Nick M.K.

Sorry, I completely forgot to address the initial question here. Since the first week they came to the UK market Car Gurus have been returning more leads than Autotrader (I hate the Autoraper expression, I don't know why people use it, If someone feels raped by a provider you stop using that provider and that's it). In terms of converting those to sales it's a whole different story. Same with eBay. 4 calls this morning (I have the call whisperer) for 4 different cars. Ask me how many deposits I took or how many viewing appointments I booked :-)

Always use Sytner if you have one anywhere near you. They have a dedicated team that will chase Bmw to authorise warranty work if it’s required and if the car is near the warranty parameters. You might need to pay some contribution but usually a small %

It’s a bit like Ryanair “randomly allocating” seats when you don’t pay extra. In 2017 out of 20odd flights I got 20 “random” middle seat allocations. They categorically deny programming their algo to do that and since mid 2018 seem to have changed it after too much backlash. Can’t prove anything though. For me, my location, my stock and customer profile it is statistically improbable that I will get 10 CG email leads, will reply to all 10 very promptly and get NO further follow up whatsoever. In the same way most car dealers have a few fake reviews here and there CG send a very odd named email lead every now and then. I genuinely believe this and for now will not pay CG. £225 pm for over a year in 2017 and two sales only!

Best defence? INCREASE prices every now and then. F*** them!

Grant, CG operate a system of fake leads. They are not real and you never get any follow up after you reply to their initial enquiry. Sometimes you get a lot of leads, you sign up, then the leads dry up, you call to cancel, the leads increase. It may work for you as every now and then you get a real person that really comes and buys. And they are a fifth of the price as you pointed out.

My 3 old year daughter is very interested in cars but can't reach the pedals yet. My 13 year old daughter tried our C Class on our driveway and she did OK. Completely uninsured of course. At 18 I will add her to the trade policy unless they say No. Will cross that bridge........

I've given up trying years ago.

DON'T DO THAT! The police should check your trade plates on the MID and those need to be on it. The car can be off MID if untaxed, that's not a huge deal and if you get pulled over so be it. Carry your trade ins certificate with you, they'll look at it, they'll let you go. BUT If you put a car on MID and sell it and the new owner has an accident without proper insurance the other insurer will come after YOUR INSURER as the last party that had insured interest in that vehicle. This is my broker's advice and he is very very clued up about trade insurance.

https://www.gov.uk/check-vehicle-tax At the very bottom of the page: "You may be able to tax this vehicle at a Post Office Branch that deals with vehicle tax without the V5C registration certificate"

Phishing email comes from Car Gurus in the form of a DocuSign document, beware.

Faulty battery, faulty gear selector, faulty ignition switch module or (highly unlikely) a faulty gearbox. Dave would surely want to know if the car has been on SDS and what the fault codes are? I will add that if fault codes are completely absent it could indeed point to a mechanical fault in the gear selector. £80 used and easy to replace.

Isn't enabling Best Offer an almost certain guarantee that you won't get full price when they turn up?

Doesn't work on a Mac! Because when they started developing it 20 years ago there weren't many Macs :-) They offered a workaround but I'll be ringing Autosales next. If theirs works on a Mac that's what I'll take.

Motors at £100 pm (20 cars) is also very cheap for the leads and sales it produces. They list the stock on a dozen other websites as well.

Everybody.

I remember when I was using Gumtree in 2006-2010ish, crazy amount of response for sub-£2000 cars, dozens of calls per ad! What’s your last price boss!!! Now a friend uses it for cheapies and gets no more than 2 or 3 calls or texts, it’s just quieter. Last price still on their mind though.

I’ve never used Facebook enough to make it work and I imagine at lower price points Marketplace is great but if it gives such a high decline rate I will leave it for a couple of years. Had 2 customers today, both from AT, both approved including one on a 55 reg car.

Have you got actual sales figures Grant? I get MANY leads from eBay for example and MANY emails from CarGurus but very few actual sales that I can attribute to them. The more popular a marketplace becomes among sellers the fewer leads per seller are generated. Happened with eBay, happened with Gumtree (big time), it’s happening with Facebook and 80% of my paying customers come from AutoTrader while other dealers are leaving it. Quality not quantity as David Brent would say...

I think I'll give that a go. As long as it works on Mac

https://used-carslancs.co.uk/about I love this staff photo on the about page. Who knows what tech company or a university this was and the two cars in the background look photoshopped. Stoled images on all their car listing as well. Good work.

I will switch mostly to petrol buying in the next few months simply to capitalise on this craze for petrols in the Greater London area but diesel part exchanges will be most welcome for very sensible money. And my daily driver remains a Merc CDI of course.

Only Kia or Suzuki would be more suitable.

That's an ideal location for a whole retirement village.

Shall we all call him this evening? With the same question: Has the cambelt been replaced as my friend that works as a Trading Standards vehicle inspector said it was due at 72K miles...

Property prices in that area. An offer someone couldn't refuse...