Jamie Edmonds

A basic OBD reader costs pennies from eBay, either to connect to your laptop or a standalone version. Beware of Bluetooth though, if the connection drops half way through a scan you can cause a lot of problems. When you want the proper diagnostics beyond the basic engine stuff then you're into a lot more expenditure, something like a Launch X-431 is entry level and still into four figures once you've got the subscription sorted. As Gavin says one machine won't do everything you need, so most workshops use several machines plus VAG-Com and potentially some other laptop based solutions too. In your situation I'd get a USB OBD-II connector and have a play with some of the software that's available online, that way you can do the basic stuff like clearing codes and reading the cause of a MIL light on most cars, but you're not spending a fortune. It's not worth going any deeper than that, because you need to be able to interpret the codes to get an accurate diagnosis anyway, and that is a black art all of its own!

A P5B Coupe driven by the Queen, yes. A Tomcat driven by Prince Charles, not so much

Keep a note of the phone number James, you might need some replacement wheels when your Mazda expires half way to Davos...

At £1,500 I'm sure a Rover enthusiast will rip your arm off. Over here Rovers still make good money - look at this 200 cabrio... http://www.autoscout24.ch/de/d/rover-200-cabriolet-1994-occasion?index=2&make=68&model=308&nav=7&returnurl=%2fde%2fautos%2frover--200%3fmake%3d68%26model%3d308%26nav%3d7%26vehtyp%3d10%26r%3d5&vehid=737263&vehtyp=10

I wonder what happened to the ex Jimmy Saville Range Rover Carawagon which was for sale (with details of the former keeper included in the ad) before the whole Saville thing hit the media in a big way. The Tomcat sounds interesting Andy, Probably a future classic but I'd have thought values are rock bottom now?

As a customer I always found it a little frustrating that my local Mini dealer (North Oxford Mini) was shut on Sundays but I still bought two cars from them because I got far better service than at the alternative option (who did open on Sundays). I now live in a country where everything is shut on Sunday, if you need a bottle of milk or some emergency Toblerone then you have to go to a railway station or petrol station as all the shops are shut in town. Car dealerships are the same, and they still seem to do OK, it's just down to people's expectations. When we first got here I found it incredibly annoying that nowhere was open on Sundays but now I'm used to it I don't find it an issue at all. If your local competition is also shut then that's certainly a good sign, and realistically the only buyers you're going to miss out on are those who walk in and buy on impulse.

Pair Ssangyong with MG and you've got most bases covered with minimal investment requirements for either franchise? Most brands will require a reasonable investment to take on now with Kia and Hyundai trying to push themselves upmarket so really you're left with Mitsubishi, Subaru, MG, Ssangyong and Proton (scraping the barel for the last one).

MG6. I had a look round one at the weekend (neighbour had one for a few days, I hasten to add, I have no intention of buying one) and he chucked me a cheap and shiny lump of plastic and said 'see if you can start the car'. It turns out you need to depress the clutch, stick the nasty plastic block into a hole in the dash, and hold it down until the rattly coal fired stove starts before taking your finger off the crudely printed logo on the end of the 'key'. Whoever thought that was a good idea needs to be made to spend some quality time driving an MG6...

I've had 30+ cars in the 15 years I've been driving and the only one I really miss is a bit of a strange one - a 55 plate Mini Cooper S Checkmate. For those who don't know, this was a slightly dubious run-out version of the supercharged Cooper S in metallic blue with a silver roof (good) and with a silver cloth/blue leather interior combo (not so good). I bought it from a Mini dealer at about 5 years old at a knock down price, the supercharger whine was seriously addictive, and once it had been back for a replacement clutch and flywheel under warranty it was fantastic fun to drive at semi-sensible speeds on UK roads. My wife and I drove it from Bilbao up the west coast of France back to the UK in summer which was one of the best holidays we've had, but not long after I had to sell it (and take a £2,500 bath after 9 months) to fund a house move Maybe I need a JCW GP as my next fun car, especially as their values seem to be starting to soften a bit now.

Surely it has to be Mark Carney, or someone at Santander/Black Horse/VWFS if you take 'influential' as meaning someone whose actions directly make a difference to the industry as a whole. Without cheap finance we would all be working in a very different business indeed.

I'm not convinced the Chinese really care enough to have a concerted punt at the UK market. Most of their cars are engineered for LHD only, and their domestic market is much more like the US with automatic gearboxes and bigger engines than the European norm. If they decide that there's loads of monay to be made in Malaysia, Thailand and SA then they might bother doing the RHD stuff properly but when the whole of North and South America and everyone else in Europe buys LHD the UK will always be niche. MG are different as the UK presence and sales are used to give the brand credibility in their home market so it doesn't matter that they sell about 7 cars a year to genuine retail buyers, but I can't see Geely giving the British market too much thought when they can sell boat loads of cars to less discerning customers in Southern Europe and the former Soviet states.

Absolutely, United are hugely popular everywhere around the world (except in Manchester...) but it still seeps strange to sign a deal worth hundreds of millions of pounds to sponsor a club in a market where Chevrolets won't be available. Still, there are other PL clubs sponsored by Chinese companies with no UK presence so I guess it's not without precident.

Remind me which brand GM has signed a long term shirt sponsorship deal with Manchested United from 2014 until 2021 to display... It's interesting to see how the different manufacturers are trying to leverage their brands around the world, with Renault announcing a JV in China toda, and Citroen considering launching a premium range for the Asian market, but GM are trying to sell Cadillac to the Europeans (again) while keeping their European operation away from Asia where the customers have a clear preference for European brands...

So taking that to the next level, I'm going to don my finest Sports Direct leisurewear and head down to Blackbushe tomorrow in search of a bargain, as I know Baggott's motors is getting rid of some trade ins and there's a lovely blue Impreza WRX I fancy. Assuming I win the auction (which I will, because the car is clearly a nail nobody else would want) if I take the car home and find the diff whines like a neglected spaniel and the engine knocks like a postman can I then go back to the dealer who consigned the car under SOGA as they effectively sold the car to me?

What are people's views on this? I know a lot of old-ish cars, especially French ones, have had the filters removed and for want of a better word other bits bodged to make sure the car still works. Clearly it will be prohibitive to put these filters back in so a lot of stuff will effectively become scrap. Look out for diesel p/x's coming in over the next couple of months as people try to get rid before that tired old 407 is due its next MoT....

The also did a pitiful version called the 'Monaco' fitted with a detuned 88bhp version of the 1.6 litre engine, but it was cheap. I have the tonneau cover from a Gleneagles edition in my shed, must get it on eBay!

In answer to the Glass's grading question, they have the three grades and a normal 'trade' price. The trade price is the price for the expected condition of a car of that age, so for a 6 month old car it will be pretty much the same as the top grade, but for a 10 year old 120k mile car it will be nearer the bottom grade as that's where most cars will be by the time they reach that age and mileage. Is anyone using any other pricing tools - Deltapoint or the system from CDL for example?

I remember Vauxhall doing something similar, with a batch of Zafiras which came from a secondary production facility (Turkey I think) which were built to the wromg spec so ended up being sold off as special editions in the early 2000's. I'm pretty sure they were identical to the normal versions, but fitted with a sunroof. I once owned a CItroen ZX Pzazz (utterly appaling name) whic was a poverty spec 1.4i 3 door (no PAS, manual windows...) but with a sports steering wheel and different hubcaps, but it did a fine job as a £500 banger to run while at university.

If your Mum isn't a surfer where did you get all your outdoorsy extreme sports genes then Batch?! My wife's first car was a £300 Fiat Panda 'Special', although I don't remember exactly what was special about it. I think the 80s and early 90s were the heyday for the terrible special edition models, Fiat did a World Cup themed 'Italia 90' version of the Panda complete with hubcaps which looked like footballs. Peugeot once did an 'Eden Park' edition 806 which was supposed to be something to do with their rugby sponsorship, and had headrests shaped like rugby balls, which I always thought looked extremely uncomfortable.

We are seeing more and more cars fitted with options, the average for a car run through our Spec Check service is over £2k and on prestige brands it's far higher than that. The average Porsche Cayenne has almost £10k of extras fitted at the factory, and I've seen them over £22k, of course this means if you buy one which 'only' has 20" wheels and regular leather seats it might look good in isolation, but when most of the others have 21" rims and higher grade leather it's not going to be easy to sell. It's also not helped by manufacturers trying to reduce build costs by fitting the same audio systems/switch panels to all models, irrespective of what is actually on the car. I was driving a new Rav-4 last week but pushing the 'Nav' button on the dashboard brought up the message 'system not installed' on the screen, and I know the F10 5 series is the same with the button being there even when the system isn't fitted. My last 3 series (a 2010 325d) had a phone button but no Bluetooth, which I was monumentally annoyed about! Even Ford are getting in on the option pack act with city packs, convenience packs, media packs and so on, all for a few hundred quid a pop when new. Then there's Mercedes with Artico interiors, I could go on for hours....

If you're after individual data I run an X1 as a company car, not sure how much help that is though

Citroen C3 Pluriel - a badly conceived unreliable piece of junk which wobbled if you drove over a white line and leaked like a sieve. The Peugeot 1007 was similarly pointless with its silly electric doors and centre of gravity somewhere in the stratosphere as a result. The Neon made sense in the USA where it cost about £6k, but in the UK at over twice that price it was a bit of a joke.

James, isn't there also a school of thought that extending the warranty to five or seven years means people keep their car longer than they otherwise would, which means less chance for a dealer to sell them a replacement after three years as they might have done in the past? Obviously with the never-ending rise of PCP finance this risk is mitigated slightly but with 48 month agreements and five year warranties is it not just reducing the number of customers in market at any given time?

I think as the default choice for someone who sees their car as a domestic appliance the Koreans are already there, just look at the scrappage scheme numbers. Ford and Vauxhall are in a bit of a limbo I think, not able to challenge VW or the premium brands for desirability, more expensive than the Koreans and with Renauly and Peugeot starting to build desirable cars again, and Dacia (and even MG) coming in at the budget end of the market they are getting squeezed all over. The saving grace for Ford is that they make nice cars which are good to drive and that's enough to sway some buyers, and I can't say the same about Vauxhall right now...

The M3 Touring. BMW seem to have made a few as one off internal projects but none have ever made production, which is a huge shame given how well the C63 and RS4 sell, and I bet the BMW would be a better drivers car than either.