MJG50

Great post Dave, that sounds a brilliant set up When I first started over 20 years ago, I used to buy prestige privately. It makes such a difference that you can drive the car before buying. Up til a few years ago though, I was fairly lucky with prestige auction purchases in that there were only minor faults that the workshop I've used for years could mend. More recently though, I'm finding major headaches with auction prestige purchases (I have one at the moment which I'll write a new post on later - it's possibly a prime example of something that might cost me a fortune to repair yet I'm sure Dave could repair relatively cheaply) and the workshop I've used for years has got a lot bigger and hence charges me a lot more. This is no doubt also because I'm now very low volume, I'm putting much less work their way. I've even considered going mainstream to save the big prep costs but even mainstream stuff can need a lot of prep and I've said before with the number I'm turning over, making £500 a car isn't worth the effort or risk. In a nutshell, I thought I found my niche with rare prestige stuff but I need to be realistic and ask myself is it still working for me. I have looked at a few private prestige cars this year but all needed work which the seller supposedly didn't even know about and all the sellers have been unrealistic in their pricing. But I really like the idea of buying prestige privately. There is the age old problem though that quite a few 'private' sales I recognise as cars that went through the block a few weeks earlier!

Great post Dave, particularly the 'I'd much rather do 10 cars with 3k + in them, than do 30 Cars with £500 across them ' line. I couldn't agree more These days though, I'm finding a 3k margin nigh on impossible whereas it certainly wasn't 10 years ago! I know what you mean about not needing to earn a fortune, I'm only part time now so it almost feels like a hobby in a way. I'd struggle to buy a lot at the block even if I wanted to as the vast majority of stuff makes more than I want to pay! The workshop I've used for years was really good but these days everything is so tech heavy, that I often end up having to go to a main dealer to get things checked out - something I swore I'd never do years ago! Like this

I've had a few nightmares with mileage discrepancies over the years. It's really annoying when you buy a car at the block, do an HPi check and it comes up with some daft discrepancy where someone has put in 24000 miles instead of 24 when the car was a week old for example! It can often take ages to get these discrepancies removed and I've had a few where HPI/NMR refuse to remove them even if they are obvious if the car doesn't have a full service history. I've even started HPi-ing cars I'm really interested in before a sale so I can go for them in confidence that I won't have any discrepancy trouble. From a buyer's point of view, I can totally understand how they would be massively put off if a car comes up with a discrepancy. I've lost a few sales this way as years ago I assumed all BCA/Manheim cars were pre-sale HPi/NMR checked so I never used to check them.

I've often thought that the major 2 auction houses will eventually offer online auctions only. I read an article a few months ago when a new MD took over Manheim and he said he aims to close the smaller branches within a few years. I guess though that if Manheim go online only, all the old fashioned dealers who prefer to attend (like me!) will go to BCA! I'm sure both will be online only in the coming years though. It sounds like most dealers on here are happy to buy online but I'd much prefer to see the cars in the metal. It can be hard enough spotting snags in person so buying online has always seemed a risk too far for me. Plenty of dealers I've spoken to at the block have said they'd never buy online - admittedly, this does greatly limit your buying potential. Sometimes I spot 'bargains' online - they go through the block in the following sale and I check them out physically - some are fine, others have paintwork that is a lot worse than expected or take ages to turn over. So that has never inspired me with much confidence to bid online.

How do you manage regarding the gap in road tax though if you backdate a V5 date? Let's just say (hypothetically of course) if I've had a car in stock since October which I can't shift, the car was bought at the block in October, so it's been 'in trade' and untaxed since then. I then register it in my name today with the change of keeper date being October 2018. As it's in my name, I'll need to tax it, so surely if I take the V5 into the Post Office or tax it online, there will be a big question mark over why the car hasn't been taxed since October 2018? I've done a bit of googling and a website that explains road tax shows the example of someone trying to tax a car where there is a gap between tax expiry and the new tax and it states that DVLA enforcement may well be in touch to ask about the gap. Also, if taxing at the Post Office, it's likely the counter staff will ask why there's such a gap between the date I put on the V5 and the date I'm sending off the V5 Could I get away with saying I've decided to 'buy' one of my own sale cars for my own use? Surely, they'd say in which case the V5 keeper change date should be today rather than last October?

Prestige definitely isn't working as well for me as it did 10 years ago but I'll perservere with it. I offer finance but most tend to be cash buyers. You are so right about prestige making big money, even when it's not right! I go to Blackbushe a fair bit where's there's lots of prestige but most of it tends to make top money. I probably need to chance buying online as I often see a few 'bargains' when watching online but when I'm at the auction in person I usually find that there's a good reason for anything that goes cheap. We definitely have to take break evens and losses on the chin, I used to be absolutely gutted if I lost money on a car or only broke even but you just have to accept it.

Thanks Jason, you are right about keeping from tech heavy stuff but the trouble is I'm looking to only sell a small number of cars a year so making £500 on something mainstream isn't really viable with my turnover of cars. I've had rotten luck recently Dealer with EMLs - it makes me think I'd almost rather buy stuff with the EML showing as then at least I get it a lot cheaper. It's so frustrating to pay a decent price to get the car at the block only to face a big unexpected bill. I'm getting it checked out on Monday, it seems like some sort of misfire. That's very true justina3, if I could do 15 £500 profits a month I'd be very pleased but at this stage in life, I'd rather try and concentrate on bigger margins with low volumes - not that this seems easy at the moment. Going back a few years, it was possible to make a decent profit on the more specialist stuff but these days that profit nearly always seems to be swallowed up by prep costs. I've always found it fascinating in the trade that what works well for some won't work for others. When I had the pitch, I struggled with cars other pitches sold in worse condition for more money but I guess with pitches a lot depends on how long you are established. Starting a pitch from scratch wasn't anywhere near as easy as I thought it would be.

Many thanks guys, it's interesting to hear no one is having it away with the mainstream tackle. That's why I'm keeping away from it! Not that dealing in specialist stuff is exactly easy at the moment. I've just bought a Jag XK with an unexpected problem, time will tell if it's going to be a major headache or not! In the old days, I used to buy a few with their EMLs on. These days, I'm buying without any warning lights only for one to come on 30 seconds after driving out the gates!

I've just spotted these too! My guess would be possible snatchbacks from BCA stocking loans or maybe even some of the newer ones are ex BCA staff cars. Nearly all staff cars are 2 owners, as far as I'm aware BCA give their staff used company cars. The auctioneer didn't announce anymore info about this line at the start of the sale - you are probably right about them being shagged pxs!

After many enjoyable months of reading the forum, I've finally taken the plunge and become a member I don't want to bore everyone to death with my history in the trade but I've done things a bit back to front in that I started out with a retail pitch and then got smaller and smaller! I'm at the point now where I'm only part-time and my ideal scenario would be to specialise in a few prestige cars. In the past, I always found the best margins in the prestige sector - to be honest, I always struggled to make more than a few hundred quid on anything mainstream simply because there is always so much competition! I always found it a bit baffling that many local dealers do well on small cars but for me they are a complete no no! Almost anything small and low mileage makes pretty much the same price at auction as I can sell them for! I tend to find very high milers a lot easier to sell than low milers. As the years have gone by, it seems much harder to source decent stock and the preparation costs of prestige cars can be astronomically high. One big problem of being small is that if you buy the occasional clunker it takes a fair bit of time to recoup your losses. If you are buying and selling hundreds a year the odd inevitable headache car isn't really such a problem. There have been times in recent years where I've seriously considered packing it in! Although ex-lease cars are the safest buys at auction, unless it's something very high spec, there's simply too much competition out there. More recently, I've been concentrating on part exchanges from the big dealer groups at auction but inevitably, a lot of people tend to trade their car in when something plays up with it. I've been a tad unlucky in that department in recent years so it's great to find such a good forum where everyone seems so friendly and helpful. Buying and selling cars can be a bit of a lonely game in some ways so it's good to hear other trader's experiences on here. I'm a bit old fashioned in that I always prefer to attend the auctions, in fact I've only ever bought one car online and I had 8 days of anxiety waiting for it to be delivered but thankfully it was all fine when it arrived. I always find it amusing at the block as you overhear so many dealers who seem to be selling more cars than Car Giant! This forum is brilliant for being so honest and down to earth and it is an absolute mine of information! I only wish this forum was around 20 years ago when I started.........mind you, if it was I may have never have started in the first place! If you think of all the things that could go wrong with car dealing, you'd never do it! Anyway, I'll keep it short but I'm looking forward to contributing more in the future and all the very best to everyone on here.