EPV

Thanks mate. I do exactly the same as him and point out every scratch and chip. It hasn’t stopped me selling either but I just think if I stock something that is around the £10k mark then people may expect more and if I can make the unit more appealing to as many people as I can, then that’s what I should be doing. Useful advice thanks.

Yeah I was thinking more about joe public mate, whom you’re selling the car too.

None at all? I wouldn’t touch that personally. 99% of people would walk away from a car that has zero service history, even if you put a full one on yourself.

I do have a machine polisher and compound and i’m not averse to having a go, as it were. I understand the principle behind paintwork correction, wet sanding, compounding etc. Part of it is having the time, I’m still a part time trader. So it would just be useful to be able to shove it on to someone and pay for convenience. When i’m full time i’d love to get into prep myself. Paintwork, brakes, basic servicing etc.

My rule of thumb is generally to hand pick cars to the extent I don’t need any paint prep, to keep the timescales down from purchase to sale. That’s fine if I can afford to be fussy but the larger my forecourt grows the more likely it will be I will need to take on stock that needs paint prep. I know next to zero about what can be done without repainting the full panel and what can’t. There’s a couple of body shops near me which i’ll have to work a relationship up with but as ever this forum will be a font of knowledge. What sort of paint prep works do you lot usually have done? Obviously not much on a 10 year old 80,000 mile car but a 3 year old Car with 20,000 miles on will attract a certain level of expectation. Do bodyshops do touch ins? Which I assume relates to stone chips, door edge chips and short deep scratches? Obviously faint scratches (that don’t catch your fingernail) will polish out, will a body shop undertake this or would I need a car detailer to machine polish? I know bumper scuffs, long deep scratches etc will need a spray, it’s just for the less severe stuff, almost the stuff that people could DIY themselves if they wanted to. What sort of prices would be a decent gauge? £180 per panel for a respray? What about a few touch ins and a light machine polish on a couple of panels? Muchos Gracias

Sorry I don’t think I explained myself well. As you say most people are goldfish, especially the millennial and faced with a large paragraph of text will not grab their attention. So a shorter paragraph of text, will grab their attention and engage them in clicking “see more” to read the rest of your advert.

Every little helps!

I actually don't mind it, one of my biggest gripes to AT about their full page ad was that you are instantly hit with a wall of text, it's like opening war and peace. I think it looks cumbersome. So the fact they force someone to read the first few lines of text and then open the rest, gets people interested and engaged on your ad.

What's everyone's opinion on them? I don't mean sky high, something along the lines of 5 owners on a 2008, 89,000 BMW 330i, last owner having had the car for 4 years etc. In your lengthy experience, would lots of people be put off from buying such a car? I trend to look at an average, 2 years per owner seems reasonable but that's just me, what is your perception of what joe punter thinks?

They’re rare as mate and sold within 6 days of me having it up, plus 3 calls on it just after I took a deposit. So rare and very desirable. Its a decent thought, i’ll have to see how it goes when he rings next. Part of me thinks “fuck it i’ll sell it easy” but part off me thinks if that’s what he’s angling at in a roundabout way then why give it to him? Will see what happens! Cheers for the advice mate. I don’t mind the black and white scenarios it’s just this one was a bit unusual.

I haven’t said anything because it’s irrelevant to this discussion as i’m small fry but it’s £587+ VAT for 7 cars.

Yes mate I realise what he part exchanged is my responsibilty to check, hence why I said I have no legal recourse but when someone is crying to me about something like MPG and they have knowingly offloaded a bucket to me, it gives me the satisfaction of taking the moral high ground, even if just in my head It's ironic, as when I asked him why he was looking to get out of the car he had just spent £900 on having the injectors replaced (the Mondeo) his response was "I don't want another diesel, I'm finished with them"

Arthur’s in the sun somewhere, annoying the Spanish

I’ve no intention of doing that, besides it was serviced just before I sold it. 90% of the time I MOT a car, oil and filter service and properly worded PDI. I have no doubt i’m 100% covered in that respect it was just me wondering what others would do in my shoes, especially when i’m trying to build a rep. The consensus is jog him on which is what I will do but not before i’ve let him conduct a manual test which will hopefully prove the reading from the OBC is within a reasonable range of the actual mpg. After i’ve let him say his piece i’m going to advise him to modify his driving style which may see an improvement in his consumption and beyond that, I can’t see there’s anything else I can do. Above all else, he left me with a mondeo in chop that has a horrible idling issue at cold, runs fine when hot. Obviously that escaped his mind when he drove it all the way from Essex (thus making the car piping hot) and proudly told me he’d just spent a fiver having the outside of the car washed (with a coal sack and a chisel by the look of it) I’m tempted to remind him of that if he starts getting lairy, I know I have no legal recourse but I can at least take the moral high ground.

Show off

He was/is a genuinely pleasant bloke to deal with, i’ve worked with a couple of jocks in a past life and never had a bad word to say about any of them. Paddies, welsh etc all the same. Australians though, well that’s another story. Anyway, he was definitely of the stereotype and tight as a ducks arse so it is probably buyers remorse kicking in.

Thanks mate, having reflected overnight and taken all your good advice on board I will as BHM says, tell him politely to fuck off with an explanation of how so many factors affect fuel consumption and if he still bleats on, I will tell him impolitely to fuck off.

Oh don’t worry I’m prepared! i’ve turned the phone off. I ain’t silly.

He’s a jock so it could be reading Glaswegian gallons which are bottomless apparently

Yes, I have a PDI, signed by him etc. MOT was done on the 6th Jan. It's not so much what he's entitled to etc, it's more a case of what is fair an reasonable and keeps customers happy without dancing to his tune. He was rabbling on about taking it to a main dealer and re-calibrating the OBC ffs.

He's probably doing a bit of urban, combined with the odd dual lane carriageway, 50mph type thing. Knowing where he lives and works, as he only uses it to get to work.

Sold a 2009 petrol 2.0 VW Passat DSG Highline to a chap and his wife 4 weeks ago. Just took a call from him, stating he was very unhappy. Here we go I thought, gearbox time.. Nope. Apparently he can't get the OBC to read above 22.7 MPG. When he test drove the car it was showing 36.1 (not that it makes any difference but I let him continue) so he's adamant something is definitely wrong. When he arrived to first look at the car, he brought his own DIY diagnostic machine. I let him plug it in, I had nothing to hide but it probably should have given me a clue as to what I was dealing with. But he was pleasant enough and didn't haggle on the price, just left me his shitter of a Mondeo in chop. Anyway, I asked him to brim the tank, record how much he paid per litre and drive it to near fumes so we can check what he is actually getting in real world, to determine whether it's the OBC or something else. So, in preparation for his call in a week, what would you be thinking in this situation? I want to be prepared to deal with him professionally and properly but this isn't as easy to resolve as a knocking suspension part (black and white case of me fixing the car end of) and is based on so many variable of what ifs.

Fortunately for me I don’t have to rely on other people to tell me what’s working (in their opinion) or rely on the public’s memory as I can just pop onto my portal on AT and the call logging service that eBay MP provide and see where my calls are coming from. It’s really useful for me as I can see what advertising is expensive and what’s not! I don’t think it’s about resolving the debate Noacross, what works for you works and same for me.

Thanks mate. I have a £12k limit on one Amex, a £20k limit on another and a £9k limit on a barclaycard. I have access to a credit line I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t leaving myself open to a problem down the line. My accountant confirmed what you have said so that is the way I will go I think.

That’s sort of my point mate. There is no point in keeping track of such a thing. The probability is that AT will “win” because it has a larger audience, larger customer base so in all probability it will “win” the poll. Does it mean its right for you? Perhaps! But you won’t learn that from a poll of a handful of dealers.