Nick M.K.

+1

I bought a red 2009 Audi TT on Monday. CAP Clean £6600, hammer price £5600, sold. The car came from a large dealer group and I assumed it was just a very clean p/x. I put the reg number in Google and found a current advert for it on Motors.co.uk for £8000 by a branch of the same national dealer group (Cambria, branch was Bury Motors). The Audi came with full history and just before being offered for sale it had new discs and pads all round, new service, new cambelt kit and water pump. The internal invoice by that same dealership was for over £800 and less than 2 months ago. I assume the car was for sale around 45 days then shipped to the block and sold to the first bidder with half-decent bid. But what was the point?? After they've done all this prep why not leave the vehicle for sale a bit longer so they make some money out of it? All they will do is get another part ex or direct-buy and spend ££££ on it. Why not leave the prepared and ready car for sale a bit longer... What does everyone think about slightly overage stock?

The paid advertising always worked better for me. Don't get me wrong Justin, I've got a tremendous reputation and I am a victim of it. £885 for a DSG Clutch last week, £600 for a used Hyundai diff this week, £200 (yes, new gas R1234YF) for a BMW i3 aircon re-gas at 3 years old and a hundred other things you can think of that always get sorted for my customers. I've got great reviews, people read them and travel (many miles) and buy but if they were all local I'd been bankrupt by now.

The more miles between you and your buyer the less chance there is of you getting an actual comeback. You need a couple of legal disclaimers on your invoice that demand the vehicle to be returned to you for any work and that's it. Something along these lines: "I have been informed and I understand that I am fully responsible to return the vehicle to the seller's premises for any statutory repair work or in the event that I wish to exercise my statutory right to reject the vehicle."

You'd be amazed how far some people will travel to save £50. I sold a cheapie Honda Jazz on Sunday to a couple from about 40 miles away, they came in a Uber, showed me their Uber receipt (£80) and asked if I can reduce my price by it. I couldn't but gave them £30 off for asking nicely.

Something I would never know if it wasn't for the forum. My dad owned a poo-brown Dacia in the communist late eighties and it scared me off the brand for good :-)

You can sell anything but the question is how much value do you want to add to it? You can spend £0 and earn little to nothing or as you point out you can spend £££ to earn ££££ I bought a very clean car yesterday afternoon at BCA. £1500 behind book. I can sell it today if I want BUT I am about to service it, MOT it, alloy wheels refurbed (they are very good but I will change the colour), 2 x tyres, chrome trim de-chromed, driver's seat side bolster refurbed, rear pads (and possibly discs) and whatever else my MOT tester says. Then it will get a 2 hours photo session and I will spend another few hours to advertise it to show on 5 different advertising platforms with a 2000 word ad listing every important option fitted. Can you guess the model: It has a B&W audio system? Needless to say I will want a fair chunk of profit after all the work is completed and some people will be very happy to re-sell it just as it is and they can. But not for as much as what I will want.

Works for me and what I also do is reschuffle my pictures and it can appear as a new stock unit (we don't display number plates - this is a MUST!) I can't say if it works on a £2K car but it does on one that was £10500 and is now up at £11200. Also, when you have 3 similar vehicles and sell one you can comfortably increase the price of the two that are still in stock and put on AT's attention grabber on the sold car something like, "Thank you now sold" (this isn't a good idea every time though). You can always put a "Thank you now sold" on a car that you still have just in case it makes someone looking at your advert every day to finally pick up the phone and call you. No point trying that on a £1K car :-) Some of you WILL question the morality or the transparency in all of the above but this is a very dynamic marketplace with multiple factors at play and if your pricing is "non-dynamic" it will ultimately cost you. Bought any Ryanair tickets lately???

Except working with family do you think dealing with USED cars is best done on your own or with a partner?

Good to know in a forum like this :-) Don't want to make some blunder now.

Go on Umesh, gives your best & worst...

Hi James, I just saw your PM, I am new to this forum and not used to checking for PMs. I sent you my number to get in touch. Hi, I saw it on another post so have to ask: Is it Justina 3 or Justin A3?

1 Friday £17000 3 Sunday £21000 between the 3 1 Today £11150 and bought 3 today at BCA at nice low prices for once. Stock of around 15.

Exactly the same even though we are appointments only. Saturday buyers all want to arrive at 11am with a list of 15 cars to see this weekend. Sunday buyers are so tired after the 15-car-Saturday and are much more willing to deal. 10 sales this month (15 stock), 3 of them yesterday on Sun.

Best decision: get a stocking facility and move away from the £3995 price point. Second best: get a much cheaper stocking facility a year later. Worst: Quitting my full time job (Health & Safety, didn't enjoy it) in 2006 instead of 2005 when I first decided I want to deal in cars.

Might be easy to buy him out in a couple of years Rory. One of those £1 take-overs.

I always click on the log in screen. Username: F***! Password: Youuuuuuuuuu They will receive it eventually.

Agree with the clutch pack issues, we always look at the mechatronic first but bang into reverse, cangarooing in first with no throttle and a fault code for "Unexpected Mechanical Disengagement" points at the clutch. I would list it for sale with 3 months in house warranty and hope for an eastern european buyer. They generally love Skodas and you won't get a come back for something minor. If it breaks - give them the money back.

Hi Simon, yes it didn't take long, I've had a couple of very busy months but still have a few spare hours in the week for "forum time" :-)

As Rory, we use Lawgistics PDI which is completed in house following service + MOT or by the garage (independent) if they did service only. Sometimes I will re-sell a very cheap p/x in which case I complete the Lawgistics PDI following a new MOT but on the sheet advise that most items need attention even if they don't. I do this purely to make sure that if a customer expects perfection for £600-£700 they walk away.

Hi Rory and Andrew, everything is good, thanks, any legal (or other) trouble - I hope I can help.

Just to say hello, Some of you will know me personally or from the defunct AT forum, was hoping to see some of you at CDX but could not make it this year, will keep an eye on this forum, looks like it's a very popular and lively platform. Nick Kumchev