CCC

Arguably a thinning out of the market will help. Low interest rates are helping people enter the market and survive on lower profit margins than before.

Posh bucks market town. It’s topmwbd stuff that’s arguably getting beyond affordable. One we liked was £685 asking, dropped to £650, we bid at £625 at agents suggestion and was accepted, now being told they’ll take £610. That said a lot of asking prices are optimistic, so in reality they houses are losing money vs what was paid, they just haven’t appreciated as much as the owners thought.

From talking to mates who are in management there’s a lot of redundancies about to kick off in their firms, they’d held off hoping for a managed Brexit but with that looking unlikely it’s time to start cutting the cost base hard ahead as the downturn looks permanent. Seeing house prices tumbling round here too (SE) for mid/top end stuff.

My experience of chargebacks is that it doesn’t make a difference what card type, and the banks don’t have a dialogue with you they just do it. If your employer can’t afford £250 to refund what seems like a genuine situation where the customer has a right to a refund then I’d be looking for a new employer. Put yourself in his shoes, website says refundable and gives no conditions, why should he expect any issue? if it happened to me then I’d be doing chargeback plus writing to company MD directly with my complaint before following it up legally. Might cost me more than £250 but I take exception to being misled. Fortunately the writing to MD’s generally works, my son even got his iPhone replaced by Apple after local store told him he was out of warranty (they’d timed it from date ordered not collected)

Interesting to see Autotrader Shares being rated as a “sell” in the press this week. Rationale was that dealers had been squeezed as far as they could be and that they were now highly vulnerable to the downturn in the car market. Hard to argue with that. I wonder if their prices might soften to draw dealers back? Though I doubt it as they will now be trying to maintain turnover. Sometimes you need to consider what’s maintainable over the long term.

Interesting to see Autotrader Shares being rated as a “sell” in the press this week. Rationale was that dealers had been squeezed as far as they could be and that they were now highly vulnerable to the downturn in the car market. Hard to argue with that. I wonder if their prices might soften to draw dealers back? Though I doubt it as they will now be trying to maintain turnover. Sometimes you need to consider what’s maintainable over the long term.

^This. My guess is that finance makes up a big amount for some of the larger used operations? When the core product stops being the profit driver then its a dangerous business model to my mind.

Card payment recalls was a problem in my last business. Only about 5 per year and not big sums but the card companies just pulled the cash back without any discussion. General problem for us was customer forgetting the purchase when they got their statement 30 days after transaction. We could always prove order and receipt of goods by but they took the money back anyway. We just asked the customer to pay again to avoid us reporting them for fraud.

Think this was subject to a recall. I had CV joint problem on my S60 at about 3yrs and sure it was done for free but might have squeezed into warranty period. Mine made small noise when reversing.

Remain or Leave, I'd never trust a politician to negotiate on our behalf, nor trust the lies they told. I did a load of research before reaching my decision (I had way too much time on my hands at the time) and the general conclusions were: 1. None of the problems faced by the UK at the time of the election where the result of EU Membership (generally this as positive as many non EU companies set up European headquarters/manifacturing here due to a) Language b ) Time zone c ) Flexible labour laws, but where in fact due to lack of regional policies to boost employment/conditions outside the South East (as someone who grew up in Wales in the 80's the government did pour money into the region after the mines closed) whereas subsequent governments have failed to bring higher paying work, just McJobs generally. 2. Leaving the EU is not a patch on the ageing population as a factor which will both reduce economic activity (outside Care/Health provision) whilst requiring massive increases in tax/cuts in other government spending to meet care/health needs. In terms of no deal, I know people involved on the computerisation work needed for it to happen on the relevant Friday recently. A number of glitches were found to exist in systems two days proior so goods would not have been able to enter or leave the country on the date we were supposed to leave with no deal......and the guy in charge had a holiday booked for the day too. You couldn't make it up.

Had pondered this as the exchange rate slides. Got a brother in Canada so was thinking of looking for LHD stuff to export. And as you say, 25 yr rule helps. I think Skylines will be hitting this shortly, though all RHD I guess.

Might have someone fit it. PM’d you.

Good point on V5..I suspect it might not have been changed. It's a factory crate engine from what I know. Wasn't planning on paying above book, but wasn't sure if I should reduce it a bit as harder to shift? Don't seem to be many of 528i about.

New ancillaries from what I understand. I agree the suspension, etc. has done 78K so you'll still get the bills from a 78k. I guess the only person who'd really win is a high mileage driver who'll be able to stick 150k onto the car without much in the way of engine worries. I've not done any research on whether it's a known engine weakness, but as a rule of thumb I'd take a big unstressed engine over anything with 1 or 2 turbo's any day. I ran an old 328i which got to 200k miles and was only just run in emissions wise at that point.

A friend mentioned he's going into a company car soon, so will be selling his 78K mile, 11 plate 528i Saloon (annoyingly a 2.0 Twin turbo in reality, not the silky smooth 6 cylinder 2.8 engine). Mostly motorway miles. Seems perfect for our new stock profile, and I bumped into him on Saturday so asked if he's ordered the new car yet. Turns out the 5 series engine blew up on him (no technical details) so BMW have fitted a brand new engine, I can only assume this is because it's got full BMW service history and it's a known weakness? Anyway, the question is, how will the affect value? I'm wary it will scare off some buyers, though personally I'd think this is a good thing. As it's a friend I don't want to bid him in the balls, neither do I want to lose profit because I've overestimated the public's ability to see an opportunity. My gut feel is just to bid at standard book and see what happens? What would you do?

We've sold a number of cars for teenagers first cars (sell to one and they all come to you) but the problem is these are people who generally buy new/nearly new from main dealers. Buying a sub £2K car for them is a new experience, hence loads of random questions and a lot of issues with insurance quotes as many have no idea on insurance until they get a quote, and then the process becomes a lot more real as it's gone from £1800 to £3000 spend. Mileage is a big scare for them so I'd think yours would be perfect.

That goes for most businesses, which is a good reason to start part time to have some cash still coming in whilst you are losing (or should that be learning ). if it’s any consolation we’ve been through a similar learning curve.

Having same debate on a Mini Cooper. Electric windows and locking not working, short mot. But not sure if we want the hassle, might get it sign written and use it to encourage people to come to us for buying stuff.

I read the first few comments and thought this sounds like a business in desperate times, not a sustainable business model and low and behold I get down to this post. When your business is sustainable only with big volume and depends on sales of sundry items and finance you’re in trouble. Seen it loads of times before in all sectors. I fear for a lot of the new manufacturers and their dealers, in these times of ageing populations, climate change, squeezed incomes is the real solution bigger, more feature laden, increasingly expensive SUV style cars? Just like the UK supermarkets spent the 1990 to 2010 competing with bigger and bigger stores filled full of stuff we don’t need only to have their business and profitability ripped apart by Aldi, who offered sufficient choice, more convenience (smaller, more local stores) at cheaper prices, I reckon one day a manufacturer will do the same and offer a sufficient product at a cheap price and rip the ass out of a lot of new sales. Not a problem for a used independent dealer though, the money should be there to make in all times with the right stock profile

I've got two sets of MINI 5 Spokes (can't remember the official name) if you're interested in them? We'd bought them for this very purpose (tarting up Billy Basic Mini's) but after too many warranty issues over the last 6 months, I'm giving Mini's a swerve for the moment. Ironically that would suit a friend who's after a small car but they don't want a MINI due to reliability concerns which aren't an issue on the D (we've got one and love it, though 2 learner drivers in the family gave the clutch an early death). If you're interested in trading it PM me and I'll see if I can persuade them.

Not sure how it will pan out. I don’t like buying without trying if it’s for me (and wary of doing so for business as I don’t trust online auction prices from bca). Selling my mums old polo privately to friends and they insisted they both try it to see how they found it to drive which is sensible. my dads previous partner bought a Peugeot unseen and traded it after 9months as could never get comfortable driving it. I guess many will do so but only for those for whom cars are white goods of where they’ve driven the model before. i prefer them to come and see it. But I’m not the customer.

Not sure if this means times are tough or good. Getting an overdraft facility 5 yrs ago was a nightmare, though they have softened recently. I used to be a top rated lloyds account business in previous firm but couldn’t get the rate below 7%, yet bank rate at 0.5%, no wonder they are keen to lend at 9%, that’s an easy way to make money (as long as they get it back).

Our longstanding Cooper S did this to us. Got all the known issues fixed and sold it (insignia guy). It then throws an engine management light within a week. Bit of diagnosis and it only does it when left idling for a few minutes and shows as misfire plug 1. Put new plugs, coil and leads on it with no change. Now booked into our local guy to go to next stage (injectors?). Goes like a train and guy loves it so a bit unsure what to do if we can’t solve it. He’s even bought his own reader to kill the light.

This. Fighting it in court will cost you a lot of money on top of costs of repair. My guess would be snapped cambelt or chain, unless you’ve got proof it was done.

We signed up to AA as a means of giving some re-assurance to customers when we started up. Not many customers seemed to care and I don’t think we need it now. Gave notice to end contract as soon as we could.