you deducted the website saving from AAs ad package cost, it netted in at just under £200 per month. But it still barely paid for itself overall. Also we found AA cars does attracts a few strange customers with unrealistic expectations. We just stick with autotrader now, and with a couple of free ones eg car gurus and find and fund my car (which has yet to generate a deal 1 year later) Tony

Good idea above. You never know... if u find nothing then you're bolloxsed..technically & legally speaking of course. Friend of mine had an arshole cust giving him grief over an imprezza. He found footage on facebook of customer ragging the car. So he told him to fuck off!

Just make up an address. It would be no different if the customer had given a false address. No one can prove you made it up..

Hi Nick, Most of them have been going abroad the past few years which explains the high residuals here. I believe many have ended up in cyprus where its right hand drive.

I agree. The real cause is greed. They have almost twice the amount of cars on site that their planning allows! I have watched in amazement on many ocassions 1 or 2 drivers spen 30+ mins unload and move about 20 cars to get a car out for a trader. Then put all cars back. Move on to the next customer and they are moving the same block of cars again! Their new system means your name is added to a list of traders/drivers waiting to collect car.If they had the sense to also write the location down on the list they could sometimes get 2 or 3 customers sorted at the same time. I tried suggesting this once but was met with zombie like stares. I dont think the management have ever heard of time and motion.

We have also done a couple of diffs on these. Nylon bearings apparently. But unusual for the diff to go at only 41k miles.

Just make sure you dont answer your phone on a test drive and get a rucker blaring out over the car speakers

I loved it even more when I sold it for 4k David. All the customer kept repeating over and over on the test drive was, 'fuck me this is quicker than my rs cosworth'.

Not going to top that one David Horgan. But about 4 yrs ago we sold a Z4 Coupe and at the last moment the customer asked if we could take his old 1992 K reg MX5 in chop, which he didn't have with him. We agreed on £400 on his description. 2 days later he collected new car. I then looked at the MX5. Nothing special I thought until I spotted 4 yokohama tyres and what appeared to be air intake ducts under the front bumper and a big service folder on the front seat. Turns out he had owned the thing for about 10 years and it had been heavily modified, (8k of upgrades) Flyin miata conversion, garrett turbo, dump valve, suspension, cam, bottom end etc, etc. This thing chucked out 242bhp with virtually no weight to carry. One of the quickest things I have driven and handled like a go kart. Poor top end but it got to 90mph in a blink of an eye.

Nick, Hi mate, Do you know if it checks only the current vosa mileage or previous one too. We see a lot of mileage discrepancys where it is clearly a human input error. Wonder if these will also be rejected by A/t

I think his comments ' which suffers from poor satisfaction and convenience' are insulting to the motor trade, who on the whole do our best in a market full of variables. Mr Chesterman does not appear to have ever had to sell used cars, and have to deal with price led car buyers, whose unrealistic expectations generally lead them to look at the worst cars first, being sold by the worst types, before realising you generally get what you pay for. Lets hope its a success, but it will take a lot of convincing us car dealers to part with extra advertising money, having seen many of these ventures come and go over the years. I know what I wouldn't do with 30+ mill. Unfortunately...it is!

And getting back on topic for Novemebr trade. We have just had our worse 2 months ever, oct & nov, and thats in 27 years of trading and including any decembers. Seen lots of rough patches over the years, and always manage to duck & dive, weave, find new solutions etc and come up good each year. But to say the past 2 months has me stumped is an understatement!!! Headscratching times. Glass ceilings and brick walls.

too many to list over the years. At any given point, there always seems to be something in stock that we have had to get the candle & birthday cake out for. Also embarassing when you realise you're putting a second new mot on a car! ...and when we sell a sticker, why do we seem to go and buy the same model car again...doh

Hi Mark, A deposit for us means the deal is counted in that same month. We never carry over deals, and like to start each month with zero sales on the board. It gives me more incentive to 'get the month going'. I know some dealers like to carry over deals. We used to do it a lot years ago at the main agents when our monthly target had been met before the month end. Tony

Andy, Minefield is the word mate. We have had experience with Dragon Engines in Chesterfield for a Mini once. Very good, even collected car from south London and dealt with warranty company for our customer,....but they were not cheap. On another occassion they were very helpfull tracking down a hard to find engine for 2011 c180 petrol Merc for us, although ultimately we did not use them. (we proved our customer had neglected his basic duty of care looking after his car, and the problem became his). Good luck.

I know, I remember complaining back in the nineties, because the auction indemnities had gone up from about 50 quid to £55!! Mind you, back then we were still buying a lot from main agents. Your prep bill for a whole month for all the stock might be a grand. Now we are lucky to get change out of a grand prepping just 2 cars. lol

Hi Nick, I see your logic, but remember that there are only the same amount of customers looking at a lot more cars during the stock offer. If anything, the enquiries will be watered down, unless of course a dealer stocks 'hard to find cars'. Also Autotrader usually follow the offer up with 'half price adverts' in the hope that a chunk of dealers keep the extra ad slots having got used to them. I bet by the time its back to full rate a fair few dealers will have upped their advertised stock. Clever tactics. We used to also have 2 sites in north London. I have attached an Autotrader contract we signed up to back in 2003. Have a look, it will make you cry when you compare it to how much we all pay now!!! Tony AUTOTRADER INV.pdf

Just as we all carefully pick and choose which cars to buy, we also have to sometimes pick and choose which customers to deal with also. Nothing worse than selling to a wrong'un.

Its not the inspection that is normally a problem, but the customers interpretation of it. The type that arranges an inspection doesent know what they are doing and usually has unrealistic expectations anyway. I sometimes wonder how many inspections some of these customers can afford to go through before they eventually buy a dog without having an inspection. Let your customer have an inspection. And get a copy of it. If he buys the car all and well. If not, don't worry about it. He has only wasted his own money. You will sell the car to someone else, and if the inspection is quite good, use it to sell the car.

catholic upbringing??

We were hoovering a car that had previously belonged to a vicar. The drivers footwell carpet was loose, and when we lifted it up we found a packet of condoms hidden underneath!!! I say matron....obviously had been partaking in some clandestine titilation on his house calls

Quite a few manufactures actually quote 1 litre per every 1000 kilometers and not miles as acceptable usage. Had a case last year on a Peugeot 207, customer thought car was using oil, but when we checked the handbook it stated the above consumption figures. Even some of the older stuff, again identical case on a 2003 BMW 330 coupe about 8 years ago. Customer threatening all sorts of legal action, until we asked him to read the owners manual, 1 litre per 1000 kilometers.