Daylight

This is entirely possible, I will let you (and anyone else if they're interested) know by PM though as i'd rather not put it publicly in case this convenient loophole is shut!

What makes you say they cannot bring prices down Umesh?

I get the girls on the desk to take my staples out before i leave with the paperwork, they're fine with it and it's part of what we pay commission for isn't it?! I think those figures are a little dreamworld depending on the motor you're talking about. Weigh into those "profits" the cost of paying someone to dismantle all of that off the car, environmentally dispose of all waste fluids, unit rent & rates, tools, store items on shelf until sold, play race to zero on prices with every other home breaker on ebay and it's not as easy as it sounds! Even the shell isn't worth anything by the time you've lugged it to the scrapyard anymore!

I'd say don't be disheartened by the doom and gloom squad but at the same time, don't think it'll be a walk in the park. Cars are like women, very unpredictable. Your contacts are your most valuable asset, get a good mechanic, paint guy, dent man etc as they can be the difference between a profit or not. The rest you'll learn the hard way i'm afraid, some cars you just don't touch, you'll probably find that out the expensive way! Good luck and as said above, keep us posted!

Mine was the opposite to Umesh's ironically, told to me by a very successful car dealer: "The first profit is the best profit". By this he meant; get it sold, don't hang onto it through pride or for an extra £50 it'll cost you more in the long run. He was very right, I have ignored this lesson many times thinking I know best and regretted it every time.

I didn't touch those really, I specialised in sports and performance mainly. There were some lovely margins to be made back then *sobs into cold tea*

I certainly would, hence why I wouldn't buy one out of auction for stock or myself, especially not at that value!

Out of interest, did this car have a decent bit of history? If it's seriously covered in gunk under the cover then the injector(s) have been blowing past for sometime, certainly more than 70 miles and should have been audible even to a non-technical appraiser. Unless you have a relationship with the sales manager/DP I doubt they'll entertain your complaint at all seriously but it's worth an ask. Then wipe your mouth and move on

Of course and which says it must be fit for purpose and also: "The Act covers new and second-hand vehicles however if you sell to another trader under 'trade' terms, their only entitlement to a refund is if the vehicle isn't 'as described'." I would argue that covers me on both counts in this case as it was described correctly & the purpose was spares or repair. This is just for discussion, obviously I've chosen to settle this dispute in the way I described but agree with Jack below I don't think an Ebay auction is different if the car is listed clearly as a trade sale as quoted above. I don't agree we "roll over too easily" though. In this case I did so save myself from the very real threat of being disabled or worse (I'm not sure the police would give me much confidence of protection if I'm being honest, only legal recourse after the event which would be too late). I may do the same again in future if I feel the customer has been particularly unlucky or would face serious hardship because of this, out of compassion not statutory obligation though.

I do wonder if the good old V5 document is for the bin sometime soon. It's a fairly outdated document, badly laid out and doesn't prove ownership anyway. I wouldn't be surprised if we just end up online the same as the road tax in the not too distant future. That way any accident markers Cat C or D could be held against the car online and publicly accessible for those that get caught out not running a HPi before buying I think the saving to us tax payers is more the reduction in the amount of testers employed at the test stations to cover all of these VIC checks as opposed to £41 shared per test shared across the nation. It could be argued that the £41 was more than adequate to cover the tester's wage for the time taken though. Who knows. I see it as a good thing, if you've ever had the misfortune of having your car Cat C written off you'll know the long drawn out process to get it tested is a real ballache!

I think the E46 will reach a point where it is as collectible as the E36 (not sure as much as the E30) but I wouldn't say that point is just yet. It's not even been out of production for 10 years yet and wasn't a groundbreaking leap ahead of the E36 in my opinion. Having said that, after scouring the classifieds to see if I could find the one that went through BB it appears I'm on my own with that thought. There's rafts of non-CSL E46 M3's for sale over £20k so maybe there is still a good margin that car

UPDATE I decided that the worry of a gang of very nasty travellers arriving at my door for more than a cup of tea was not worth me putting up a fight and went ahead as I mentioned earlier and have taken ownership again of the Beetle and given them back their very much improved Corsa with no money changing hands. The buyer was very happy with this outcome and apologies were made along with assurances that any reprisals have been called off and put to bed. In an unbiased mind I would argue a couple of points above about all cars sold by traders having to carry a warranty though. If an item is sold as spares or repair then as long as it is possible to be repaired or the parts of the vehicle can be used for spares surely it is fit for the advertised purpose? The buyer wasn't a trader to answer your question too Max.

Thanks for the quick responses all. I'm going to have a chat with the garage where the car is today (ironically I know them very well as I used to rent the unit next door!) and find out what the issue is with the head gasket etc After sleeping on it, I'm leaning towards just getting the car back to save bringing trouble to my door. I bought their Corsa from them after they bought the Beetle which I have prepped for sale (paint, new timing chain, service etc), i'm inclined to offer them this car back and take back the Beetle and be done with it.

Evening all, a bit of advice required. From time to time I sell off some cars via eBay auction, usually cars that require too much work to get to retail standards from part ex etc. One such car I sold in this way about a month ago was an automatic Beetle convertible with an intermittent gearbox issue (described in listing). Sold from 99p with no reserve and made £2.2k (cap retail was £4295). The terms I state in the listings say the cars are a trade sale with no warranty given or implied and will be invoiced as spares or repair, do not bid if you don't agree to this. Car was collected looked over and test driven by the buyer and an invoice stating its as spares or repair made out & signed by buyer. Tonight I've had the buyer on the phone threatening to come around my house (I trade from home) and other such violent behaviour as the car is in the garage with gearbox & head gasket issues apparently. I'm not out to deceive anyone over any cars I sell, whether retail or in this way. I'd like to get your opinions and a legal standpoint on this if anyone can help. Thanks in advance

Sadly the UK Japanese auctions bit the bullet a few years ago, the English side of the Motorway Auctions walked away I believe. A1 is still operating, but more as a wholesaler as opposed to an auction, I get fairly regular emails from the guys with stock they are punting about. I used to import a fair few cars myself from Japan with little trouble, this all came to a halt during the last recession due to currency and also the Tsunami. The market in Japan is getting back to where it was as the Pound grows against the Yen again but it's not there yet in my opinion. I can advise if anyone want's to buy direct or wants contact with A1 auction guys

I was also there on Wednesday (join the club!). Did anyone else see the 51 plate M3 convertible go through Hall 3? Velvet Blue 57k, good history, nice example Cap clean £6875 It made £10500 through the blocks. £10500!!! Even if that was a retail punter buying it that's way over the odds. Apparently they had £6800 on the sheet for it, I bet they're rubbing their hands together on that one

I'd be surprised if a "proper" dent man couldn't remove that, it's not particularly sharp which are the nightmare dents to get out. Also, what bodyshop only does spraying no panel beating?! My man would no doubt get that out, might not cover your area but give him a bell and send him that picture you might be able to meet him somewhere: http://fixadent.co.uk/area-covered/

Paul if you look on Copart's website you'll see they have several locations around the country. I don't buy salvage but I imagine most will sell similar stock to this, others to try are HBC as 2 of the biggest AFAIK.

I generally don't move on price. If people ask what they can get off I explain that it's well priced and that being faultless there is no reason to discount. If they mention about other cars cheaper priced I remind them all my stock is freshly serviced and comes with a 3 month warranty, if they're not getting that elsewhere that's the difference and if they are, why are they stood in front of me! As above though, if the margin is good enough and they may walk or it's been hanging around a while i'll move a little (£200 max) or extend the warranty for free. We have a culture in this country of not wanting to see other people make money unfortunately!

I've always used 95. It's a good psychology technique as it subconsciously appears a lot less than the nearest 00 and will show higher up the page than the good old 99 adverts. This is for prices that a closer to the higher thousand than the lower i.e £x795, £x995. For prices that are closer to the lower thousand I use 50 as it feels more like a whole number and i think people are less inclined to just try and knock the whole lot off in their mind

Just wanted to drag this one back up and get other's feedback. If you've started using RAC cars, how are you finding it? Also if you haven't signed up to them for free, why not? For me it's been a total nightmare from start to now with regards to stock loading and advert update issues, using Autohub as my stock upload facility. What are you guys using?

Cheers for the further feedback guys. I think it's important that we use this discussion to share success stories, industry trends, good stock, bad stock, low points etc We're all in this together let's help one another out. For me it's been fairly quiet, moved a couple of units on in the last few weeks but my "results" might be tainted by the fact that I had new stock in prep so not a large market front. Most is now prepped, old stock re-imaged, refreshed and back online. Still trialling RAC cars (nightmare) and ebay motors in a hope that we'll be able to wave goodbye fully to AT.

It's been a few weeks since I started this thread, so let's grab a real world update. Have you guys that were quiet picked up? Have those that were still selling well quietened down? We're into August now so are we experiencing the august calm or has it unseasonably picked up again?

From a non-legal standpoint, I think that it's mainly only motortrade people that abbreviate we-buy-an-car to WBAC, I can't imagine it would be recognised very well by the general public? In a previous role I set up a new automotive arm for an existing business, we received a letter from Daimler AG to contest the use of the word 'smart' in the trade name we'd created. It was strongly worded but the contest was a very weak one, I assume the big boys will just try it on strong and hope that the tadpoles will just give in to save a potentially expensive legal battle. In this instance our solicitors just laughed it off and sent a letter back, that was the last we heard. Good luck with your venture, i'll be interested to see what you're up to!

Mk4 Golf Tdi 90bhp. Enough space to use it as a van for parts pick up etc, 65mpg all the time regardless how it's driven and will happily take £20 of petrol as long as you top it up full with diesel afterwards, oops! Slowest vehicle known to man though. Porsche 944S and Yamaha R1 as toys