oldmarcus

That may well be pure gold - I was thinking of my MP; but that email is a much better idea - very much appreciated, thank you.

Yes, I wouldn't argue with any of that, Star is the clearly right tool and I have an indie who does that level of more complex stuff; if it's beyond the basic things I like to do with my software, I have no interest in doing the work anyway and he looks after me very well.

Interesting - I assume they can check if it's insured via their DVLA link to MID ? Or is that currently not an issue ?

That's one I never used before, very helpful, thank you.

Yes, that sort of fraud and thieving began when the Russians began to 'get their legs', rather later into the 90's ; I started as soon after the wall came down and as I could begin to figure out the logistics of it all and was up and running by Spring/Summer 1992. The issue then was paying not to have your lorry/s kidnapped - in Russia, you always have to know/pay the right people, I was lucky to make friends with a well connected lady lawyer, she could get anything sorted in St Petersburg. The profitability slowly got less and less and eventually, as said, they did it themselves, but I kept a exporting timber business until about 2007, then margins got bad on that, so I quit and sold the entire business except for keeping the office building, as it's in Riga City centre. I did most trade in Latvia & the other 2 Baltic states, I have no desire to go back to Russia - ever. That was pretty fortuitous really, as I sunk the money into USD at 2:1, plus managed to miss the 2008/9 crash during very long periods at the holiday house doing very little, I was totally exhausted after almost 15 years constant traveling by then TBH, plus I missed much of my kids growing up - but these chances don't happen often and at least they got a great private education which is more than I ever did. I really only first came back when I bought all the cars I had space for in Autumn 2009, kept them all until Summer 2010, then fed them into BCA Bedford weekly during June/July 2010 when there was no used stock available if you remember - that again was a big gamble, but also worked out rather well - not everything always did or does though......

The only comment I would make is that in the pre fully digital dash era, you could often tell if a BMW had been clocked, as the (then) mileage red lighting would be much dimmer than the rest of that cluster. I have zero knowledge as to Fiats apart from quickly buying/selling Abarths by request to the kids of wealthy parents around my area; so you can take from that whatever you choose.

I bought a 2018 Clubman with the full leather/pano etc, etc spec in March for a good price but it had no V5C, as it belonged to a friend of my Mother who is long into her 90's and they took her licence - but I still ran all the checks and it all came out well, bought without finance, but at her age she'd lost the V5C, but for the money she asked, it would have been dumb to miss it. Now I took a deposit from a regular, most of my business is with long term families buyers these days - so the mistake I made was taxing it and paying the £25 or 30 for a replacement V5C.

I've been with CAP, or CAP-HPI as it now - for more years than I care to remember. How does Motorcheck compare with them - they're getting pretty expensive these days - and what annoyed me, was out of of every firm I deal with, CAP_HPI were the only ones not to make any financial gesture during 3 months of them, in reality, having very little to do - and no consequential value IMO.

Thanks - I suppose!! I will ask if the daughter NHS status qualifies her as a key worker, I paid BMW almost £300 for the 2nd service as she asked and to keep the warranty good as it's just tuned 2 years, now the bloody thing has been sitting in my prep/storage unit for over 6 weeks. Damn!!

NO - never had, never will - I'm pretty old fashioned when it comes to borrowing and most simply put, apart from my monthly CC Bill, I pay for everything on the nail. When things were booming in the late 90's I even cleared my main home mortgage, only 50k and the 2nd one I'd had; I know conventional wisdom say borrow because it's cheap, but that don't sit well with me. I suspect, like most models, the new Defender has not had sufficient and full testing done; sadly that seems common with most/all new JLR products, the insane # of software and panel gap issue recalls on the 2016 F Pace, not to mention leaks, another good example. I bought a lot of LHD P38 RRovers in Germany and sold them in Latvia and Russia, they loved them but even those had various build issues, despite being mostly BMW powered; I once literally had the entire glove compartment fall out of one - some drove lovely though and had a pretty good grunt for the day.

THIS. Before I bid on any car, or any auction in fact, I print and save the full details on the screen into a PDF file; then if there's any changes, I have a date/time stamped proof of what it said. I have a plug-in extension in my browser to convert any page into a PDF file, it's been very helpful when things go wrong - generally with the usual suspects.......

Can I ask if that is that from personal experience, or what they are quoting ?

Well the HM Inland Revenue are still at it full bore; since I have some bits and bobs offshore, I decided to make a Voluntary disclosure under the WWD facility, so my kids don't get stuck with any problems whenever my time is up; they came back on that like a rocket ship - fortunately a very good firm did all the necessary prior leg work, but Covid does not seem to have changed HMRC speed in coming straight back if there's any smell of some money they can milk though!!

What is the best phone number to try and tell Swansea to get their finger out since all this Covid stuff; I've got a deposit on a Clubman from a family who mostly always buy from me, but it's getting pretty embarrassing now - I think her daughter works within the NHS - could I try that for size to speed it up if I got a phone # ?

It annoys me the way newspapers always make it look like there's something shady been done when it comes to cars and theit buying/selling - had to get the crutches in the photo..... It occurs to me, unless this is her first car on finance, she may not come out too well; then of course her benefits will increase, so we taxpayers can keep her creature comforts. I bet she's got the latest phone and all that jazz ......... I clipped an X Trail bumper on a car park and left a note, it was only a quick smart repair, she talked my painter into doing the whole bloody side of the car, 3 panels.

Thanks for the comments guys, been a long day over in my unit doing stuff - but if you like stories - I've got a boat as I've traded in many counties and done all sorts, but it's late just now. - Be well all, there's some rough times not too far ahead, but on a brighter note - people will still buy cars, but to a different pattern/budget/spec than some of type/s different than we've got used to recently.

I used to love the old Jags, I've owned every model since the 1950's Mk 9 and still have two E types, one of which I've had since 1982; so that's lasted longer that the 1st wife Back in the day, late 1970's, we used to buy up well used Mk 2 3.4 and 3.8 Jags for a few hundred and drive them to our buyer in Holland who'd pay £1.5-2k after they'd had a quick blast of paint from 'Ron Respray' !! Then that buyer would take us to the Utrecht auction, where 3 year old American cars could be bought for around a grand as nobody wanted them there that old back then, buy as many of those as drivers who'd taken a Jag over would bring one back each for any necessary work to tidy them up and MOT, then leave them with a central London dealer on SOR and he shifted most of them pretty fast usually between £2-3k. Life was so much easier, not to mention profitable, once you found a good money spinner before the internet came along. Today I've no interest left in the modern Jaguar, and Range Rovers, most especially the popular RR Sport, after 3 years they have all to often been bought on finance by people trying to live a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade budget - so minimal maintenance after that 2- 3 years warranty period for many of those. When a RRover is good it's great, but having one in stock with the constant worry if yet another warning light would miraculously come on after standing locked overnight is too rich for my blood ........ My biggest gripe, and not just on JLR is that we used to have mechanics, now most of them are just what I call 'fitters' who do what the software tells them; often wrongly!! As for this guys 4.4 mil bonus, it's a disgrace, JLR should not get a penny after that - and overall, the TATA group as a whole are not short of cash ....

I've done and still do a lot of M Benz, and specific to those fussy buggers, the iCarsoft MB V2.0 is pretty good at reading faults and clearing them, especially for the price. I have a multitude of other scanners, Autel and Launch the betters, plus some cheaper ones - some of the cheaper ones are not too bad surprisingly at their price/s.

Hello Guys - I've been watching the forum for a while now but didn't want to post without a brief intro. I've been around buying/selling cars, among several other things since my teens and also started dealing in cherished numbers in the late '70's, so I'm an old bugger and semi-retired now - now live in a village on the Herts/Cambs border, so very accessible to anywhere - just jump on the M11 in a few minutes. Thing is though, not convinced you ever kick the habit entirely, so whilst I mostly just do numbers now, since I lost my youngest daughter I've been doing a few more cars to keep occupied. Cheers, Mark