Nick M.K.

I went back, re-read it again and I now see it a few posts down from the initial "Plot". Depending on what his setup will be on that "plot" or "pitch" I either stand by absolutely everything I said above or retract absolutely everything I said as never having run a pitch makes me unqualified to give advice to the OP.

I meant to type Plot, my keyboard let me down this time and I don't have an EDIT button. I love sarcasm, especially in this forum. I also love fortune references. If someone says "I ain't greedy" I ask them "Have been to see your doctor?"

Petrol is the new Gold in the used car market :-) When punters talk to me about steam from the exhausts in the winter I always breathe out, point at the steam from my mouth and promise them that I'have not drank any oil that day.

You need attention to detail. Lots if it. 1) No one said EVERY deal 2) No one said PITCH (only TV did, all the OP said was "lot") 3) No one said "half of Cap Clean". I said "under cap below" 4) You can get A LOT of stocking with VERY LITTLE trading history. 5) No one said "a fortune". I personally think I can be earning more. 6) You can tell me that I don't know what I am talking about. I'll take it on board.

Some of mine are similar. If you give 3 months / 3000 miles with a claims limit of around £500-£1000 (depending on car value) you still have very limited exposure. If the car has 170000 miles give them 1 month / 1000 miles or even no warranty for example. The thing is, you get the comeback in the event of a fault anyway (like the Audi in the other thread). The warranty wouldn't cover that fuel sender unit for example but you are covering it anyway out of goodwill and I think you can at least trial a "warranty scheme" on some of your stock, doesn't have to be across the board.

Exactly the same statistic here, several payouts for starter motors, alternators, water pumps (all on BMWs), a couple of clutches and several batteries out of goodwill.

Please re-read the last three words of my post. I don't travel to buy privately. People either travel to me to sell or more often the car simply comes in part exchange. Buying this way is far less braver than the auctions. I will retell one of my all time favourite jokes here: After a storm and big waves a lot of small fish is dumped on a beach, jumping helplessly. A man sees another man who walks right by the water's edge, picks up one small fish, one of thousands, and throws it back in the water. He says to him: "There so many many of them, you can't throw them all back in, it makes no difference what you are doing." "Well, it made a huge difference to that one"

My year started on 1 Jan with a return. A cheapie Kia Picanto allegedly had a calliper seize 400 miles after the sale. I didn't even bother with inspecting it and having them wait 14 days for their money, offered £100 less than what they paid in early December and bought it back for £1000, paid them back straight away. Haven't even looked at it yet but after the calliper / pads are replaced it will go back on AT for £1450. So 1 bought back, 3 sold (all excellent margins, 2 on finance also) and only one in prep. Going on a buying spree tomorrow and I can't decide between BCA Bedford or Blackbushe

Just like any other thread here: Opening up a discussion and see where it goes. Learn something new in the process. I will tell you the type of thread that I personally find pointless: "Are these good news" regarding a part exchange even before someone has done a deal...

It's not even that, it's more about managing it properly with eyes very wide open AND some own cash reserves on the side just in case of a bad month. And by bad month I mean a couple of cars broken and in garages, a couple of cars rejected for full refunds, fewer enquiries than usual, bigger VAT bill than usual etc... You don't need to have sold the car by the end of the 90 days (in my case) stocking, you just need to be able to repay back the 70% of the purchase capital that becomes due. Why? If someone bought a £8K car at auction at £300 over CAP Clean (happens EVERY day) and I bought privately at CAP Below the difference alone is over £1500 (no auction fees also). Then if someone else is selling the same car for £9800 and I CAN sell at £10500 that is another 50% on top of that £1500. Then if I take 6.5% finance commission on the £10500 car that is another £680 (less really because they will have a deposit). Please note that I haven't even added the deal margin to the math or any warranty profit. All of the above can and does happen regularly, especially when the privately bought car comes in p/x.

I use the warranty booklets yes. If you've never seen one I can send you one in the post. My treat.

You are absolutely right Max but some people will not even know what Leverage means. Instead of trying to explain can I give another example from the property world: In 2007 me and a friend had about £30K each. I used my £30K to buy outright a new apartment in Sofia, Bulgaria (where I am from) He used his £30K as a 10% deposit to get a mortgage on a £300K house in Sunbury On Thames, just outside London. The property market in Bulgaria moved quite rapidly and the value of my apartment doubled for 6-7 years. The value of his house increased a fair bit but not quite 100%... In 2017 I sold that apartment for EUR 77K (around £72K). Made £42K gross. Great, everyone thought... That same year he sold the 5 bed house in Sunbury (he never did much work to it) for £710000. Made nearly 9 times as much as me out of this one deal. Same investment (OK, he had a few years of mortgage payments but if rented out it would cover those), same risk (arguably mine was higher), same amount of work, same increase in asset value BUT multiple times better return. That's leverage. You get cheap money from a bank, let them work for you, let the bank make their 3-4%, you make your 300-400%. Just one mistake above, my friend's house was £375K in 2007, not £300,000.

Two options: 1) You buy a £5 warranty booklet, fill it in with customer's details at the time of sale. In the event of a problem the customer contacts YOU directly and you personally handle everything. This is what I have always done. 2) You buy a £5 warranty booklet, fill it in with customer's details at the time of sale. In the event of a problem the customer contacts a helpline phone number run by Lawgistics. The operators will (try to) check if the claim is valid - within the time, mileage, claims limits specified and for a covered part. If it's not valid they will tell the customer that. If it is valid they will probably get the customer to get in touch with you. It gives you a lot of control and a lot of options in the event of a fault AND covers you against claims that you should have no liability for.

I wanted to have a look at it again but got a 509 Bandwidth Exceed message. Do you have automatic stock exports set up with AT, eBay etc?

I read it as selling 6 various cars now, working at a BMW / MINI dealership as a sales advisor for 8 years at some point before. That could mean 20-30 monthly sales so a fair bit of experience.

Hi Nick, why do you presume that? This would be useful in the original post as a bit of background and the discussion could've gone in a different direction.

Can't speak for everyone but I am personally unemployable. I would probably pass an interview but a couple of weeks in they'd be showing me the door :-)

Your outlook has updated itself automatically and added some level of file compression or encryption. Have a very good look at the outlook settings for attachments, you might be able to select the file type .jpg or keep original file type so it doesn’t change. Because I use a Mac computer I can’t have a look at my end and be more specific.

Because I have started with £200 cars I believe I am in a position to know the difference. My advice would always be to move away from the bottom of the market as quickly as possible. In my case it took me a couple of years (while having a day job) and this is one of my biggest regrets to date. A little debt doesn’t kill you. Not having any money to work with does.

Hold on Mark, finance companies pay for a percentage of the advance not a fixed amount per deal. And you can’t compare the 3 part exes on three £4K cars with one nice p/x on a dear car which often of similar retail value. Only the warranty upgrades will earn more if cost is the same, this is not one of my income stream. Yet.

“Added bonus of a day job”.... £2-3K per month for 80% of your time. I am very sorry but I will never call that a “bonus”. Burden is the word you were looking for.

maybe this is what we should expect from the finance comission income but I’d want a (fair) bit more from the metal, especially if bought for ££££ less thsn other people paid at auction.

Exactly. So why don’t we talk more about the gross profit and comissions earned but keep counting the number of cars sold every month, even if some of them can be at a loss? I can sell 3 times as many cars if I reduce my mark up 3 times but I don’t really see the point.

Break? Do you mean take?

My mechanics hate Ford diesel & any Vauxhall, I hate japanese & korean part prices so it’s mostly german cars for me too. I love them. I really do. I don’t lose my sleep over them at all.