HKQAC

It's buttons on the steering wheel, and we've replaced those as well as brake sensors disconnected the battery and reconnected it, and nothing so far. You can get retro fitting cruise control kits, do you think I'm within my right to just offer to do that for them?

Unfortunately I've never included cruise control on our pdi sheet, who's pdi's do you use?

So we have a Kuga sold 3 weeks ago, that the customer came back and reported to us the cruise control doesn't work. We've had it back attempted to fix it, but no avail. As you can imagine the customer has quoted all his rights under the sun and wants a refund. I am usually of the opinion when we cant fix a mechanical fault with a car, unfortunately we just have to have it back, fix it and go on with it again. Which is what we will do in this situation. However I feel like cruise control on an 8 year old car not working, shouldn't warrant a full refund. Wondering how anyone else would approach it?

Just interested if anybody charges admin fee's here? Its becoming increasingly popular, and if anybody does charge an admin fee how do you answer the inevitable "what's that for?"

That's interesting didn't see that on Autotrader. This is my thinking, however you know what customers are like. "well you've got a picture saying Bluetooth" So I've sympathised with him, and I'll send him an email formulating the key points. I think we are in a grey area, and likely we're both to blame but fingers crossed he'll settle for a parrot kit. If he wants anymore than that, I think just refund. Sometimes these customers aren't worth the stress, just find another who's not such a nightmare to deal with. This is what I was thinking initially, but VW looked it up and definitely doesn't have it.

Very popular car, definitely wont hang around. But if you can get it inspected first 100% would do, plagued with issues...

Yes definitely moving forward we're going to have to pair our phones to test it before advertising, a bit of a pain but better than this. They never even asked if it had Bluetooth, but you cant blame them for assuming the same as I do when it says on the screen! That's probably the best scenario, aftermarket kit or refund. Thanks guys

We've sold a Polo a few weeks back, advertised with a picture of "Bluetooth- audio source on". Now the customer is claiming it does not actually have Bluetooth, although it says this on the screen. Called VW and it actually doesn't have Bluetooth! I don't know if anybody else has found this, but how infuriating for there to be a Bluetooth on button on an LED screen that does nothing. Either way, the customer has expressed its "not fit for purpose" Customer wants us to sort it out. What would be your approach to the situation? VW want £275 +VAT to fit Bluetooth to the car. I suppose purchasing a £15 Bluetooth kit from Amazon is out the question... I can understand the customers point of view, however how are second hand car dealers suppose to guarantee specifications on another companies second hand product?

We've sold a Polo a few weeks back, advertised with a picture of "Bluetooth- audio source on". Now the customer is claiming it does not actually have Bluetooth, although it says this on the screen. Called VW and it actually doesn't have Bluetooth! I don't know if anybody else has found this, but how infuriating for there to be a Bluetooth on button on an LED screen that does nothing. Either way, the customer has expressed its "not fit for purpose" Customer wants us to sort it out. What would be your approach to the situation? VW want £275 +VAT to fit Bluetooth to the car. I suppose purchasing a £15 Bluetooth kit from Amazon is out the question... I can understand the customers point of view, however how are second hand car dealers suppose to guarantee specifications on another companies second hand product?

I seen this old thread and thought I'd add my thoughts, hopefully it helps! 1. the warranty company I've using for the past year now give you all the admin support, booklets claims line etc. for free. I believe they get there money out of it by selling your old customers there own guarantee's, which hasn't caused any issue's for me before. (PM for the sales guys details) 2. personally I don't bother with card payments, I do bank transfers, but pay zone I've heard are quite good. 3. If you're just starting out, get your foundations right first. you should be selling sub 3k motors starting out, and you might sell 1 out of 50 on finance at that price range (from my experience being there myself) now I'm doing mainly 5-8k motors the finance deals are at least 4 or 5 a month, so more like 1 out of 5 sales are on finance. If you're doing those cars you need to get premises and get on board with close brothers motor finance 100% IMO. The take away point is don't worry about card payments and finance. Sort the warranties out and protect yourself with the admin side of things that they take care of for free. Hope that helps mate, pm for details or any other Q's

Sold a VW Golf around a month ago, and I've received a text message that goes along the lines... Customer: "Hi, i have discovered the car has a limiter on it, i can only assume has been set on the car externally as there is no function in the cabin to limit speed, it is at 90MPH which fortunately does not intrude on day to day driving but makes me very uncomfortable to think that it has been tampered with. I would of course like your garage to remedy this, what would you suggest?" I later replied "Hi, i can't imagine why the car would have a speed limiter on it, and I wouldn't say that having one constitutes saying it has been tampered with? Never the less if you would like to get some peace of mind, you can book it in with the garage we use, to have them look into this for you. You can call them on .......... " Customer: "thankyou for the offer, will they be able to rectify it as well as check it?" He seems like a nice enough guy, however he is clearly expecting me to pay for this to be sorted. 100% if I can help a customer I will, however, I don't want to open a can of worms here, and how far do you go for these customers? And as strange as it is having a speed limiter... is it my duty as the car dealer to pay for the car to be unlimited to beyond 90mph?? I would of thought thats beyond my duties... if so how would you handle this situation?

You're right no one is forced to use AT. If you read my original post, I said "It wouldn't surprise me if on a busy month at least 20% of my spaces online aren't in use, either with a car thats already sold or even a space that I just don't use." I think this is the same for others, and you have to consider do ALL of your cars have to be advetised 24/7 on AT? More and more dealers are rotating stock. And your point is different because Im not saying Autotrader should hand it out for reduced prices as nice as that would be. Just the price increases don't seem warranted, there not selling me any more cars and i don't think the average time to sell a car has gone down (As far as I'm aware). Your point would be the same if we all got together and boycotted AT in an effort to reduce there prices. Definitely agree it should be cheaper for people who advertise more, economies of scale is important.

Yes you could do, but I think you're missing the point. For dealers that rely on Autotrader but aren't happy with the price rise, we should consider collectively reducing packages to reduce our bill. I think by putting the point to AT that we are willing to do this we could make a difference. I'm not saying its right, but its probably something I will do going forward. But if others would rather moan and do anything about it that's their choice!

After reading this thread I'm fuming with the amount of money i've been spending on Autotrader in comparison. I cant believe that some people are happy to pay these big bills. So well done for taking a stand Arthur and I hope it works out, keep us informed! Exactly as others have been saying is we need to make a point to AT that we won't put up with it, and we need to do so without impacting sales. Hopefully I haven't lost you all here but surely the thing to do so that everyone can contribute to standing up to AT, is that collectively we all commit to reducing our packages by 10, 15, 20% as an example. If you can make the most of your forecourt and keep all of those spaces full with cars that are actually up for sale and not sold, in theory it shouldn't impact your business dramatically? It wouldn't surprise me if on a busy month at least 20% of my spaces online aren't in use, either with a car thats already sold or even a space that I just don't use. For ease of numbers: 100 dealers paying £2500 a month commit to reduce there package by 20%. Total before: £250k a month to AT Total after 20% reduction: £200k a month AT losing out on 50K a month as a rough average. These are conservative numbers and I'm sure we could get alot more dealers involved than that. Best case scenario they reduce our packages. Worst case scenario a lot of us will see if we really need to advertise ALL our cars on AT. Depending on feedback, I'll be happy to make an online petition to see how many people would be willing to put there name down to reduce there AT package slightly, then I'll forward to Autotrader! Thanks

That's the old way they did it, not anymore. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-7181-the-vat-margin-scheme-on-second-hand-cars-and-other-vehicles/vat-notice-7181-the-vat-margin-scheme-on-second-hand-cars-and-other-vehicles#making-your-margin-scheme-calculations chapter 8.3 boring but a worthwhile read!