Lakeside

Everyone must be quiet round here. BCA apparently was silly cheap today, most fetching way under cap.

Webuyanycar is owned by bca though, so no real cost to them. Buy cars in as cheap as possible, sell them through the block and even if they fetch less than purchase price they still get the buyers fee off you anyway so win win.

It was tongue in cheek but never mind, obviously goes over some peoples heads.

Well technically they can’t but we all know the “Kwik-fit” type garages will scare customers into having work done there by telling them they will phone the police if the customer attempts to drive the car away. Seen it before at a VW main dealer a few years back, obviously before the new mot rules. I was there doing some sub contract work and overheard the service adviser telling a customer their car had illegal tyres and that by law they wasn’t allowed to let them drive the car away until they had the tyres replaced.

No idea on the change of certificate but the change to the test is just anotherblatant move from the government to get yet more older cars off the road. Any smoke of any colour emitted from a diesel is now a fail. Come on we all know most diesels will puff out a bit of smoke under acceleration, especially older ones. Also now any “major” fault will result in the tester confiscating your keys as you won’t legally be allowed to drive it away? Again, this will be such an inconvenience to most general public they would probably just ring the scrap man to come and collect it.

Just remember you have to declare them as ex rental now with the new law that came in a few months back. Can’t be sold as one owner.

It’s swings and roundabouts with this one. In my eyes the more “offers” of returning the vehicle for repairs/problems you put on pdi’s, invoices etc the more it’s giving any customer reading it the green light to complain about anything and everything. Yet on the other hand if you don’t cover youself for anything you run the risk of the customer using their own garage and screwing you. I’m still amazed the amount of customers that still believe they have no rights when buying a used car and think it’s all still sold as seen basis unless a warrenty is issued. Obvioulsly I don’t mind helping customers out if its a genuine problem on my behalf but I’ll only go out of my way for the minimum I need to, I can’t be dealing with customers taking the p.

Picked a car up from BCA measham last week and their car park was heaving, worst I’ve seen it in years. Cars were blocked in and abandoned in any available space possible. Block prices still arnt the best there though at the min.

He’s got no need for a scanned mot cert when it can be checked online.

Is there much profit left in these once built? I was considering building one for myself but after doing a bit of research the cost was through the roof to do properly. Them VW’s fetch a premium even in van form, then the cost of materials and labour soon put me off. The elevating roof kits alone were pushing three grand!

Possibly although I’d imagine that would cause any auction a whole lot of grief. Can you imagine the amount of parking fines/untaxed vehicle fines they must get? You can notify dvla of sale trade to trade now online and it asks if you are a dealer or auction house so i’d imagine this is what they use. Couple of years ago a friend borrowed one of my cars that was in trade and over stayed his welcome in a pnc car park. The fine came though within 2 days. If they had to contact Bca first I wouldn’t imagine it would of come through that quick?

Auction houses notify dvla who owns the car even if it’s in trade. Had a couple of fines comes through the post in my name before even though they were purchased from auction as trade.

They don’t need to, they have the dvla for that.

But on the other hand I’ve seen some cars with a bca assured report that are mostly red and still gone through assured, especially UKCGR. If they were cherry picking then surely bca would of binned the report? Especially as UKCGR are their own cars.

Might be good for the odd sale but I can’t be the only on that wakes up in the morning with 300 “best price” messages or cretins offering half the asking price?

No idea. Only difference is they fit a brake force meter in the car for the brake test so maybe it only works at a certain speed.

Bca assured 1st to reverse isn’t static, again when I went for my interview I was shown the complete process. It’s select first gear, fast acceleration up to 20mph, stop then reverse back to the start line. Then brake test is hard acceleration to 30mph then hard braking at a marked stopping point. A slipping clutch would be picked up on either of these tests. Turned the job down in the end because even though I’m a fully qualified mechanic any faults I found had to go through a supervisor and the money was crap.

The way I see it is if it’s as simple as a £30 coil then the previous owner would of sorted it. Always expect the worst, that way if it turns out a cheap fix then bonus.

Before I got into this game I had an interview with the AA to become a vehicle inspector for BCA assured. I’m not sure if it’s the same at Mannheim but the checks they do really are bare minimum and nothing you couldn’t do yourself whilst the car was driving into the block. It only benefits online bidders really. The chap giving me the interview also told me Bca we’re going to stop them assuring cars from certain vendors as they were finding to many faults and it was putting buyers off.

Pictures can give it away aswell. Pics with snow on the ground in the middle of summer or tree’s full of leaves in the middle of winter usually gives a clue.

I had one last year, Chevrolet Captiva. Customer turns up with “car friend” who instantly starts pointing out/making up every fault he can find. He opens the boot and spots a water mark on the interior trim, probably left from when the car was valeted. “Car friend” tells the customer it’s clearly been used off road and must of been under water. He then carries on to say it’s one to avoid and that I’ll never get the asking price in a million years. Sold it the next day to a dealer from London who was delighted with it.

Ahhh the old ZR, My bread and butter back in the day. Bought for peanuts with head gasket failure, couple of hours work then back up for sale and doubled my money. Had loads of them.

Had a few Clio’s but never done well with them. Some dealers rave about them others don’t. Always seam to fetch top money at the block around here but not for me.

I used to do well with Xsara Picasso’s, always flew out within days. Shame they’re getting to old to bother with now though

To be fair to them I’ve only ever had to return one assured car to them so far and they were great for me. Peugeot 207 hdi, oil pressure light illuminated on the way home and timing chain started rattling like mad. Rang them straight away, they said they’d send an AA technician out the following week. Bca rang me on the Monday saying due to the value of the vehicle they wouldn’t bother sending a technician out they would just recover the car and give me the money back. Took about three weeks for the cheque to arrive though.