Wood235

Perhaps we should weigh them in when scrap has climbed back up to a sensible price again! lol

Shame can't quite read that article

We have been using 'car dealer 5' for nearly a year and it seems to have been a good move on our part. Have a look, prices are fairly good aswell!

We had this a few yrs ago, bloke asked to plug in his scanner, we allowed him to, it read ok. A month down the line he took it to a main dealer for a check over, then came to me with a list inc dampness from the head gasket around the block area(not leaking but just stained in the area like normal discolouration), rust on exhaust, again, not bad but what you would expect on maybe a 3yr old exhaust. i ended up getting the head gasket done to keep him happy. A couple of months later he was back with more complaints all written out inc a threat to get a solicitor involved. After a heated row I gave him his money back and told him where to go and never come anywhere near us again! We then went on to sell the car to a lady a couple of weeks later who was over the moon with the car when we spoke to her at a later date. My advice is to not go down the road of letting them plug in scanners, the warning signs are there and you know you are setting yourself up for a problem further down the line! Next time it happens we will escort them off the premises!

I do the same as Jim, was & now, tend to be able to stick to the reduced price rather than take another drop on it. Subconciously people tend to not try to chip you down anymore.

It's been a year without them for us now, yes we certainly don't miss those ruthless invoices and we are doing as good as we were if not slightly better!

Self warrantys are the best, why not have their profit aswell ! They will all wriggle out of a claim at some point and you will wish you did it all yourself!

We do ok from it, when you work it out for the ost of the year it's well worth it!

Over a year without AT now and we are definitely selling as many cars as we were but saving a hefty bill every month! Most of our cars are priced between £2,500 & £7,000. We did try motors.co.uk for a few months shortly after cancelling AT but although their service & attitude was far superior, the sales never came through them. We still do 20+ with eBay motors pro and the local papers which works fine for us !

This seems a rediculous new law, they want us to earn & pay income tax but are making things mor and more difficult for us!

Yes, yellow pages is a good example, was a valuable item, as was the exchange & mart, could buy anything through E&M. Nowadays,not worth a carrot!!!

Any cheap cars to be had with a bit of damage on them?

Nearly a year now since we cancelled AT , never looked back, selling as many cars through eBay and local papers which we already had running for years before the cancelation! I really can't understand why people are still being bullied by them and made to feel that there's no life beyond AT! Come on people, wake up, get out of the rut and take them blinkers off.....there's a big annual saving to be made!

It's an old Toyota hiace van for me, it's bulletproof needs minimum maintenance and goes on and on and on and on!!!!!! if the suns out, it's out with the old ford hot rod..... 5 litre Chevy v8 burbling away, highly polished red paint & oodles of chrome & polished bling and not an ecu in sight ! Oh yes, there's no management light which is a blessing as we have many sleepless nights related to those awful check lights!!!

Yep, we would probably dismiss it, one of the reasons why we stopped advertising with AT (apart from the obvious reason we stopped)was we don't want to be be holding to someone dictating what should happen to a faulty car and who should mend it! With credit/debit cards we was told that the transaction is much safer and more in our favour against fraud if customer has been present at time. Over phone is very dodgy so it's £100 deposits over phone only for us!

It's hard work, so much so that I'm hardly buying anything on there now. Nothing is clear, you go into a car and it seems harder to get the info you need. Just not as user friendly atall! So annoying, especially when people try to brainwash you like politicians do and tell you how much better something is or going to be!!!

Very true Green Giant! Also I will say many of us did cop the ump because of the way we were spoken to as if we were naive little school boys!!!

Some of us were onboard when AT first started doing the website for around 25 - 30 cars and we were paying approx £300 per/month, we didn't choose for the price to go up approx 7 times what our original price was! We do understand inflation but this was rediculous! When we mentioned to them it was too dear, they turned around and told us the cars were too dear! Best thing we did was pull the plug, we should have done sooner as we would have saved a small fortune! A good site on a busy road doesn't always need to be wasting money advertising vehicles at the other end of the country! These sites are For people to air their views as honestly as possibly and that is what we are doing!!!

When we was a customer, after so many years, was a waste of time trying to explain to Autotrader what we expected from them and overpricing, all we got was very bolshy sales people talking over us telling us we was doing it all wrong! Best thing we did was leave as we are selling as many cars and have lost one of the biggest overheads that we had! There's absolutely no way we will be returning!

The bullying tactics with all those suppliers, farmers etc and the deceitfulness with the shareholders has finally turned around and bitten them in the @r$e and rightly so!!!

We have been trading 15 years, gave up using warranty companies after approx 2 years for same reason as you, even after they had taken thousands from us, refused to help with a head gasket problem. If the warranty company refuses, we can still be liable so have to pay & get it sorted anyway! we do it all off our own back now, why not have their profit aswell? That way if there's a problem, there's plenty of money in the kitty to pay for it! Some people have a separate account & put a set amount away after every sale.

I wouldn't waste my time drafting letters, I got so sick of the overpowering phone calls, telling me how my cars were expensive (never mind the fact they had the lowest mileages!). It's ok going by averages but they are dragged down by cat c & d etc. Must be 7 or 8 months now since I told AT to poke it and that I would rather close the business than return to them! One of the best things we have done and we are as busy as ever! Not having to fork out that massive bill which grabs so much of the profit from several cars is so nice! If everyone did the same thing, AT would be on its arse and we would be the dictator and maybe paying a pound a car to advertise again!

Totally agree, Best thing we ever did was to drop them! Just a shame we never did it sooner as we could have saved a lot of money sooner!

Hi Maz, welcome & great move to jump ship as many of us have! We dropped A.T. approx 4 months ago and are doing as good , if not better without that big greedy bill! Good luck!

Yep, that Peugeot bit was boring, just seemed pointless! Loved the corvette bits tough, I've had two and could be tempted to buy another!