Nick M.K.

It will be under warranty still, perhaps don’t mention the ford when you book it in your local MB dealer.

Happy Christmas to everyone! I already had one of those “Are you open tomorrow” Christmas texts so it looks like the market might come alive this weekend :-)

Had a stolen-recovered p/x and rang HPI to remove the marker. They did but the insurer was reminded of this case and slapped a Cat C marker as they had paid out because of damage during the theft. £2K (not a loss but a missed profit) down the drain because I made a single phonecall...

You don’t do small sums, do you Lucas :-)

I also prefer bank payments from my customers providing our bank details by text mesage or an email. I will definitely introduce phone verification also to make sure my customers don’t send those payments to a third party’s account.

Hopefully the bank sees some sense and refunds the money... Do you still have to complete the purchase of that vehicle David? Ring the dealers, explain this predicament and if possible ask them to lower their price a fair bit to help you absorb that loss. If the money is eventually returned (even months later) send the dealership the difference. They are not exactly at fault but the leak or hack is probably at their end or DA.

Small garage is good. After your last post about paying your first repair bill last month and thinking of a garage business I was worried you might start by taking over a BIG garage or a chain. Best of luck! You will need lots of it mate!

Yes. You can negotiate a bit but the trade insurers stipulate that teade is all they pay. They obviously don’t have an idea how much the average auction-bought used car needs spending on it sometimes.

I hope there is money involved somewhere between the viewings and back to the mince pies David :-)

For non fault accidents the other insurer will pay you “market” value. You negotiate with them and try and get dealer retail if possible. For fault accidents your own trade insurer will only pay trade price which again is negotiable but usually they will want auction invoices and will pay out that value IF it’s similar to the Cap trade guide. This could seriously leave you out of pocket on a car that had a lot of work done to it. Cars for auction centres starting with the letter B sell fastest for me :-)))

I looked at that history. I think the odometer only goes up to 10000 then back to zero so the May 2009 mileage of 91000 miles must be a completely wrong entry. Mot expired though. Probably no longer required on a classic car.

I know it's a bit early but wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays, a Merry Christmas, a big sales spike just after Christmas and a very healthy and prosperous 2019. It certainly looks like it will be an eventful one! To everyone on this forum that I bought from, sold to, did repairs for or got gifts and advice from: Thank you all for your business, your generosity, your tips and for the opportunities of course! Nick

And I will re-invent webuyanycar.whatever and sell it to you for 250 million :-)

I also think online should be a discount. Still, could be much worse... Imagine if Ryanair did car auctions....

A 2015 Volvo diesel will be Euro 6 and ULEZ compliant hence ideal for Londoners that need to upgrade for the new emissions zone :-)

I am just outside London and I speak regularly with several dealer-friends, all based inside the M25. They all stopped buying diesel cars (in one case he doesn't even take them in p/x) in the last year or so. When we go to Blackbushe together they never go anywhere near a diesel. They look with amusement and utter dismay on some days when I buy 3-4 Diesels. I've paying under Cap Average and often under Cap Below and got some superb cars which two years ago would've sold in the hall for 110% of Cap Clean. I buy some EVs and hybrids too and take superb (priced) diesel p/exes against them. I had my best October ever (actually my best month ever in October), best November ever and this December have sold 6 cars (expected 2 or 3 or even nothing in early Dec) and the phones ring quite a lot. Yes, mostly diesels. Some of them compliant with the 2019 London Ultra Low Emissions Zone, most of them not. Just sold a Merc CDI to a young lady from Croydon. "Yes heard the news about diesels. No, not bothered as I do high miles and a petrol simply won't do". Is there a bit of a gap in the home counties market where some dealers don't stock oil burners AT ALL but 50% of the buyers still want them?

Much cheaper. Rear right ABS sensor.

Customers for the £20K cars don't go over them nearly as much as the £999 brigade. In fact some of them don't look at the car in detail before or after a test drive.

This is to do with new emission regulations WLTP. Because the manufacturers were unprepared and have not certified all their models to comply, they have stopped offering some models until their certification is complete. It came into effect last month or the month before. They will report very strong sales when every model is certified. Ours will stay very low.

I do that most of the times (any BMW these days has a couple of outstanding recalls including 2002-on e46s for airbags!!!). On a related note: My doctor needed a very cheap car for the nanny to drive her kids to school. Bought a £600 Honda CR-V with around 120K miles from it's only private owner (her patient so a giveaway price!) with full Honda history by the same main dealer. Lovely looking thing. She used it for 2-3000 miles and come MOT time took it to that dealer local to her. They have looked after the car it's whole life, did the last service on it 3000 miles ago and still failed her on the MOT for some bushes AND found another £2400 of "recommended repairs". She was almost crying when she called me for advice. I personally went to collect the car with the MOT fail and took the folder with their service receipts (an inch thick) to show to the service advisor. £800 paid at the last service, £550 the service before etc etc so they knew the car well and presumably knew a lot of work would be authorised. Didn't know about the change of owner though.

on BCA Gold: £327 on £13800 for example and £384 on £18000. On the £18K car it is actually £320 + VAT on the invoice as the car was VAT Qualifying. Very reasonable comparing it to £2K cars!

My last purchase was on the way out of the Blackbushe key office before I headed to the car park. As risky as physical auction buying gets: a white Audi A5 3.0 TDI Cabriolet CVT with very high spec, just over 109K miles and very christmassy dashboard: Every yellow warning light relating to the brake electronics was lit, ABS, ESP, Parking brake fault, Headlight levelling fault, TPMS not available etc. Had to throw another £50 at it to fix but the purchase price was very very attractive.

I started not that long ago, almost 14 years (others here have been around much longer). A £2500 car at BCA had a Gold buyers fee of £70-£80. A £3995 sale in those days had a reasonable margin.

And you could save £££ buying at the end of December rather than the beginning of January. Bought 5 cars the other day, only went for one.

It’s just not worth buying low value cars at BCA anymore.