EPV

I was looking for a wet n dry jobby mate! Thanks

Any recommendations? I’d love to have one of those Tornador things but i’d need a hefty compressor so, maybe one day. In the meanwhile i’ll have to suffer the old wet n dry. George seems a decent choice but anyone got any opinions to share?

Yes indeed, thread hijacked there sorry. To balance the equilibrium, my first punter came all the way from Taunton to but a C180 Estate. Brought his boy and a printout of “What cars list of things to check when buying a second hand car to make sure the elsibub Dealer doesn’t fuck over” guide. They spent days forensically examining the wiper blades before retiring to consider their verdict. They bought it, and the old boy even rang me 6 weeks later to see if I was around as he was passing and was going to drop in for a chin wag. Just nice people to deal with.

Luckily i’m just about on the right side of 40 and worked in construction for years so let’s just say I’ve seen plenty of bullshit and met a few pathological liars. Nothing surprises me about what people will lie about. I’ve got more respect for people who might say “I found you a rude obnoxious c*nt and it will be a cold day in hell that I spend my hard earned with you” at least you know where you stand. I had one enquiry last week that got cold feet 2 hours before the appointment (I rang just to make sure she was coming as she sounded vague at best) to be told she couldn’t make it but “maybe she will come next week” so I just asked her outright, are you still looking or have you found a car? To which she replied “well, erm, yes we have bought one” so why would you come and look at mine next week? Just speak the truth for fucks sake! I won’t lose any sleep!

I’m very likely to buy in a Golf GTI so lord help me. It’s had its belt and water pump done so i’m going to plaster that all over the ad to save anyone who looks at the advert a sleepless night. In other news I had my first no show today. Now god strike me down for saying this but I think she may have actually lied about her kids welfare to excuse her. 2 hours after the appointment she says she’s been in A&E for 4.5 hours with her daughter who fell and cracked her tooth. There are people who have had triple heart bypasses quicker. You can’t be too careful with head injuries and children but I can’t believe she didn’t look at her phone for over 3 hours. Rang no one, texted no one, didn’t go on Facebook telling the world about her offsprings accident, nothing. 2 mins i’ve been in this game and already i’m a cynical bastard.

Can I have your stock

Sold 3 Audi’s recently, all lovely people and left great reviews. I don’t believe certain cars attract twats. There are twats everywhere, sooner or later you will end up with one.

Surely if the vendors were cherry picking and avoiding the lemons, then every inspection be it AA or Surecheck would be a sweep of green across the board? I see some inspection reports that looks like a christmas tree, surely a vendor would know that it's a shed and as such, not bother putting on a mechanical check?

Spot on. I push all my work on to one garage, I don't send them endless headaches and as such I expect to be looked after. I don't expect anything illegal to be done just some common sense to be applied. It works both ways, I won't take a car in there with obvious problems and expect them to be happy when they have to write war and peace on the sheet

Wel Met, this kind of leads me on to another question I have. To date, i’ve always bought online and as such, have sought the relative comfort of the mechanical check that BCA do, it is what it is, nothing foolproof but something. This has always restricted me to only cars that have a mechanical check. Now, as I need to grow my stock level, I need to broaden my horizons and look at stuff that doesn’t have a mechanical check which means getting to auctions. Which is fine, now I have the time to do it. The question is; is it simply a case that vendors DONT put a mechanical check on a vehicle because they know full well it has an issue that will be shown up by an inspection? Or do some vendors not bother because it’s an added expense for them and hall buyers wouldn’t pay any attention to such an inspection anyway?

Ok this subject, sort of; Manheim vs BCA. I haven’t bought a thing from Manheim but i’m considering it. BCA have been fine but I’m struggling with buying from them lately so may as well try Manheim. Can’t be any worse. Or can it? What are people’s thoughts comparing the two?

I do everything I can not to stock diesels so it will be a bid in the nuts and an explanation why Alternatively I will say that I will offer them X price if they bring the car to my local garage and wait whilst an mot is carried out, if not, it’s Y price.

They exist! I had a young lad come all the way from Shropshire to me (Kent) to buy a Black Edition Audi. He’d paid a deposit on seeing the video and photos and was literally coming to pay the balance and drive off. The test drive confirmed his enthusiasm for the car and we drove into town to visit a bank to complete the financials as his online banking wasn’t working. I drove the car back and 30 years from my door the eml went on! I drove it straight round to my local garage and they plugged her in. Oil pressure switch was the guilty party. Punter was completely fine with all this, was happy to drive it home, take it to his local garage, get a quote and get it fixed and I would pay the bill. 2 days later it’s sorted and he left me a 5 star review. *30 yards*

If you are taking your cars to a garage that will fail a car AND keep it you’re using the wrong garage.

If your target audience is 1 year old cars I can see why leasing would affect you. But someone who wants to spend £4-5k on a Focus or £7-8k on a Mercedes won’t lease a Kia or Ford respectively just because the monthlies look nice.

I’m with Santander, no complaints

Maybe in your experience. Not in mine

No mate I don’t think they do.

I have a technique that avoids a lot of that, I won't give the game away completely but lets just say I rely on the expertise of others. I can't although I obviously do a full strength HPI check and ensure the seller doesn't have the log book shown in the advert. The way I look at private sellers, apart from those that aren't actually private sellers of course, is that if they have the time/patience/fortitude to advertise privately rather than shoving it on to WBAC/a n other then they are probably honest. Not many have the front to put a car up for sale knowing there's a huge bill looming, or that the car drives like a dog/smokes like a chimney. Generally people are reticent about face to face exposure with strangers and are worried they'll get scammed or ripped off somehow. If someone has a car that has known issues or a big bill looming then they will try and palm it off on a trader or WBAC because they feel OK about tucking up a rich car trader or big firm like WBAC. It's not always the case but I've bought 20 cars privately since the turn of the year, sold them all on and not had one screamer, apart from a bloke who moaned about the fuel consumption. Touch wood. I'm trying to get access to the good stock out there before people give up selling privately and just go to WBAC for a quiet life. I struggle to buy at BCA because of the prices, like everyone but I'll have to expand my net father now, as I'm giving it a go full time.

Not for me my friend. 4 per week with £750 margin avg and that will do me.

I'd be absolutely thrilled to do 4 cars per week, if you're averaging £750 per unit thats a tidy income and as least aggro as possible, taking on staff, valeters etc? I'm aiming to get to the level you're at and I will not be moving from that point!

May as well have been. Hayes, just up the road from southall. The walk back to the station was culturally enriching

A fair share of my stock comes from privates. Sooner or later I suppose I was bound to find one. Done all the usual Hpi checks, car was MOT’d 3 weeks ago. The seller sounded on the border of being iffy but I didn’t let my prejudice get the better of me despite him being named after a particular god. Not Jesus Christ. He picks me up from the station (not in the car I was interested in at my request as it’s a diesel and I want to see/hear a cold start) we chat, he’s an accountant, baby on the way. We arrive at the car, I check the oil cap, coolant, all fine. He starts it, no smoke, sounds a little on the rough side but it’s a 83,000 mile diesel, it won’t ever sound like a Prius on startup. I check the nearside front tyre. Slick. The opposite. Slick. I ask him if the tyres have been changed, as there’s no way that it passed an mot. He starts mumbling about the tyre place was supposed to do it, he didn’t take it for its mot, his friend did. I check the V5. Yellow slip missing, he says before i’ve had a chance to even look at it that he never got the name transferred to his name as he wasn’t planning to keep the car blah blah. I tell him at this point, you’re a trader aren’t you. No no, why would i lie, if I were a trader I would have said so. I said ok, let me rephrase that. I’m a trader, so I know what time it is. Just tell me the truth, I ain’t buying the car from you so you may as well tell me but he still denies it, saying he’s not. Luckily it’s only 3 hours of my life wasted but next time, I WILL let prejudice get in the way.

The term shed is often used as a tongue in cheek way to describe a wreck but on this occasion it’s most descriptive.

Nice to hear mate. Reading some of the chaps on here you’d think the world was ending