Padstar

What is the vat situation if you have to refund a car and you have already payed the vat on the sale margin? Can you claim that back or is it tough titty?

Been buying quite a lot online recently at BCA seeing cars going through over and over again but every time appear to be getting bids or are they bca’s fake bids fishing for someone to click? It just seems everything is in their favour now. Just seen a 09 CLK 280 convertible 53k with a tow bar!! cap clean £3600 bids online £6300!! and probably went a little more. I turned off in disgust!

Quick update on the cars, I think we’ve been quite lucky in the fact that there has been no major issues. Out of the 10 cars 1 has got a flywheel rattle and an Audi has slightly heavy steering which has passed an mot but I’m getting checked out anyway. A couple have been sold already which is nice. A couple of the cars have had paint before but not bad at all. Would we have bought those cars if we were at the physical auction? Probably not. Would we have payed what we have to get them? Definitely not but it seems the times we are in needs must. The retail price on autotrader for the Focus estate we sold was £1650. We advertised it for £1995 to take a chance as we’d given good money and was a real clean thing and we got £1995. Maybe the price of used cars will have to go up to coincide with demand. We tried to bid on an Alpha 159 estate booked at £2500, it went for over £5k, who the hell is bidding that!! I suppose you have to keep trying and give what you feel is reasonable. It’s tough though!

Yes will see what they are like and report back. I’m fully expecting that most if not all will have issues. It will be a nice surprise if i get a couple without issues at least. I used to buy quite a bit off dealer auction before that went through the roof too. Surely used car prices will have to go up because god knows how anyone is making decent profit looking at what cars are going for. £1ks over cap clean! (Or have BCA got a good little system that when 10 people press bid at the same time it shoots the price up even if they all bid at the same price?)

Managed to buy 7 this week but looked at 100s. God knows what they’ll be like if and when they arrive. All seem pretty clean on photos and good mot history but It’s a minefield even when your there In person We are really short of stock (sold a bit pre lockdown) and can’t sell fresh air. Either that or close up for another month or so until it settles down (if that will ever happen) Think I’ll see what they’re like when they turn up if they’re all a pile of crap I think I’ll go and sell wood pidgins or something. There’s plenty of them about and cheap as well.

A lot of time can be wasted trying to source cars for people. By the time you’ve found one and let the customer know they’ve gone and bought one without letting you know. Without a hefty deposit I wouldn’t bother. I just say from now on if something comes in or if there’s something we would be prepared to go on with ourselves if you didn’t buy it. Then there’s not much time wasted.

Trev at lifestyle insurance sorted me a good deal. Even with my mrs on it!