Pete CWC

" Using nothing more than crystal ball, ouijda board, rabbits foot and divining sticks.... " - This is the official Manheim SureCheck assessment procedure, right..?

When someone like the AA or RAC gets called to sort out a 'misfuelling', apparently they can't process the 'mixed' fuel themselves. They send the extracted fuel to refining specialists who can split it back out to petrol & diesel. This costs the AA / RAC / whoever quite a lot of money - so they charge the end customer handsomely for the privilege. A few years back I was chatting to the guy who runs one of those companies that offer "experience days" in the Northampton area where you can drive tanks and other military vehicles. He owned almost fifty different vehicles, all (unsurprisingly!) with truly lousy fuel consumption. I asked him how much he was spending each year to fuel them all and was stunned when he said "Actually, my fuel bill is zero"!! His vehicles tolerated running on mixed petrol & diesel, so he contacted the AA & RAC and told them he would take mixed fuel off their hands for free. It was a win-win for both sides - he got fuel for nothing and the AA / RAC got to dispose of their unwanted mixed fuel for no cost. If any of you were thinking about the many perks of using a Chieftain tank as your daily smoker, that might be useful knowledge. However do bear in mind that it probably won't pass the ULEZ emissions threshold...

The only criteria for the order of their list is "cars advertised" - so nothing to do with 'desirability' (other than the seller's desire to get shot of their car...!) However Cazana didn't bother to mention if they found them advertised in Autotrader, Gumtree, Ebay, Motors, or their local corner shop window - so who knows! Lower down the page is a breakdown of the colours on offer. Cazana seemed very surpised that there were as many white coloured cars for sale as black ones (21% each) - but I suppose this means someone looking for a niche could aim for the 3% of the market that doesn't want black, white, grey, red, silver or blue cars... LOL

Cazana have just published their list of the UK's "most popular advertised cars which are under 10 years old": https://cazana.com/uk/insights/the-top-20-most-popular-used-cars-in-2018 How many of these would really be on YOUR stocklist if they were 10 years old..?!?

Just saw a case about CRA 30-day rejection of a car that was reported in this month's Which Magazine. Punter buys car from dealer, but rapidly finds a "major electrical issue". He gets hold of previous owner who confirms it had same issues when he sold it to the dealer. I'm guessing the dealer didn't do a proper PDI, etc., so gives the punter a full refund. However punter then claims for his out-of-pocket 'consequential' expenses (garage repair attempts, car hire, insurance-related costs) but the dealer refuses. This goes to small claims court, dealer loses and has to stump up £1180. What makes this case a bit different is the judge found that because he felt the car was a "luxury model" the punter was entitled to expect "a higher standard than from other second-hand cars". So what kind of "luxury model" are we talking about? It was a Merc C180 estate, on a 52 plate, costing £2569..!! Now it seems the courts (and readers of Which Magazine) are going to expect 16 year old Mercs to be "of a higher standard than other second hand cars". Good luck with that....

Just spotted that a couple of different Jump Start packs are going on sale in "Middle of Lidl" offer on Thursday (8th Nov) - each priced at £39.99: https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/MiddleofLidl.htm?articleId=17619 https://www.lidl.co.uk/en/MiddleofLidl.htm?articleId=17621 I've got no idea if they are any good... but at that price (including a 3 year warranty) they might be worth a punt...

“I‎t ran the whole length of the showroom and managed to smash out the window” What they didn’t include is that as it jumped out the window, apparently it told the sales guy “I’ve got a few more to see, but I will let get back to you”....

And in today's news: https://www.am-online.com/news/dealer-news/2018/10/18/escaped-cow-causes-chaos-inside-arnold-clark-mazda-showroom Perhaps it was looking for a Pixo...?

And a gas mask..?

Three years ago there were plenty of 'scare stories' about hybrid & EV batteries - mainly about the supposedly short lifespan and (very real) high replacement costs. However during the last few years it's been shown that many of the worst case projections on 'useful lifespan' turned out to be very much on the pessimistic side. The cost of new lithium batteries has been dropping steadily, and there is now a thriving market for secondhand EV batteries which are repurposed for storage in renewable energy systems. The maximum demand from a normal house is vastly less than the load which even a Nissan Leaf puts on it's battery pack - so an EV pack doing that job is going to have a much easier job in it's 'second life', so there is strong demand there. Refurbishment services for EV batteries are now also appearing. The upshot is that people have much more confidence in their EV and Hybrid batteries, which in turn is reflected in the prices of these vehicles 'defying gravity'....

Is that an offical way to get her added on a V5? Or does it not work if she's "In the trade"....

One small note on polarising filters - they are available in two versions: "Linear" and "Circular". The Linear ones are cheaper (and are more effective at polarising) but they screw up the autofocus on pretty much every single modern camera. If you are trying to save a few quid, don't end up buying a Linear one by mistake...!

So the customers are entirely price driven... and the cars are really expensive to buy. This doesn't seem like a recipe for success... LOL

Anyone searching for jump start packs on Amazon will see a huge choice. You might be influenced by the product reviews, but the problem is whether or not many can be trusted. If you are not aware, there is a free website - www.fakespot.com - which uses a clever algorithm to analyse reviews for signs of "deception". You simply paste the URL of the Amazon product page into fakespot and it comes up with a 'Grade' for the reviews of that product. I'd say it's not infallible ... but it is very interesting to see how many products seem to have *very* high levels of fake reviews! (I'm assuming that some companies must be "buying" fake reviews to get more business as quickly as possible). Obviously fake reviews don't guarantee that a product really is bad, but I was going to buy a jumpstart pack on Amazon a few weeks ago, only to be put off because of Fakespot. Even if you don't fully trust such algorithms, it's quite good fun to try it out... :-)

Thanks for the feedback & advice guys. I've spent a LOT of time over the past couple of weeks trawling through the last few months of posts on this forum - and it's been a *very* worthwhile investment of my time. Many "interesting" personalities (!) here with very different experiences, approaches and locations, etc. There's just so much information here - from Nick's tips on taking fantastic photos his cars, Simon's very informative pre-sales videos, James' journey from part-to-full timer, BHM's opinions of VW buyers, and too many other people to list here. Oh, and of course that epic thread "poss selling price on 09 astra?" from Benji... :-) I'm hoping to follow a path from part to full time. At the moment I think I've got enough time to devote to the business if I limit myself to shifting just one or two cars per month from my driveway. At that level I can self-fund my stock. Currently I have the time (and attention to detail) to prep very thoroughly. However for - sadly - inevitable reasons I probably won't need stay part time for very many more months. Hopefully by time that happens I'll have a better idea if trading full time in this business is feasible for me. I suspect that initally finding a niche and learning how to work profitably within it will be very important as a first step. Nick's suggestion about the distance which buyers of small autos will travel is VERY interesting - especially as I'm only around 10 mins from Southampton Airport Parkway station. That type of car may well be my first purchase... So now I'm wondering if buyers of small automatics are as choosy about paint colours as the buyers of bigger / more prestige cars... Anyway, thanks for the welcome and very useful advice!

Yup... Here's another rookie looking to start out in the car sales business... Although I've not worked in the motor trade, in my teens I did start training as a mechanic - before life took me in a totally different direction (went from rebuilding engines to rebuilding computers!). That was three decades ago, but I've always done most of the servicing on the cars for my family, mopping minor scuff repairs, etc. Got made redundant last year - but can't really go back full time work as now I'm looking after my very elderly Dad (part time). Luckily my kids have grown up, mortgage is paid off, and I've got a decent amount of spare time so I want to give it go as a small scale doorstepper. The idea is to get some experience in the trade while keeping overheads to a minimum. No great ambitions to get rich or become the next Car Giant, probably only a couple of cars per month to begin with. Just want to *try* covering my basic household bills and (low) business costs - anything above that would be a bonus! However it will be done fully above board - trade insurance, plates, registered with HMRC, selling cars with PDIs, etc. This forum really is an absolutely bloody goldmine of info, allowing me to think through a plan which I'm hoping would be viable. I'm thinking of selling large non-German estate cars or maybe 4x4's as winter approaches. Prefer to sell for cash at around the £5k mark and hoping to clear around £700-800. Otherwise I might focus on small new-ish automatics, as I live in a city (Southampton). I'd set aside a bit from each sale to allow for comebacks or hidden gremlins, etc. and be happy to take in p/x if needed to seal a deal (and hopefully make a few quid from that side too). I'm willing to wait for a decent sale price rather than engage in a 'race to the bottom', as I'm not frightened by the idea of having a car stuck for several weeks. Sourcing decent stock at the right price is going to be the hardest part. I'll probably have to spend ages trawling private ads to begin with, but Blackbushe isn't too far away so I'll most likely be lurking there a few times to see how it all works. Might even raise my hand eventually, if I feel there could be a chance of some profit! :-) Fortunately I'm also aware that there is a 'search' function on the forum, so I'll try my best to avoid asking newbie questions which have been answered a dozen times already! Apologies for the overlong intro. Feel free to tell me why I'm doomed, being too unrealistic, etc... :-D Cheers! Pete.