Tony F

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.

I don't mean to alarm you EPV, but this is a known issue by Audi on some of these engines. We had an A5 using 1 litre of oil every 150 miles, with no visible signs of smoking about 4 yrears ago. We bought the car back from customer. The car had full Audi history, and I kicked up with Audi customer care about it. Luckily for us bbc Watchdog highlighted this issue the previous week. Audi booked us in and we got a five and a half grand engine rebuild foc. good luck mate

hi grant, have been in similar situation...it sounds simple at first, then you realise how complicated it can get with different permutations. you can use doc ref twice, but i think you may first need to think about 1st buyers refund. If you refund 1st buyer directly for the tax and then take direct payment yourself for tax from 2nd buyer, so it doesent go through dvla, then dvla will be none the wiser, and you can just leave the existing tax running. This only works if both buyers are paying for tax outright. 1st buyer can't get a refund from dvla unless the car is in his name either, so it may be in your interest to control the tax refunds etc

have you registered the car to the 1st buyer yet?

Absolutely dead here too. We are tucked down in the corner of Essex, on the Herts and north London borders. ..looking on the brightside, the Vat man will not be getting anywhere near his usual chunk in December if business stays as it is. I have to say that I have been trading for myself for 27 years now...and business has never felt so off kilter as its been feeling lately. Nothing seems to add up or make any sense. Also this 'October' thread must have touched a few. Just look at the amount of views in such a short space of time.

Dyslexia lures ko!

Good idea initially, but very much self serving. Their statement above is corporate babble, putting a positive spin on whats is unfortunately a bit of a failed venture. They are now having to offer it for free because so many dealers were cancelling and their stock level had dropped to around an embarrassing 50k . We gave it 6 months which generated 1 deal before cancelling. They asked us many times for feedback. We did suggest that the f&f name did not sound great, and that the home search page is even worse. Instead of having to type in what you're searching for (assuming the customer can even spell correctly eg nisen cashcow)), most customers need a helping hand with a drop down menu of makes and models selection put in front of them to remind them whats available out there.

i am guessing 2 names... as it would clearly be, by your description, a double barrel surname

Our reply to this customer would be 'see you in court'. What an idiot! Just fu@k him off mate. ffs...they all seem to come out of the woodwork when its quiet. I have pasted just a few bits from our invoices t&c's. It may be useful to perhaps use similar wording on your invoices too. It can help sometimes. 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. I CONFIRM THAT I HAVE INSPECTED & DRIVEN THIS CAR, INCLUDING THE BODYWORK, WHEELS, TYRES, & INTERIOR TRIM & CAN CONFIRM THERE ARE NO FAULTS, INC MECHANICAL OR ELECTRICAL PRESENT AT THE POINT OF PURCHASE APART FROM ANY DISCUSSED. ANY WARRANTIES AND COMPLAINTS ARE VOIDED IF ANY PARTS OF THE CAR ARE DISMANTLED BY A 3RD PARTY, WITHOUT OUR PRIOR WRITTEN AGREEMENT & CONSENT DURING ANY WARRANTY PERIOD. RECOVERY COSTS ARE NOT COVERED, PLEASE ENSURE YOUR VEHICLE HAS A RELAY/RECOVERY SERVICE. YOUR CONSUMER RIGHTS ARE NOT AFFECTED.

We just had a yellow one arrive into stock this week. My 20yr old said it looked 'cool'. I am hoping its cool enough to sell quickly! we do also have 2 more, white and blue.

Hi everyone. Just a bit of info for those of you guys that do reply to emails enquiries using the A/T portal. A lot of the dealers replies using portal can and will end up in the customers spam folder, especially hotmail and gmail accounts. Spoke with A/T today and this is what we discovered. To try and avoid this it might be best to cut and paste a reply direct to customer, completely bypassing the portal system. I hope this may help a few of you as things have been very quiet, and no one wants to miss out on potential deals. Tony

As everyone is now aware, email enquiries now arrive through dealer portal the past few weeks (crap system). The usual rubbish plus the odd sensible one. We reply to all of them. However, today we have discovered that our replies are not making it back to the customer. Is anyone experiencing the same problem or is it just a glitch applicable to us?? You can try this out for yourselves. If you find a couple of your own cars on AT, as a customer would, and send a couple of email enquiries in to your own dealership, (use a different return email than your business one). You will find that you receive the enquiry no problem. Then reply back and check if the 'customer' (yourself in this case) has received the dealers reply to the original enquiry. Tony

I do exactly the same as you. It only takes a few seconds to reply, and in fact I just copy and paste a standard reply from the previous email reply. We have had 26 car guru emails since 1st May, and you would like to think a large company like that are not up to tricks sending out fake enquiries, but its just the weird names that I cant get my head round. But we are not complaining...its free and has generated about 6 deals so far this year.

We have just given them a cancellation notice last week. We have sold just 1 car through their website (which is a car that we would have sold anyway), and we have received 1 email enquiry from a sudent wanting finance.

Best to register car on line asap in case it does come back. Otherwise the previous owner might receive the tax refund. Trying to explain to dvla that the refund has to go to someone that isn't on the v5 is a nightmare. Went through it a year ago when we offered to buy back a car from a customer.

Agree with mojo, just don't rush out and try and stock up too quickly, and try and avoid going too cheap, or you will just store up a load of problems. Other than that, a grand a month is for nothing for a main road site that size. Its a no brainer. Just go for it. Apart from the passing trade, you will also more than earn the rent back just from the walk ins that want to sell their car. Even better if you are close to or on route to a wbac depot. The only downside is if you have been used to working from yard/internet/ appointment only, is that you will have to be open every day, and have the forecourt manned. But just bear in mind also that customers don't need to make an appointment to visit you with any problems either....they just turn up!!! good luck mate

Its 1982. I'm a 19 year old trainee salesman at a large north London dealership. I am let loose by the manager to go out for my first test drive with a customer. Customer drives for about 5 miles away from showroom, chucks a right into Holloway road, pulls over and parks up. mmm very nice, he said stroking the Mini Metro steering wheel. And with that he said, i'll let you know, then jumped out of the car and walked off. I think he just used the test drive as a lift to somewhere. My manager properly laid into me when I got back to work. 'Where's the customer' he demanded. 'what do you mean he's gone' 'How did you lose a customer' . I tried to explain, but he had a sense of humor failure

The Cra is there to protect the dealer too. The consumer rights states that a fault must have been present on the day the customer collected the goods. Their consumer rights do not apply and cannot be enforced if it can be proven that no pre existing fault existed. Which in this case can be proven by the dealer by the fact that the customer would not have been able to drive the car for almost 6 months with the fault present. We would be charging the customer.

Hi. buyers fees form part of the vehicle purchase price as the vehicle cannot be purchased from auction without paying the fee. You then calculate the vat on the margin using the buyers fee as part of the vehicles Siv otherwise, theoretically, if you bought a car for £5000 plus £300 fee and sold it for £5300 you would show a £300 gross in the stock book which incurs vat thereby making a loss on what should be a money back deal. I had this in writing from the vat office a few years ago. hope it helps If anyone else is reading this and you have not been using the auction fees as part of the cars purchase price then it's possible you have been overpaying your vat on each deal. it can add up to thousands of pounds extra overpayment per year