Nick M.K.

Every "Thank you" card I've received has ended up costing me £200-£300 in goodwill repairs. I dread receiving the next one.

In a world where my bank charges me almost 1% to pay cash in why would I want anyone to pay me with their notes and then expect a 20% discount for the privilege. Thanks but no thanks. Give me a transfer any day.

Are you kidding? Of course. Best times ever :-) Buying for a grand. Selling on 7 day eBay auctions for two grand with free UK delivery in 2006 and six month tax thrown in. Back in the day BCA fee was maybe £60 for a £1000 car and tax was reasonably cheap on the old stuff I was selling. Didn't give warranty, even a 5 month MOT would do, didn't get any comebacks and had huge positive feedback. I loved selling Volvo V70s (the "Classic" shape). No easier buyer than a Volvo buyer in those years :-)

Because if we do the main forum will lose out on the sizeable amount of info we both contribute. I can't see why you did not find the AT forum useful. Everyone else that was regularly on there did. They were all pros, all wanting to learn even more.

You can't really view their buyers fees as a percentage of the hammer price but if you do then my latest purchase attracted far more acceptable 2.8% on a Gold account

The Autotrader forum was EXTREMELY good although it was a closed forum for whoever had an AT monthly package. Fresh blood could still come in (as long as they had an AT package) and were more than welcome there with all sorts of commercially sensitive info discussed openly. On this forum (just one example) I personally will NOT discuss my exact finance commission % or stocking terms because finance companies reps and the general public have open access to it.

I do deals like this often and try to be as diplomatic as possible while keeping things profitable. I'd ask the customer "how big of a loss can you live with" and some of them come up with a surprisingly large number. If they don't start with a number I will offer a bit over what I paid for it the first time round but if it needed a lot of adding value I will offer more. Nothing wrong in doing a deal like that, especially if it gives your customer an instant sale at a price higher than what they will get anywhere else. I wouldn't even clean the car as it comes back, will park it in our lock up, advertise it with the first set of photos and when the phones start ringing will give it a new full valet and a new full MOT.

It was Mark not me but if it was a cheap 07 car and they asked me nicely I would've given it a go as well :-) Retail price for keys from Merc (NO trade discounts on keys) is £240 but you can get it slightly cheaper (£30-40 less) if you don't need the metal emergency key insert.

12.

+1

13 in stock and advertised, 4 sold at the very beginning of the month, then nothing for a couple of weeks, then 3 sold and 1 possible (looking at finance options) on Saturday. Also managed to get away for a few days which was nice and managed to buy 4 at Blackbushe yesterday, some prices were crazy high, some very low. If I can sell another 3-4 until end of Aug I will have a very nice month.

I thought the exact same thing yesterday :-)

For a fiver I'd rather give that spare than not. For the Mercs, BMWs, Jaguars or the Audis that I stock the smart keys look nothing like the manual spare keys that I provide. The customers know they can't use them to start the car but if they lock themselves out (key locked in boot usually) they have a very easy way of getting back in. Also if you were to lose the original emergency blade "insert" from the smart keyfob (I've done it after a fob battery change at a garage, Jaguar charged £105 for a replacement!) at least you have another copied blade so the locksmith can easily cut an inexpensive chinese replacement of the key insert.

Great result!

Did you get the higher price James?

I have a mobile car locksmith that comes around every month or so and for all cars with 1 key makes me a manual spare key that can open the door but not start the car. Costs me £5 - £10 a key depending on the make.

This is what I do in part x deals with private plates: 1) As soon as we agree the deal I put their plate on retention (online system, not forms) and the customer either pays directly or I charge them the £80. 2) I charge the customer £100 refundable deposit. This is to ensure that they send me the new logbook for the p/x with the old age related plate. 2A) If the customer has haggled very hard for their p/x allowance I will also charge them £25 for a set of replacement number plates for the p/x car. I give them their private plates back if they want them. 3) I notify the DVLA of the keeper change of the new car (online system) so the customer receives their new V5 with the new doc ref number in that same week. The customer then does their own plate transfer OR they come in my office and I do it here for them OR I do it online with them on the phone giving me ref numbers. 4) The p/x logbook arrives and I refund them the £100 deposit. I will then use the online system to tell DVLA car is in trade (can also be done after step1).

When stuff like this happens it's not the exact amount that gets me, it's the fact that it was my own silly mistake in a game that I should know really well by now. I had a list of about 9 people to get back to (after a 5 day trip) but some of them were after the same cars. I have the feeling that when I turn up at Blackbushe to try and re-stock a bit tomorrow I won't even be able to get in the car park, never mind a winning bid or three.

Sounds almost like "My mechanic" doesn't it :-)

I read through some of the replies this morning but my curiosity got the better of me so I picked up the phone and called my customer. We chatted for a bit, I explained the small "discrepancy" to him, we laughed off my forgetfulness and he said he would be happy to "split the loss from my pricing error" and pay £11500 - "a drink for you, a drink for me". I told him because he was being an absolute gentleman about it I will be happy to deliver the car to him, add a bit of fuel, do a new valet just before delivery and will also surprise him with a couple of bottles of wine. To him the deal will end up being almost the same, to me it will feel like the "loss" was only £100... Lesson learnt :-)

As someone else also said my answer was very specific about a 20 year old car done 500,000 miles. 10 year old done 128K is a different deal altogether.

I am very confident (80-90%) for the simple reason that the CRA specifically allows for age AND mileage related wear and tear. A car is simply not meant to last 500,000 miles and while we may know differently the judge probably has around 70,000 in his head for high mileage and 200,000 for end of life. If they get a claim for losses suffered after the purchase of a 500,000 mile run-of-the-mill used car they will feel very annoyed and not towards the dealer.

So my day started at 2am at East Midlands Airport coming back from a short holiday, a few hours of sleep, then pre-booked car viewings all day (as soon as I go on holiday my phone starts ringing). 5 viewings today, one sold, one deposit, one maybe (will consider finance), one "talk to the wife" and one more deposit: a lovely old gent who came to see my Audi TT (from my post last week about Saturday "buyers"). He asked what the price was and what I can do for him, I said it's £11489, can't do much less, margins tight etc etc but I am happy to knock off the £89 if you leave a small deposit today and he did without trying to haggle more. The only problem is that after the people annoyed me previous Saturday with their lowball offer I increased my price from £11489 to £11700 and this would've been the price the old gent saw on Autotrader before he called me today. I'd just forgotten and I don't do price boards :-) The question is do I now ring him back to explain about the STUPID mistake and try to wriggle another £200 out of this deal or forget about it "lesson learnt", "take it on the chin" etc etc...

I too tried to join that Private chat and all I got was "I am away on holiday" autoreplies.

There is no need for you to pay as the £80 were payable by the customers anyway to put that plate on retention. In your case they will still pay the same £80 for a transfer from "your" p/x to their newer car after they receive their new logbook. Your only loss is adding another keeper on the p/x and some admin time and this loss doesn't concern the customer.