Contracts

HPI clear, NMR correct, DVLA MOT history correct (showing just over 20k on first MOT). Guessing it had a clean 50k wiped off.

Shut the Christmas week but various people get phones diverted to them. Last year was quite busy for us for some reason

How many of you are doing full mileage and history checks on cars you are taking in PX? We have a nice year old 3 series for sale at a good price and agreed a deal with a chap who came in yesterday. He had a 2011 62k 3 Series that had all the right bits, MOT history looked good, all BMW stamps in the history, no obvious wear but it seemed over serviced as it had 6 BMW stamps in the book. A quick call to the dealer in the book, what a surprise, never seen the car but it had been in other dealers at 19k, 38k, 49k and 67k with the last being in 2014. Clearly clocked before first MOT and pre filled service book purchased from e-bay. Nearly a costly mistake, when I pointed it out I could tell he knew!

Not had the sub £1000 end of the Picanto market but have traded a few sub four year old ones for crazy money. Put one of the last old shape 17 plates on Trademail earlier in the year and had Kia dealers fighting for it. As for November sales, high end seems good, £15k-£30k is like tumbleweed apart from a couple of Evoques. Have also had a go with some older out of manufactures warranty stuff but not a sniff.

Sold an Evoque Dynamic Convertible today, it’s orange and looks like a lifeboat!

Roll of thick tape, furry handcuffs, and a couple of porn DVD’s in the side compartment of an ex rental BMW stands out but mainly scratched CD’s, dodgy glasses and the odd pen.

Guess it depends on what price point you are buying. We get quite a few PX cars in and we have different traders who will bid depending on the value but they tend to cover us for these groups (£15-30k, £9-15k and £3-9k). Anything under goes on e-bay. Last week I sold the 3 sub £1000 cars we have accumulated to a chap who sends them to Nigeria. He mentioned he buys about 15 cars a week and I assume he is not alone in this which must take a good number of bangers out the market. In answer to your original point, The online remarketing sites don’t have the high charges of the main auction houses which must be reflected slightly in the values.

Sorry guys, head above the parapet but this is a business we are in, PCH, 3 up front then 23 months at £££ with 8k miles per year. Has been a market changer with lots of private people swapping from older cars and PCP’s over the last couple of years but in reality the promotional offers have not really been as good this year. One example 18 months ago was a new Golf GTI 5dr, £2000 down, £79.99 per month for two years then hand it back. Restrictions are 8,000 miles per year and you need to add VAT but ideal for someone on monthly payments. I think the Golf R promotion was the game changer as it was £500 down then £175 a month, hence all the Lapis blue basic Golf R’s in the block last year. Sadly so many people live on this benchmark and no one can repeat it. As a quick heads up, there are hundreds of year old Discovery Sport Black Editions coming off a one year promotion at the moment and they are heading south of £30k trade.

Have not claimed one a Kia warranty for a while but they have strict criteria for servicing and the warranty used to tier down as the car got older. Having said that had anyone tried to claim on Vauxhall lately? They want DNA

We have our own drivers plus a local plate company but use Movex for shorter notice and transported stuff but advic is always check the companies due to a couple of dodgy experiences. One was a car in transit 3 days and the nice transporter driver did some repairs for us that he thought he caused when driving it (when he should not have been).

Have sold a few T6’s to people who are getting conversions done. They haggle the last penny out the van price then send it to a converter who often ups their original quote and bolts on a few extras halfway through the conversion. Did a California last week, SOR but still £40k for a 15/15. Blokes wife was not as amused, something about staying in a hotel and not looking like a builder the rest of the time.

Have got advisories on my weekend car for “oil leak”. Strange as it has a service and MOT every Year at the same main dealer. When asked why the oil leak did not need a warranty repair I was very sheepishly told it was a mistake made in the service.... same garage also think 4mm is an advisory for close to legal limit.

Last week I had a call on a Nissan GTR and was asked if it has nitrogen or air in the tyres? I said I assumed nitrogen as it had the green valve caps but assuming was not good enough for this chap. He seemed to get more angry as he was asking me questions I had no idea about, diff pressure and temperatures, previous launches etc and asked me to call him back once “I knew what I was selling”. I guess he is still waiting for a call back as I traded the car onto a specialist Friday which was probably for the best as I was also dreading test drives.

We had our Autotrader account hacked a few years ago and phantom cars and prices put on. In the several hours until it was sorted we had about 50 calls and several people turned up expecting a 2 year old Evoque for £8k etc.

Not totally sure how the MOT system works at the test station but I thought the tester enters the VRM and then should check the VIN against what is displayed? Could be they have entered a similar reg which happens to be an Auris? Chances are a call to the 2nd garage and they won’t recognise the registration.

AM Vantage sidelights are the same, led fails and that will be £1600 + VAT please for a night headlight assembly however I now here someone can repair them for less than half that.

We have done loads of new hybrids over the past coupe of years as the CO2 is often 49 which is great for company car end users. (I have run 330e’s since April 16 and save about £300 a month in BIK). As mentioned these cars would be useless come WLTP testing and no good for their target market as the Emmisions rating would be too high. Used sales is a slightly different story as the general public seem scarred of the future reliability however since BMW shut the order books and pre registered all their stock in August we have sold 5 or 6 under 9 month old Shadow Editions to SME’s. On the other hand we had to fight out of a 16 plate M-Sport as there are a lot floating around that come back from the 2 year subsided lease deal in 2016 not to mention the supermarkets selling below CAP.

Hopefully it’s not just me that checks out sellers by address / Linkedin. We don’t but many private cars but when we do they are normally under 2 years old. Only ever once had to walk away as most private sellers seem genuine.

Yes, a quick polite call to say it had been sold. He was a little off but I pointed out I did offer the option to hold the car. Has also asked me to call him if we get another one soon.

I keep getting told renting is the future.

Had something similar on a high spec 17 plate Volvo XC90 last week, couple came to view it Monday, spent over an hour checking everything worked despite the car just coming back from a Volvo service and being under warranty. They would not leave a deposit but would take the car if their friend said the paintwork was OK but he could not get out until Wednesday. Come Wednesday their friend turns up and I let him check over the car with a paint micrometer. As expected everything was OK and the buyer called to say they would come Friday “to negotiate” therefore would not leave a deposit. Less than 20 minutes later I took a call from a chap in London, car is exactly what he wants, air suspension etc and could I meet him at the station in 2 hours in the view to driving away. 2 hours later, met him, he did not even want to drive back, he had s quick walk around, handshake, balance transferred in full, taxed, call to insurers and on his way. if only all buyers were that easy

We have run a few and they have been hard to shift with anything over average annual mileage or without A/C. A few cars had a characteristic (VW’s words) drivetrain noise and sometimes won’t go into 1st gear unless stationary.

Someone suggested to me the other day I should be buying up a few LHD classics and sports cars ready for the pound to collapse and sell them for export.

We are more a leasing company than used car dealer so like all our competitors we use social media to promote offers but the conversion rate is low and it does attract some odd characters. We have noticed that some people just seem to want to troll companies as one chap last week asked a question about a lease offer, it was politely answered but he was not happy with the answer so responded with a message back with pretty much every swear word possible. The shame is about 30 of his friends liked and made comments of support.

Not normally open weekends but as it was swap over day today for people having new reg cars I went in and even took a phone deposit on a used 4 Series. Will worry about advertising the PX cars Monday.