Nick M.K.

My advice: You are more likely to succeed starting an airline than to create a new e-commerce platform for car sales. I do wish you luck though.

Autotrader works absolutely superbly. You don't have to be top of the page. It's the best investment a car dealer can make, a single advertising platform that works and that is reassuringly expensive so it deters some bargain hunters but more importantly it deters a lot of bargain basement offers. Costs me £12K a year (I must have fewer cars than you) and these £12K are the only reason I even have a business. I also advertise on eBay Classifieds and Motors.co.uk and CarGurus have put me back on their free package after I cancelled my paid pack. eBay 1,2 a month Motors 1 every couple of months Car Gurus 2 in a year. Stock of 14 and around 9-10 sales a month, most from AT. And not cheap.

This was my exact line of thinking. Buy a couple of accessories on ebay and something from a DIY store and "over-engineer" a solution.

Auctioneers get familiar with a few dealer faces over the years and it's only natural to want to knock the car down to a friendly dealer who you've chatted to for years...

"it's still YOUR bid SIR, the one before was the lady standing right next to you"

The chap in Blackbushe Hall 2 standing nearest the exit doors, always doing UKCG Select and usually starting the bidding from Cap Clean.

I've never heard the BCA Account and the FCA reg to be done in the same month. EVEN if FCA give you a reg number you'll struggle to find a finance company that will consider working with you with no existing trading. They are terrified by new small dealers because you can do several false applications, take the money and disappear.

Everything is in the catalogue in this Live On Line day and age but the beginning and the very end is when you can nab a bargain. Oh and 11:30-11:45 in the slowest of the three halls which changes day to day and sale to sale.

The Blackhorse section at Blackbushe yesterday looked like the Geneva motor show a few years ago. Lines of gleaming Range Rovers, Mercs, BMWs, Audis and Jaguars, some of them in really good condition, no doubt recently prepped to death by the supplying dealers. A car is a car, whether they make their payments or not. Also with PCP they are not all repos. They are just cars that the last owner didn't pay the balloon on.

You know how I always say Fortune favours the brave... I retract it after reading your post :-)

This is describing accurately approx 30% of my potential customers. Depending on the amount of tolerance and patience I have left in me some of them do buy. "Why are you selling it?" is by far my favourite question

My words to him exactly. I've walked around 4km in the auction yard yesterday, James must've done more.

One delivered yesterday early morning and should* be paid on Wed. I guess I'll have to count it towards October. *long story. When the dust settles I'll do a separate post on this one deal.

I was there with him and it was nice to meet in person. I bought one in the afternoon and bid on a dozen others with no luck, James stayed another couple of hours and bought a very late bargain. He is probably still on the M25 on the way back. Mine seemed a decent buy at just over £7K, we'll see: https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201810011052642

You can't really be quite active in a public forum where everyone knows your website and keep the market to yourself :-)

DON'T bid online in that section unless you need it for parts of course. If you do you are far braver than me.

I use the NoCo as featured in the video above and it's ideal because it's super light and you can charge it in a car on the way to collecting another car :-)

For years we were based very close to CarGiant in West London, we got at least 2-3 sales every month to people that were told they could only buy there on finance or made to wait 5-6 hours until the car underwent "final preparation". They would lose patience, find us online and sometimes even arrived on foot If it was me I'd haggle for a finance deal "don't care how high your interest is as long as you get me approved", then cancel the finance in 10 days and pay it in full to the finance co. People don't know that they can do this and even after they read it on this forum still wouldn't be sure if it's OK to do.

Where is @EPV when you need him. That's his neck of the woods also.

I DID get it cheap, maybe not as cheap as the underbidder would've wanted if the eml came on but the alloy wheels looked horrible in DIY black with scuffed edges. 48 hours later it was unrecognizable, I'll try and attach a photo...

I'll see your cheap fix and I'll raise you! Drove a 2013 TT TFSI that I bought a couple of days ago on the A40 and got traction control light, Stabilization failure message, EPC light and engine management. Car drove well, maybe slight lack of power. My Snap on showed "Mass Airflow sensor signal implausible" and also in Brake electronics: "Fault code stored in engine control module". Yes, the MAF electrical connector was loose, almost off. My guess: someone at BCA partially unplugged it hoping to trigger EML and to get a bargain. 3 seconds labour to fix, no parts needed! By the way that 2009 CLC I emailed you about a while ago did indeed have some oil ingress from the Cam adjuster magnets wiring all the way to the plug for the engine ECU. Another cheap fix, upgraded the cable connections for around £30 and a good clean of the plug.

How are they going to fill up all the forecourts, compounds and pitches then? The finance companies provide very low interest stocking loans and they need the finance business in return. Having thousands of cars and "only" making the 5-10 percent (I've heard of 12!) on finance commission is a valid business strategy. I don't envy the "cash buyers with no part exchange and no need for add ons" looking for a great deal. They probably get laughed out of showrooms...

I am glad for the OP for this outcome but I personally think I'll never want to take a customer to court over his p/x... To me the very idea that they sell to us at rock bottom trade price (don't tell me you pay more) is enough of a penalty for them, even if gets them out of a vehicle with a few issues... The fact that "there is no comeback for me as a trade buyer" is something I use very heavily in my p/x negotiations and I wouldn't really want to lose that card for the sake of a court payout or two. Also, just imagine a review: "Dear Nick, thank you for selling me a nice car, I wish you didn't take me to court over the quality of my trade-in after we agreed a low price and shook hands, in hindsight I should've given it to WBAC, although they pay slightly less at least they don't take sellers to court". And just a reminder as if we can ever forget: (retail) buyers are liars anyway.

eBay. Every year I think of stopping it (£175pm for 20-25 cars), then I do one very juicy sale resulting from it and I keep it :-)

Simon's? All of them. It's in his video. Mine? I make them look at the documents as soon as they mention Test Drive. I keep them on my desk for a few minutes and look at them looking at the docs. If they don't like a gap in a service book or something similar (the surname of the previous owner) we sometimes save the test drive time.