Nick M.K.

Wasn't James Bush from the old forum in Grimsby? Look up James Bush Motors and call him. Could you also tell him we miss his stories badly...

Bad for dealers that don't use eBay or Gumtree presently. That package costs around £400 pcm for 25ish vehicles. Similar Motors package costs less than £100. What they will probably do is amalgamate all three platforms into one package which will cost approx 1/3 to one-half of the AT cost so will not be cheap. If you currently use eBay and Gumtree and also Motors it should make no difference.

From the early nineties?

Are you kidding??? It's enough that I pay their buyer's fees, I refuse to pay their catering prices until I get a Black account. I meant something more reasonable like 2% of the sale price.

I use several mechanics, one of them is mobile and when you get him in a good mood his work is top quality. He delves mostly in older classic stuff, drives really old bangers for personal transport but is also quite capable with the mechanics on modern vehicles. Used to work for a Ferrari independent in Wembley years ago, that company was in the papers when it went bust. I use him for timing belts, chains, VANOS, interior electronics etc. Today I took him with me to a bodyshop 15 miles away because I had two vehicles to collect and he didn't have other jobs booked. I waited for them to finish one car and gave him the other to drop off at our place. A 2009 Honda Insight, a very nice looking thing (condition, not design)... He calls me a few minutes later from a local petrol station. "Bud, there is something very wrong with this car. Keeps stalling on me. Every time I hit traffic or stop at a junction it just stalls. The engine stops by itself. It doesn't have a start/stop system and I think it might be the CVT gearbox. When it stalls I turn the key off and then back on again and it fires first time. That's why the car was at BCA!" If by now you have guessed that this was the very first time this mechanic was driving a hybrid car you guessed correctly. How he managed to avoid them for the past 10 years being based in London, I'll never know. The boys from the bodyshop hadn't laughed so hard since the last time I tried to get them to do my bodywork for £50 a panel...

Did you mean "you ARE missing a trick"?

I got the compliment, thank you and I returned it like I usually do :-) The stocking facility I use is from 2016 and before that I used another provider from 2014 so not new. I wish I had it back in 2005 but you live, you learn...

I haven't been overly negative @Arfur Dealy, I am actually doing it and have done for months but as I reported it does NOTHING MORE than my photos, my ads, my website, my reviews, my everything else already does... In fact if I was to do a single video your style pointing every stone chip and every lipped disc on £10-£17K cars I am confident that it will lose me sales. Or margins. Or both. Your process as good as it is, works due to your very low pricing. What it does for you is filter your buyers instead of just attracting them. You would get more people, more calls, more viewings without the video. The video is a polite way to say "Here it is, it's used, it has marks etc so if you don't want that please don't come." It's genius. But has limitations. I also look at the other type of videos that show a 2 year old 4000 mile car without a single scratch or wear mark and I think for them that might work better but since that isn't really my market (I love adding value, not paying top £ for stock) I think I won't go there just yet.

+1. When the phone rings and the customers want £10K finance plus their "I know you don't want it" Honda Jazz CVT that they've had for 6 years and want "at least £300 for it" they have my undivided attention and I even close the browser window with this forum page.

No problem. My apologies in advance if his wife's next car gets supplied by us :-) If it happens I will pay you our usual introducer's bonus of course.

"Of course I can SIR, I can name you in the CarDealer forum..."

They don't feel right even when they are 100% right so yours two were probably fine. Definitely rebuilt with new mechatronics at those miles. In the US they have 10 year 100K mile warranty. Shame they didn't extend it here.

I am not sure how to answer this. CAP. The price guide. Online.

Once you use it to buy, it's difficult to disregard it when selling. It doesn't account for options so it's best to use a combination of CAP and Autotrader when selling (if you list on AT of course)

Selling from the roadside requires a street-trading license from your council. Can you guess how easy it is to get one for selling cars?

NOOOOO I use CAP, swear by it, webuyanycar.com and tghe large auction houses also use it so it's more relevant than ever. Do not look at Parkers and don't always go for the so called Retail Back pricing because you might be missing out on profit.

No. The garage thinks Ignition Switch which I just ordered from Jeep. £38. Parts guy though said it's more likely to be some broken housing inside the steering column which holds the switch and that is £1040. My garage knows that I "don't do" £1040 for parts on old cars and they've said that if the problem is not in the actual ign switch they will wire a live wire to the relay, presumably fitting the car with an engine start/stop switch. Either way will be fixed by tomorrow.

This is my best ever month - not in terms of numbers sold but in terms of profit. 8 sold (13 advertised, several others in prep). The profit from 3 of my sales this month equals my "most units sold" month June 2014 when I sold 15. Some luck must be kicking-in along with some great auction and p/x purchases.

I somehow suspect that TrueTrade is neither True nor Trade. Respect to @Mark101 for his post though, a great start to a bleak Monday, the (TRUE) motor trade version of motivational speaking.

On more specialist stuff I always expect my buyers to know more than me because they should've done months of research compared to my hour or two at most. Tell the Pistonheaded muppets: I am sorry, I am not SELLING anything here, I am just here to give someone in the know an unrepeatable opportunity to buy it.

Before I started my business in 2005 I was a NEBOSH Certified Health and Safety assessor, securely employed by a growing private company, earning close to £30K a year before tax. I would never get back to that, if someone is doing a job they are not 100% happy with I always encourage them to jump into something else, just like I did. Car dealing is actually very easy to get into. Staying in it profitably is the hard bit.

Not the relay, we swapped it with another and no joy. To start it we removed it and shorted two of the relay connections with two screwdrivers. The diagnostic data shows the gear as Neutral while the actual selector is in Park so it has to be the selector position sensor as @MOTORS suggested. Image attached. And as I was dealing with this just got another p/x with an issue which was not there two days ago at appraisal. Diesel leak, the whole engine stinks, 2012 ML 350, done only 33K miles, just had a service (although I told the customer that he didn't have to do it). They've replaced the diesel filter, broke one of the plastic fuel return line connectors and superglued it back. Of course it didn't hold for long but it's right at the top of the engine and visible easily, the second photo shows it well. The customer will get £200 less (£19K car!) because of this, I told him to not use the same garage again

Will drop it off to the garage later and will tell them to check that first.

The mechanic has been at it over an hour, not the battery, not clamps, not the relays but it does look like there is a lot of corrosion around the wiring connector for the starter motor (fully exposed under the car). The starter actually works, it's the solenoid that doesn't get it's signal and everything now points towards a bad ignition switch. Must've known

Exactly. They make so little out of our funding facility it's not economical for them to provide it without the reciprocal business. I have a monthly target of around £11K finance deals (it varies month to month) and I average £25K in deals a month so they are very happy with me. While I can continue to exploit that relationship I will.