Nick M.K.

Sure they do. Beer is all carbs. But if someone tells you to stop it you would :-)

In the same way you'll get me on a low-carb diet. You just tell the person what they should do and they do it... If that question had an easy answer AutoTrader's share price would reflect it.

On my photos the parking sign in the background would've been "digitally removed". If you had THESE wheels on your pink Fiat 500 your phones would've melted :-)))

Yes, every now and then a customer will point to a tiny scratch on a sill or a chip in a windscreen or just say something like "It looked a million dollars in your photos". I'll tell them something like "It still looks fantastic and it will look a million dollars on someone's driveway after they've personally spent good 3-4 hours to clean, polish and seal it again like I did a couple of weeks ago just before taking the photos in a nice spot from the right angles at the best time of day with a bit of cloud cover" :-)

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201906018558732 this is one which we've just refurbed in Ferric grey, there are some close up shots of the wheels in my ad. Looks good on silver BUT depends on your wheel design.

No you are right, I remember the recent thread Bye Bye Autotrader, maybe the 30 days cancellation haven’t passed yet.

Grant is on AT. I can still see 26 ads.

Deep subprime finance. If they work and have an income of over £1000 per month Moneybarn will lend. Don’t ask at what APR though...

Never seen a Moneybarn sale? Some of them do look like barn finds...

I think what the guys are saying is that dealers will load their own part exes to the Partner finance system, then they get repoed with the retail stock when the time limit passes without payment. I’ve never seen the stock and have no idea what they are like.

In theory they should be retail-ready or almost ready cars that have been sitting on forecourts for a while before being repoed and shipped to BCA. Who knows what they are really like though, some dealers prep a lot, some prep sweet *uck all.

Yes just like most other finance companies. The cars should actually be in much better shape than the average finance repo. Someone just did the prep, just couldn’t sell the thing quickly enough.

The problem with aiming for small margins is that you will then only ever get small margins, you'll never have a nice juicy £5K one (I've had less than 5 of those over the years so not there yet sadly). If a dealer clears £250 per car they need to sell 20 cars for each £5K. That's 20 TIMES more chances of something going pop & bang, 20 times more chances of screamers, 20 times more MOTing, 20 times more valeting, 20 times more servicing and repairs and MUCH higher AT or premises or storage bill. One guy can have 20 nice cars, the other guy needs 400! And several times more staff. And less finance penetration as % and a much lesser chance of another high value p/x for retail... Listen, I lived in £2989 land for years (you know I hate XX95 pricing) and I regret it. This comfort that we have with certain price points works against us sometimes :-)

This is the same as doing a very long distance journey without getting on the motorway. You’d still reach your destination but it makes no sense to do it using slow roads that take 3 times longer. People can sell without AT but will sell less units for less money and after stocking them longer. Pay the fee, use the toll road, get there faster.

Bring back Diesels I say! It’s crazy how it shifts. I still remember when the £500 tax was introduced in 2006, we thought the end of petrol power is near.

Becoming harder to find I guess as no one wants to stock them but people want to own them.

That's what I'm saying. You are. I am still stuck in June sales :-)

You are definitely flying if you are already into July. I am still in June, 6 sold and collected, 5 of them bought to order. If you can see my call list on a Merc E220CDI Coupe, they went wild for it. One woman checked 3 times if the car was REALLY sold.

I wasn't thinking about court immediately, some of these are repeat customers that I have worked with for many years and it's a case of calling, reminding them of the Tc & Cs and asking for some "modest contribution". Some people will pay it, some won't.

I don’t know the answer to that. If unsold by day 90 I just return the money from my own pot or overdraft.

THIS! I've done some very nice SOR (and that's not spares or repair) deals over the years. It's free stock, very often stock that I have personally sold them a few months or a year earlier and still in near-retail condition. The way I go about this is quote (retail) for the prep required and charge the owner for this in advance. Even if it doesn't sell and you return it you don't lose out on prep costs. I would also do most of these deals in the winter when I have the AT double stock offer. This way my advertising is free. Quote a fixed percentage depending on the value of the car, I usually charge between 7 and 11% but this is entirely negotiable and could be lower or higher. NEXT. Very important. I will have a strong preference for a finance buyer because this will effectively double the income from a no-margin deal or at least for a buyer with a bargain priced part exchange. I will also try and upsell an extended warranty to cover the vehicle so I can limit my exposure. Some dealers even insist on your seller/owner covering the warranty costs for the first 6 months. Lawgistics's sale or return agreements actually have a clause that states that seller (the car owner) shall stand by and indemnify the dealer against claims that arise so it's not 100% down to you post sale.

You just return the 70% that they funded. Press a button on a computer screen, they recover the funds from your account. The criteria as Mark pointed out is to do a few deals on finance and give them reciprocal retail finance business, my facility is only £50K and every year I need to give them 3-4 times as much in finance business. They still pay me their commission on the finance so every year I make a lot more from them than they make from me :-) Not everyone will get those terms but if a very small independent like me can most pitches will eventually. Larger pitches actually get their funding free of charge.

I can't answer for those exact operators but I'll give you my answer: The finance company Close funds my stock, they pay 70% of purchase invoice value at an annual interest of 2.5% which works out at £21 in interest every month in stock on a £10K car. They also charge a flat "bonnet" fee of £20. My limit is 90 days so if I sell that car in 45 days the funding for it will cost me around £51.50.

Took me 7-8 months and a dozen tries :-)

This is not always the case. There are 2013 and 2014 models (Mazda 6, BMW 530D) that are Euro 6. It depends on the date when a manufacturer paid to certify some models. You can have 2013 BMW 530D Euro 6 and 2014 BMW 520D Euro 5. But after 65 reg they all are. Agree with TV that not stocking diesel at all is a mistake. Auction prices are low in the London area, many dealers avoid the stock but a lot of buyers still want them and they now look great value for money, I had 3 viewings and 2 sales this weekend, all diesel. Based 2 miles from the M25.