Lazz

At their present profit per unit they do not have a sustainable business and if they carry on as they are, it will not be if they go out of buisness but when.

I would recommend self warrant and put the money in a pot, prep the cars right and you will be surprised how few comebacks you have and watch the pot grow, you’ll be surprised. I got fed up with the grief of dealing with warranty companies not wanting to pay, and I would not go back now, and you have the flexibility to look after customers.

Normally ask if you can deliver it.

I remember them days, drive to the local office take your number, wait your turn and someone would sort you out, sorted. Anything government related these days is a total shambles absolutely shocking but what choice do you have and they know that.

We presently subcontracting this work out and i am thinking of getting a employee trained up to do it so we can hopefully bring the cost down and have more control over how quickly we can get them done. Anybody have any experience of the courses available to learn this or can recommend any. I need something that will take someone from never picking up a spray gun(but is keen to learn) to someone who can do this job.

Oil and filter and MOT at the least and stops them taking it elsewhere and all the pain that can cause.

Realistically i would of thought that google or any of the tech giants could bury autotrader and the likes of if they want and i reckon its not if, but when. I think it is perhaps happening slowly anyway with the younger generation, when i asked my sons (early 20's) where they would search for a car they said google and had never heard of autotrader. Not sure if i will see it in whats left of my working life, but i do hope so.

would be nice to see a big player like that enter the market and shake it up. The likes of autotrader should be concerned if these type of players enter the market and i think they will, chasing the revenue, they certainly have the resources and know how to do it.

I use car dealer websites, easy enough people to deal with, maybe not the best looking websites out there but for the price you can't moan and will generate invoices etc if you set it up right. So in all i am very happy with them (i am not affiliated to them in any shape or form)

Thanks all for your input i advertise over autotrader/ebay/gumtree and motors and i have been finding ebay has been getting worse for leads to the point i am properly not going to bother renewing my contract with them and i suppose at £25 per month for someone else to upload everything instead of doing it manually has got to be worth it?

I don't advertise on facebook and i know some people have quite a good success rate with it, but do you do it all yourself or do you farm it out to a 3rd party to handle it for you and if so who ? Got plenty of time on my hands at the moment with being closed and am really just looking at all advertising platforms to make sure i am not missing a trick and am trying to bring myself up to date with everything.

I have looked at the likes of nextgear etc and by the time you look at all the fees etc it equated to something like the equivalent 10-12 flat which is quite a chunk, unless you have a decent cash buffer as well i can see how you can come a cropper if you are late/miss the repayment schedules overdrafts tend to be able to be pulled on a whim if the lender chooses and be prepared to justify your existence to them yearly if your running at your limit mostly. If i had to choose between the two i would go down the overdraft route as long as it's on decent terms but be prepared to sign personal guarantees.

The last person i had on the one i was selling wanted to take it another garage to partly dismantle the engine and check something obscure he had read on the internet, I told him he was having a laugh and the car was going nowhere, told him i did not piss around like this when i brought it, i just looked around paid the man and then drove of into the sunset which he did not take to kindly to and our conversation came to a abrupt end. Complete and utter space cadets, it was the most viewed car i had on the internet by a mile and generated some of the worst customers/dreamers i have had the misfortune to come across. Never again.

I take my hat of to the people who make a living out of that stuff, I had a modern classic advertised last year and the amount of dreamers and time wasters i had enquiring about it made me lose the will to live with that car. I don't have the patience with this type of customer. Took the car of the adverts and it sits in the corner gathering dust, when my times up the kids will be able to sell it as a barn find.

sounds like you may need cover adding for vehicles at business premises