Lakeside

Tried listing a couple on there in the past. Unless you want endless “dealers” offering you scrap money I wouldn’t bother. ok to shift a few rough p/x’s or auction lemons but that’s all it’s good for.

Bca Nottingham is like that. There’s a few there that have been in the customer car park for a few years now. Surely they have the buyers details so why not get them to pick it up.

I doubt police could ever lease motorway/panda cars. They are factory built to order in “special” spec with added fuse boxes/wiring/backup batteries, dash modifications etc. By the time they’ve ripped it all out when de-fleeted the resale value would be virtually nil for the lease company and the damage bill for the the police would be through the roof. Same with Royal Mail, all their vans are company owned. Thames valley police have their own fleet workshop and all parts used are oe. States that on their service print outs.

I do exactly as you did, de-stickered, mop and polish, any holed trim replaced and a new stereo. Some of these modern day “half the dash” stereos are getting expensive though. Prices have been the problem since xmas last year, even ex-pandas full of holes are fetching cap clean. God only knows who’s making a profit on them after all the work involved.

Make it well clear. We’ve even done a few ex panda cars. Sell well but need to be sold a lot cheaper than none police as no matter how much prep you do and regardless of how well mechanically maintained they are they still feel worn. Punters tend to overlook that when they see the 4 page long maintenance record though. I think some people like the novelty of owing an ex old bill car too. Thames Valley/West Mids from BCA/Birmingham.

We do a bit of ex-police stuff. All mega miles but highly maintained, customers like that, Ex fleet is probably the same. I’m weary of private high milers though unless it’s 1-2 owners and good history

I believe it was a dealer add-on and could also be purchased after sale so could of been added any time after it was registered.

Castle Brom closed to make way for HS2, it’s moved to Perry Barr now.

Agreed, unless you can pick them up stupidly cheap, trading bangers from auction is nigh on impossible nowadays. By the time you’ve added the few hundred quid buyers fee it’s wiped your profit. What can seam cheap on the hammer soon becomes retail price by the time you drive it out.

They probably don’t care, as long as they think they look like something out of The Only Way Is Essex.

So what’s March like for everybody at the block? The prices dropped towards the end of feb around here but the last couple of weeks they’ve shot back through the roof. Like Jan all over again.

The A-class is the car of choice for most young lads around here now.

Well I probably worded that a bit wrong, I meant anyone, including me, that doesn’t sell/stock enough on a monthly basis to warrant paying £400 a month for Pro could list the same amount of cars on classified for a lot less. I was just curious as to what benefits the extra cost involved.

Yet a private seller could put ten classified ads on eBay for £140 a month? What so special about motorspro to be more than double the price?

So basically her son has crashed it and fed his mum some bull that the bumper “just fell off” then?

No reserve is pretty much just the scrap value stuff. Trade is anything newish with mega miles or rough bodywork, older stuff with low mileage and clean, cat c/d’s. Select tends to be clean with good history and mostly AA assured and premium is stuff under a certain age/mileage although a few still seam to slip into the wrong catagories.

Well to put it into perspective I bought a 58 308 1.4 out of UKCGR last year. Won it for around £700 plus fee’s. Turned out it had an immobiliser fault that would of cost more to repair than it was worth. Just out of interest I got an online quote off WBAC to see if it worth offloading back to them. They offered me £410+ £50 admin fee and that was before even seeing the car which they will always try and knock down more on inspection. So if that’s what they gave the original owner for it BCA made around £500 on just that one car and that was on a cheap day. Cap was around £1500 on it if I remember correctly.

Not all stuff sent to WBAC is private either. We’ve had a few company owned cars out of UKCGR.

We must be lucky here, apart from the odd silly month UKCGR stuff usually goes way under cap especially in “trade”. The “select” section tends to come with its own tax though as even rough cars in that section seam to fetch a premium. A fair bit of our stock comes from there but as said it is a gamble and I would never pay over the odds for the risk. I will admit though it’s very rare we get one that doesn’t have some kind of fault, some minor, some more serious but rare we get a perfect one.

I think what he’s getting at is for the sake of a bulb the garage could of just changed it on the ramp and passed it first time. On the other hand though I can see where the garage is coming from, to many first time passes and they end up getting investigated.

To be honest I don’t think 308’s are a bad car, it’s just that engine that lets them down.

Well the weather hasn’t put people off the auctions around here this week. Prices still through the roof. When will it end!

If it’s the same “Prince” engine as the 308/mini/1-series etc I’ve wiped my hands with them. Terrible engines and riddled with problems. I’ve only ever lost money on three cars and thry’ve all been Peugeot’s with that engine fitted.

Well this year so far has been totally different. Lots of interest and plenty sold so far. Just hope it carries on.

I could be wrong but I’m sure the AA inspection guys that come out are the same team that do the “assured reports” for bca. If that’s the case I wouldn’t trust them anywhere near a car I was buying.