Lakeside

Never bothered ringing previous owner/dealer but I’ve bought a few advertised as no history and one key then been passed two keys and wedge of history at the payment window.

Bonus if they do come on a transporter. I just assumed they would be driven being as the terms and conditions state it must be roadworthy and the car will be “driven” to you within 72 hours. Are you buying in bulk though or singles? On another note do bca realease cars to subcontracted transport companies if i paid online and sent someone myself to collect it? Or do I need to be there in person? sorry for all the questions but we’ve never done it before we’ve always collected ourselves.

We’ve been thinking of buying from further afield and using BCA delivery service to have them dropped off to us. I’m wondering if anyone else uses them? as I’ve read the small print that says the vehicle must be roadlegal and roadworthy. How strict are they on this? As I don’t want to buy a car from the other end of the country for one of their drivers to get in and refuse to drive it because it’s got a bulb out?

If it’s a Vauxhall nine times out of ten it’ll just be condensation. As said check expansion tank aswell, if there’s no oil in there it’s highly unlikely to be head gasket. Rare you’ll get one mixing without the other.

Depending on the car a fair few of our bangers have been bought for export by the Eastern Europeans and Nigerians.

I’m still suprised more companies like WBAC havnt sprung up, we all know they offer peanuts but yet as we see at BCA each week thousands of people still must sell to them.

I usually offer just over we buy any car price. But it has backfired on us before when they’ve then run the reg of the car we’re selling them through wbac and told us it’s overpriced.

I’d of asked him if he knew the previous owner then?

I’m not sure where everyone has got this idea that any car cheaper than a dealer or auction must be scrap has come from? Or the fact that every car on eBay must be a dodgy lay-by dealer? I've bought many cars privately off eBay/Facebook/schpock that have been genuine fault free private sale cars at a lot cheaper prices than I could of got them for from auction.

Yea they do but Bca assured covers less than you could test yourself buying private. If a car is cheap at auction I’ll buy it, but when I’m watching dealers bid £500 over cap clean + fee’s for an 8 year old focus that could be bought privately for a third of the price is stupid in my eyes.

And auction cars dont?

I’ve often wondered why dealers will pay so much for a car at auction when they can easily be picked up a lot cheaper privately, even get the added bonus of a test drive too.

The pricing was simply because our thoughts were why price it the same as every other car and end up competing with every other dealer out there. I suppose we thought surely people would automatically go to the cheapest first. Being internet based we have very little overheads so our profit margins don’t need to be as big as someone with a pitch/unit etc

Well our dry spell got a bit better this week, 2 sold and a viewing booked for today which unfortunately the customer has had to delay due to the bad weather. Plus a few calls on other stock. We’ll see how it goes into new year

Two this week for us so far, with two viewings booked for the weekend, and there was me moaning last week I hadn’t shifted anything for ages.

All our cars are valeted and we do get any obvious scuffs and dents done prior to sale. I’ll admit we don’t make them absolute showroom condition but we’re not asking showroom prices. I could understand if people were turning up and walking away but that’s the problem, customers arnt even turning up. I do have a good record of sale to first viewers when they do eventually turn up though.

To be honest it’s not so much the profits we are bothered about at the min, as said we both have other jobs to top up the income, and we are still learning about where the best profits are. It’s more the fact we’re not even getting phone calls, I understand this time of year is quiet but it’s been like it for the last 12 months for us.

We’re midlands based, we’re only trying to be the cheapest as we feel if we can’t even compete at these prices we’ve got no chance aiming higher. ill be honest we have had a couple of £1000 profits on a car but that is only now and again on cars we’be been lucky to get cheap on a quiet auction day, our average margin is under £500, more around £200 on a few recently plus a couple of break evens.

Thanks all so far. I have been in the Motortrade for over ten years, just not the selling game. Yes the insignia was just an example but I can’t even get £1700 for it! They’re selling for more at auction. we definitely won’t be jumping in balls deep anytime soon, I just can’t see how some of the full time dealers can actually make a living from it especially with bigger overheads? We feel we’ve tried everything but failed so far. Autotrader was my last hope as i’ve read a few members on here saying it’s the only place worth advertising but we’re still getting no interest off there. Surprisingly the last couple of cars have sold via Facebook despite all the “last price” idiots.

Evening all, just joined the forum as I’m after a bit of advice. Me and a mate have been dabbling in selling cars for a few years now on a part time basis, we both have full time jobs in other trades, but are really struggling to find how you guys actually make a living from it? Our dream is to both go into it full time but if we had it’s safe to say we’d both be bankrupt by now. We think we’ve done everything properly, we have trade insurance, bca account, another private auction account, a rented storage compound for stock, card machines, receipt books etc. We are purely internet based and advertise on eBay classified, autotrader, gumtree, schpock and Facebook marketplace but it doesn’t matter what type of car we buy we are really struggling to sell. We have around ten cars in stock at any one time and have tried everything from bangers up to £10k cars, from mainstream to sports to prestige and yet nothing seams an easy sell? Majority of the time our cars are priced within the cheapest in the country too. For instance currently we have an 09 Insignia cdti in stock, perfect car, mileage is a little high at over 120k but a long mot and it’s cheap, yet it’s been for sale for three months without a single phone call! I’ve dropped the price so low now I’ll barely be breaking even. Another one recently sold a 59 1.6 focus, been advertised since around March this year and only eventually went last month at cost, again barely any interest. What was more annoying is an identical car sold for £500+fee’s more at the block whilst it was for sale. Makes me wonder why dealers arnt even buying out cars? Obviously we are selling a few in between with decent margins but they literally are few and far between. Sold two this month but nothing in October and only a couple in September.

I hate to say it but I think it is legit. i had the exact same notice served on one of my cars the end of last year, no clamp just the paper warning. Two months later I received a fine through the post stating where and when the car was reported untaxed even though it was in trade. I believe they just use the notices when they run out of clamps but still report you for the offence.