Halfpenny

Surely customers can just take a screenshot of the quote?

No. By 2040 all new cars will be electric and most of them will be Chinese brands. China makes by far most of the world's electric car batteries and controls 95% of the mining rights for the various metals required for battery and motor production. Companies like BYD are doing very well (heavily backed by Warren Buffet). Expect to see a BYD dealership in your town within the next five years. I've driven a couple of BYD cars and they are fine. The likes of Tesla will end up the Alfa Romeo of the electric car industry. The only thing holding back China is limited production capacity and lack of resources (which is why they are buying up most of SE Asia, Africa and having a good go in Australia). I've been to China a few times and they scare hell out of me. No regard for the environment, human rights or in fact anything other than money and market share. Totally ruthless in business.

Most virus infection have been in London and Birmingham. You would expect a higher proportion of non-white patients than the national average.

Disabling the TPMS in the CCF requires you to enter engineering mode, it cannot be changed in a normal SDD and the dealers are blocked from doing this as well. I believe its a legal requirement to have TPMS active (Type Approval of vehicle).

This is more my style. The late great Fred Dagg (John Clarke).

I've come across more than a few of these characters in my time, unfortunately. They are a cancer within the industry.

5G operates on three bands. 5G Low is on similar frequencies to UHF TV. 5G Mid is up to 3.6GHz (a bit above existing 4G). 5G mmWave operates from about 24-76GHz but is currently seldom used since the signals can't penetrate walls and are very short range. You wouldn't expect 5G Low and Mid to produce biological effects any different to existing 3G and 4G since the frequencies are similar.

No. Not seen these. I believe the site looks at your browser and links ads targeted according to your browsing history. So I guess you have been visiting a lot of sites featuring Asian and Russian women I just see ads for garage equipment....

I am assuming this is the EW10 engine? I have never heard a dephaser pulley on one of those make a noise as you've described. Just give it a new timing belt kit and w/pump.

Big demand for these! It may be that all the PCB tracks are corroded away - in which case its basically scrap. There's an outfit called Cartech Electronics (in Scotland?) that we got a tested used one from at a reasonable price. About £200 I think. There is also a guy in Market Drayton who does ECU repairs at very reasonable price. I can dig out his number...

I actually tend to agree with Ling. Over my 40 years in the industry I have been appalled at the attitude of many of the big franchised dealer groups. The waste and inefficiency is horrendous. Its no surprise to me that outfits like Lookers and Pendragon are venturing into penny share territory. I think we are in for a shock when we come out the other side of this crisis. There's going to be a big economic reality check for a lot of people. IMHO the way PCP and leasing has evolved in certain sectors of the economy is nitroglycerin ready to explode.

As far as I can recall we have always matched part numbers so I cannot say one way or the other. My experience with VAG electronic modules in general is that different P/N does not work.

The NHS would indeed collapse by any reasonable definition of the word. Because if the virus were allowed a free run large numbers of NHS workers and workers in the supply chain would be sick at the same time. Even if you made it into hospital there would not be the staff and/or essential supplies to treat you. The majority of the population would have no health care. I can say this with some authority because my youngest daughter is a biomedical scientist in the NHS. She does blood tests, tests on swabs etc. Even BEFORE the virus her lab was at breaking point. Only about half the required number of staff (pay is pretty lousy) and often tests were delayed because they had run out of sample tubes and basic stuff like cotton wool swabs! Her lab has PCR machines that can test for Corona but they don't have the basic consumables to run the tests - they are 'on order'.

I think the point is the timescale. If the extra illness and deaths caused by the virus were spread over, say, a year then the health and care services could cope. The crucial issue in a pandemic is that the disease spreads very rapidly so massive numbers become sick at the same time. Imagine if within a month several million people needed hospital treatment. The NHS would collapse. And it wouldn't just be virus patients that would suffer. There would be no capacity to deal with heart attacks, strokes, accidents etc. The OECD are estimating a 2% impact on GDP for each month of lockdown. If we need three months then that's a 6% hit. Its bad but a long way from catastrophic - its better than the alternative.

Indeed. There are a lot of unattended premises at risk at the moment. I think the government's generosity is at least partly motivated by fear of social unrest. I am semi-retired and although in the UK right now I do spend a chunk of the year in Thailand, where my wife and I own a couple of properties. There is not much of a social safety net over there and many workers live hand-to-mouth. There is a fear crime my take off and the police are not taking any chances...

Well there is only one place this money is going to come from..... I predict tax rises, maybe 25% VAT. IPT tax rises, AP duty etc. Oil prices will drop - offset by more duty on fuel. Maybe higher new car taxes.. Expect the UK to suddenly look a lot more 'socialist'. Big spending on NHS to bring it up to European standard, more on social care, maybe inceases in benefits etc.

Yes. US have agreed a US$2 trillion relief plan. But 30 million Americans have zero health care coverage. Self-employed have no access to benefits. I don't think the $1200 cheque from Trump will help much. Its going to get really ugly over there.

To be honest thinking about the 'post virus' economy really scares me. The prospects of a decent Brexit trade deal are now miniscule. The pound has already fallen, in the last week or so, greatly against the Euro and the Dollar. At the very least the government needs to extend the transition period by one year. If we end up on WTO terms in January 2021 the UK economy will just fall off a cliff. Mass unemployment and probably raging inflation. The EU is putting together a rescue package worth over €2 trillion (Germany alone €650bn)... we need to be able to tap into that via their markets. I sincerely hope that logic triumphs over ideology.

If I were you I would not undertake any trading activity. Sit tight in your job. It may take until this time next year until things properly normalise - and even then expect to be in pit of a recession with slim pickings.

When I was at school (best part of 50 years ago) we had a maths class about 'geometric progression'. The teacher told us a story about a wise man who went to work for a king. He asked to be paid each day in grains of rice on the squares of a chess board. On day 1 just 1 grain of rice. On day 2 put 2 grains of rice on the next square. On day 3 put 4 grains of rice. Every day doubling the number of grains of rice - 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and so on. The king agreed. After 64 days (the number of squares on a chess board) the wise man was owed more than all the rice in the world and was able to take the king's kingdom from him. That's geometric progression. Corona virus spreads at the rate of about 2.5 new infections per infected person. That means one infected person could potentially lead to about 60000 infections after 10 days. Without lockdown this would lead to 70-80% of the population being infected - until herd immunity kicks in and the infection rate slows right down. 70% of 70 million people is around 50 million. If 10% need hospital then that's 5 million. If 2% die then that is 1.4 million deaths. All happening over a couple of months. Unless you took radical action to slow things down you wouldn't be able to burn the bodies fast enough. This is way different to normal flu and doesn't remotely compare with smoking. There is no way on Earth that Trump will open up by Easter. We are in for a long haul, 3 months lockdown and then restrictions for many more months until, hopefully, a vaccine is developed. I said on a previous thread that 'failing to plan is planning to fail'. Back in January I read that some of the hardest hit businesses in China were car dealers because they were unable to trade and pay stocking loans. We started preparing about 4 weeks ago. Not buying anything and offloading cars where possible, maximising cash in the bank. We normally stock about 40 cars but now have just 11 cars at a covered secure storage site. Computers and anything of value removed from our premises. We spent quite a few days working on preparations for this and I think we can get through ok.

Because virii structures have a fatty outer envelope any kind of detergent-based cleaner (or alcohol) will destroy the virus. Its therefore not difficult to clean hard surfaces in the car. However note that the virus is airborne and could potentially remain inside ventilation systems for a couple of days. Just not using the car for 3 days would render it free of virus. This very good video (by a guy who teaches doctors) explains all...

Yes. All we need is customers to buy them. My gut feeling is that on the other side of this we will see a shift to more 'pragmatic' purchasing and away from the 'look at me' stuff. Less demand at the 'premium' end of the market and people looking for reliable basic transport.

A few cars will be sold as 'distress purchases' but most cars are sold as discretionary purchases and that will surely largely grind to a halt for many months to come. Servicing/MoT and repairs should continue unabated (we are still busy as normal) but people are driving much less so probably the repair side will drop off in time. The 'elephant in the room' is PCP and leasing. A lot of self-employed and those in the leisure/hospitality industries are into these and won't make the payments. A guy I know is a bar owner and runs around in a leased '19 Range Rover Sport HSE. IIRC he is paying around £550 a month. He was living on the edge before all this - what now?

No surprise. Let's not get 'holier than thou' about this. Businesses try to take advantage of consumers and consumers try to take advantages of businesses. I wanted to buy a digital thermometer last week - my friendly neighbourhood pharmacy had a couple left at £15.99 - I think they were about £2.50 a couple of weeks ago. A local appliance seller has massively hiked the price of freezers - ditto on Amazon. In the motor business you have to learn to deal with all sorts. Stay cool, don't get stressed. If I get an offer I don't like I just give them a polite 'no thanks'...