Nick M.K.

Absolutely, they remind me of Ryanair. At least at Ryanair my £33 goes much further...

As per the title: Why do some dealers put NOW SOLD on their adverts? I use a lot of photos and a customer will sometimes ask me to leave the advert running so they can still look at the pictures after they've left their deposit. On those cars I'll write Reserved. The only time I will write that a vehicle is sold is if I have a similar car still in stock or to use the ATs price indicators to my advantage if there is any. I've always thought that if you leave a car marked as SOLD you are just giving away too much information to your direct competitors and when they identify the good fast sellers they'll be bidding against you at the same auctions for the same stock.

I agree with you here, £66 for hours of my time which would usually earn me a lot more... BUT they charge money for this insurance product and it's just not right to "let it go" when I know that the customers I sell to don't "let go". P.S. My BCA Assured charges every month are around half of my AT bill, this is not pocket change.

I tried the rounded pricing for a couple of years. It works well up to £5K. For dearer cars we appeared in more searches BUT we didn't get as many leads. The consensus was that the rounded price appeared "made up" where as a price like £10885 appeared to be carefully calculated to the last pound which some buyers believe means we analysed the market to price to stock very accurately. One thing which I don't understand is this: Why would everyone still end their price in '95 like 90% of the stock out there, why not '94, '90 or even '85. You can beat thousands of offers of £3495 or £4995 for example and because most punters manage to chip a few pounds off the exact price is irrelevant.

I almost never rely on the BCA Assured reports, in fact if given the opportunity I'd much rather save the £33 per vehicle that they cost. This time the car was a very nice very low mileage Jag with tyre threads reported across each front tyre as 4mm, 4mm and 4mm. In the auction hall I would put my hand in the outer threads of the tyres and they did seem even better than 4mm. However the car failed it's MOT on "cords exposed" on inner part of the tyre where the thread was way below 1mm. This is what BCA assured wanted: 1) Photo evidence of the failed MOT (picture of the certificate as if they couldn't see it online) 2) 1 day later: Photo evidence of the low tyre threads 3) 2 days later: VIDEO evidence of me measuring the tyre thread depth (try making that video without a third hand) 4) A week later (I've chased them on the phone every step of the way): They said that because their report is wrong by approx 2mm they will contribute to the cost of each tyre by 25% (a new tyre has 8mm so they will pay the value of the 2mm depth error which on a £132 tyre works out at £33. 5) 10 days later I've heard nothing and had to chase them again, three calls today until they finally confirmed that they will make the payment and a cheque will be on the way. Their error costs me £264 (not including fitting or wheel alignment) and they will contribute a total of £66. At least my customer will now get brand new tyres and alignment. The hard earned £66 will just cover the cost of the "Assured" report and the next one...

I don't know if it makes any difference but when the IMDA was formed Mr Nothard worked for CAP/HPI and it makes a lot of sense for someone other than a dealer to be a part of the founding member group.

With a few very nice cars on any pitch a customer gets a lot of confidence when buying cheaper stuff. They then tell their mates how they bought their £5K Golf from "this top bloke that has a pitch full of RS6s, AMGs and M3s".

With the hugest respect for trade vet I disagree. A LOT of people wouldn't set foot in a main BMW dealer and will comfortably buy from an independent working from home without too much reservation. You absolutely have to be able to offer finance if you want to sell (more) expensive cars. You can do it from home, depends on your provider and their rep. If I were you I wouldn't start with 10K-20K cars. Start cheaper. Gain some traction, confidence, knowledge and experience dealing with comebacks. No comebacks on newer cars??? Oh yes, there are :-)

"Why traders sell cat D cars for same price like normal cars? I don't get it." This title should either be HOW traders sell cat D cars for same price like normal cars? OR Why customers buy cat D cars for same price like normal cars?

Bingo!

Brisk trading with some buyer optimism finally creeping into the used car market after a dysmal 2017 with the uncertainties surrounding Brexit and Diesel engines slowly easing at the back of buyer's minds. I also think Used picked up because New slowed down after the April 2017 tax hikes. Recent surge in fuel prices will further underline the economy of modern diesel vs petrol engines. Market for Electric and hybrid vehicles is strong but EVs in particular are still very expensive and niche while the charging facilities remain limited.

Find someone that does vinyl wrapping and fix it for £30 and half an hour. Everyone seems to want a black roof now :-)

+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.