Bmx Bandits

This is likely to be my Christmas

I’m sorry but if your talking 6 seaters it’s got to be a Fiat Multipla There was one in the mot station today and the cloud of black smoke that came out of the back of it when reved was comical. There can’t be many left on the road by now. One less by look of that mot test anyway

The only thing that I could never get used to about driving an FRV was now near the driver is to the side window, whenever I turned my head to the right it alway used to take me by suprise. I know it’s so they could fit three people in the but I never got used to it. It never stop them selling though so it’s probably just me

We had a very similar week, started slowly but got busier as the week went on, just hope now most of our enquiries from lock down have been worked through/dealt we don’t grind to a complete halt.

X5 would get my vote, owned two a 3.0d se 7 seater and a 35d M sport and kept each for a year and made money on both. They are superb cars, look for one that hasn’t had to many owners and with good history and invoices for work if possible. The 3.0d is a lovely engine, I took the wife and kids down to the south of France the year before last with no complaints at all. The 35d is a twin turbo and does go so well, once driven it’s hard to go back to the 3.0d I bought both from auction with problems, se looked sorry for itself, needed two rear airbags and air compressor, and as MarkTVS said the bags are cheap and readily available. The 35d was a 2 owner car with full history but had a multitude of random warning lights on start up so came really cheap. As soon as I looked thought the invoices and found one from a garage who 6 months ago fitted a Lion battery, I changed the battery for a decent make and bingo problems fixed!! I still regret selling that car!! Apart from servicing the only thing one needed was a sat nav drive which I bought from BMW and wasn’t that expensive and was easy to install and didn’t even need coding.

I think it would be worth doing a HPI spec check and see what factory options where fitted and their costs, you then add the total cost of the options and a brief list of them to the advert. I’d also be mentioning what warranty you give and it’s level of cover. The sort of person buying a merc of this age is likely to or need to be concerned about repair costs.

David you and your podcasts have kept me thoroughly entertained throughout this pandemic!! Thanks

What sort of car checks where you thinking of doing?

It looks like a Ford Kuga mk2 wing mirror.

This is a very different lockdown. There’s even a main dealer near us offering test drives.

That’s great news

For what it’s worth I’ll be sitting on my hands, I think cash will be king in a month or so. From the conversations i’ve had with friends and ex-colleagues still lucky to be working for some of the big dealer groups, September didn’t save most of them and sales have dropped off a cliff since (to quote more than one sales manager’s exact words). I think they will be liquidating aging stock/raising money come December. Add that to the delayed finance repossessions that have got to start filtering through at some point and desperate sellers needing quick cash, think the used car market could get decidedly messy. And that’s before you even get to brexit/3rd wave/zombie companies.......

I’d scan it and see what codes are present. There is a small diameter metal pipe that goes from the exhaust pressure sensor to the manifold that gets blocked up, its a pain to see as it at the back of the engine, to be fair the TC light and abs light normally stay on together when it gets blocked and will show fault codes relating to invalid data/ non communication between abs controller and engine control unit. If you get those codes, google nissan P0470, and there are quite a few forums that will show you where the pipe is is and various ways of unblocking it. The screens are on ebay, just search “Nissan Daewoo lcd display screen” (The radio units are made by Daewoo).

Reference the TC light, is it a diesel? You can buy the screens for the radio and fit them yourself in about 15/20 mins if your half handy with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers, I’ve done a few and never had a problem. The last screen I bought was around £70.

I think it will all depend where you are in the country, what stock mix you’ve got and how quickly you can react to the ever changing sales environment. I’d just take the opportunites that come along and there’s no point trying to force the market in December anyway as trying to replace the stock will only cost you more in Jan. We’ll be open right the way through and historically we’ve always made a profit for the month, I use December to get things prepared for January anyway, have a general tidy up of office/admin and a stock take to sort out of all those forgotten part exchanges and problem sales cars. So there’s always something to do.

+1 injectors. Once you've had a good check of the work that’s been carried out of course. These later hdi’s (09+) injectors are shocking. They rarely fault code, will always start on the button, but then idle badly or/and have a flat spot when rev’d especially from cold, they can also smoke quite noticeably. We get our local diesel specialist to test them and 3 out of the 4 injectors always fail and the other one only just passes. We must have replaced over 10 sets of injectors in the past two years. I would also have a look at the injectors to see if they look new, as if they have been replaced and not had the correct re-learn test drive procedure followed they will run badly.

I’d be getting him to record which roads/ weather conditions it’s happening on and then get him to drive with you in the car on those roads and tell him to drive as he normally would. He could just be a shocking driver who had a heavy right foot and doesn’t drive to the conditions of the road surface and the TC is doing what it’s supposed to be doing. Ie cutting the power and stopping him from damaging something! Did his last car have TC?

Hi, just while I’m waiting for my AOS registration to be completed. Would anyone be able to help let me know if this 1 series - LJ11DLV has much of a service history. Thanks so much in advance.

David, really enjoy this one too, especially as we can’t actually get to the block to talk about the prices some of these cars are making.

Welcome, I wish you luck, you’ve obviously got your head screwed on; your a good age and even a basic knowledge of running a business is a bonus. You should go for it especially if it’s something you enjoy!! My only reservation is that I do think that finding a good reliable source of suitable 90’s stock that you can turn for a profit will be quite a task. As you like to tinker/repair cars I’d be tempted to also look out for some later mainstream cars in local papers/gumtree etc that need clutches/gearboxes/engines owned by proper people that have been quoted big bills by garages/main dealers to repair and end up just selling the car as it’s uneconomical for them to have repaired. It could be worth putting in adverts in local papers/online to say you buy non runners. You could repair and sell them in between your 90’s projects. It would get you more experience dealing with the general public, help build your business, insulate you from any quiet periods as I’m sure the 90’s market could be quite cyclical and most importantly do something that you enjoy. So best of luck and let us know how you get on!!

That’s a really good idea. What would you do about the road tax? I suppose you could/would have to pay them for it and try and sell it to the next owner?

Look, if you think paying £100 in advertising with Autotrader to to sell a car is a fair price for you, that’s your choice. For me it’s to high. I was purely explaining that I felt that Autotrader’s offer was poor in light of their excessively profits, was not bashing anyone, although I could quite happily slate Autotrader on the complete lack of supplying me any real sales rep for the last five years, while continuing to increase their prices. For me I find repeat customers/referrals are my most cost effective source of business as good as free and the easiest to convert. Good luck for tomorrow. Like many tomorrow will be the 1st day back in 10+ weeks, my prep guys will be in at 5.30 so I’ve got an early start, due to furlough no deposits for us but have made the appointments insure the cars to remove any chance of messers.

Wow Autotrader have an operating profit margin of 70%, they’ve given you two free months over 15 years (while you’ve given them - circa £360,000.00 I’d imagine) and oh and some plastic steering wheel covers and you think they are fantastic?! I find it hard to believe that every one of your enquirers has come purely from Autotrader. Do you not have a forecourt, website or advertise anywhere else? I’m opening up again on the 1st June and list about a quarter of my stock on Autotrader, less then 10 percent of my booked appointments have come from Autotrader. I am really pleased you’ve made click and collect/delivery work that well for you and it’s not that Autotrader doesn’t work, its just that you have to be cost effective and there’s are many other ways to drive customers to your stock.

The offer is only for dealers who didn’t reduce their advertised stock levels before the 16th of March. I like many did and there is no support at all. The majority won’t increase there stock numbers with Autotrader. Autotrader purely only exist for their shareholders and have made excessive profits off the back of car dealers for years, if they really wanted to support the motor dealers surely they would make their packages for affordable in the long term.

Taken from the press release today - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-sets-out-timeline-for-retail-to-reopen-in-june “Car showrooms often have significant outdoor space and it is generally easier to apply social distancing” It would make sense to apply this to all car dealers with outdoor space?!