James Bush

I use HPI and the attached CAP and Glasses valuations. I also use a handy iPhone app "we price cars" and it tends to be pretty accurate on everyday stuff but can be a little wild on the sportier/prestige stuff. When valuing/pricing I always have a search on AT to see what else is about and price mine accordingly, I find AT's valuation tool just takes an average of whats advertised and doesn't remove CAT C/D's, cars advertised as a finance payment, sold cars that are then reduced to £99 etc so it can be out by £100's

It is difficult because as dealers we try and be as helpful as possible and sometimes bend to a customers wishes but there has to be a point where enough is enough. I was chatting to somebody else about my BMW guy and this tread and he told me if a customer asks to plug in a scanner, take caps off under the bonnet or generally do anything out of the ordinary he asks them what qualifications they have. If they turn round and say they're a mechanic, in the trade etc he explains to them if he lets them inspect the car he will then have to sell it as a business to business trade sale and all warranties become null and void. He's never had a customer come back that agreed to this but I wonder how it would stand up if it every got to court?

Yep I think you've escaped one there.....I'd happily let a customer see my technicians plug one in and explain if/what any codes mean. I fell out with a customer at the weekend who came to look at a BMW 3 series and while the car was running removed the oil cap, which then led to oil spitting out and the car running rough (like most BMW's do if you remove the cap while running) and him commenting how it must be over filled with oil and he wouldn't buy a dodgy car!! In the politest way I told him to do one and never come look at one of my cars again.

Thanks for the reply and next time I get a customer quoting you I'll not be so worried. When I Googled "vehicle finance network" it came up with some site in America and then a page that just directed me to new car lease deals. As for this customer I'd sold the car by the time she got back in touch......

I do a few deals with both Zuto and Carfinance24/7 and find them both to be pretty good, I agree that you do have to chase them a little and I inform the customer I'll only take the car off sale once I've received an invoice request which tends to speed things up a little.

Afternoon all, anybody else having problems with logging into their autotrader portal? I've got the text me a number screen up again (gggrrrrrr) and its not texting me a number

I used a mixture - if a car has had limited enquiries but plenty of internet views I get it re-photographed just to freshen up the add. Sometimes I advertise a car at a lower price for a limited time - works quite well on social media. I also just reduce cars and don't include the fact its been reduced. I play with my prices all the time, up and down and often I'll put a car up in price and it generates calls wanting to know why its gone up in price - obviously I then tell them if they are interested I'll honour the lower price.

What was it all about - not entertaining and not factual...... I know next time I see a shed of an old Rangie I'm going to get it bought, get a dodgy paint job done and punt it out for £4K........come on!!!

"Deals, Wheels and Steals" should be interesting to see what they put out........I think its kind of along the lines of a car sales Bargain Hunt which my dealer friend hates because now every customer offers him £20 for an item priced at £100!!

That's the stuff......talking to my caravaner mate its quite a common topic of conversation on the sites in france with people filling up from the cheaper diesel pump and not knowing what they're putting into the cars until it doesn't run quite right!!

Cornish guy sorry you are correct they don't sell it as "truckers diesel" but B30.........

Hi, I had a similar situation a few months ago, I delivered the car after a week airbag light comes on, the lady had been chatting to her friends at the school gat and scared her to death about driving the car with an airbag light on "because it could just go off at any time". I agreed to reverse the deal but said it would take a few days to sort so they best thing would be to bring the car in, let me fit new airbag ring and then continue driving it while I worked on getting the deal reversed. With the help of the finance company calming her down and explaining it wasn't big problem, her driving a 08 reg Grande Punto instead of a V reg Corsa by the time a few days had passed she agreed to keep her car. A sweetener of an extended warranty does sound a good option.

Hi, I use them and they do pretty much as they say as long as the cars a prepped properly. They'll always discuss a decline for authorisation and will listen to your point of view and mostly will offer some goodwill or overturn the decision if you're been sensible, but I don't have a lot of claims so I think they look on that quite favourably hence the need to prep them to a high standard. They even covered one of my customers who broke down in France with an engine fault on a Jag diesel X-Type. The refunded the cost of recovery back to the UK and repaired the car with a reconditioned engine all without any fuss even though there was suspicion the customer had been driving on cheap truckers diesel while in France,

I'm with warrantywise and they tend to do what they say. I've had very bad experiences with EPG warranty assist so I'd stay away from these. Are you FSA approved? if not I think you'll find it hard to get a warranty company to work with you. Hope this helps, and good luck

My mortgage company are fully aware I work from home and didn't see it as an issue, and also my home insurance is aware of my business - this was a bit more work but found most of them were quite happy to quote it was just finding a cheap enough quote. Sparky I used to sell "alternative fuel" cars - hybrid, electric (well it was only the GWizz then) and LPG and if you think you get more than your fare share of problems with just petrol and diesel start selling them and the rest looks a breeze - I am going back 5 or 6 years though, have things improved? I doubt it?

Hi, yep change of use from residential to commercial. As long as there is no pricing, advertising and everything is via appointment its only needed as car storage apparently? And you only need to apply for change of use on the bit of land you'll be using. With myself I've applied for change of use for about a 1/3 of my driveway so I'll just have to see how it goes. I can't honestly see how it can be rejected but you never know??? Its a very large plot, surrounded by fields, my only neighbours are sheep and cows, on a main road and the cars aren't seen by passers by because of a wall and trees.

Max, I've traded from home for the last 3 years after giving up a pitch. It was a stop gap at 1st but quickly I realised it was a goer.......no strict set hours (I work by appointment only), not sat in an office on a cold December Saturday afternoon hoping someone may turn up and of course a lot lower overheads. I was renting a cheap unit to store my cars plus 4 at my home address and went well with no hassle. Around 6 months ago I did what your thinking of doing, saw a house for sale with lots of land and the potential to store all my cars on one site, garden office etc. Before I moved I rang my local council who told me I wouldn't need planning as long as I didn't price any cars or advertise, do any trades on site and basically didn't make it look like a scrap yard but......around 3 months ago I got a visit from the local planning who after spending 2 minutes with me told me I had to apply for "change of use". I questioned why and they didn't really give an answer, a few letters back and forth without them answering any of my issues and then around a month ago a letter informing me of magistrates court action unless I applied. They assured me if what I'm doing is going to continue it's only a formality as its a large plot, off a main road, nearest neighbours are over 700 metres away and separated by large trees and fields but its the local planning office and I fall under quite a snobby little village rather than the town who look like they reject everything - even a sky dish on cottage because it looked out of character - so I'm shitting it!! If they reject it, it means quite a big issue and of course planning takes forever so I'm just trying to ignore it and hoping for the best. So my advise would be to contact the council before taking it any further, get it in writing etc. BTW - I stock around 10-15 cars priced form £2000 - £8000

bit of lacquer in it, let it dry, then touch up on top, let it dry and repeat until the crater is filled, then a quick polish back with a light compound.......it'll never disappear unless you get it painted but it'll look better

Wow how has that made it to print? condoning law braking, sexist, ill research and ill informed!! Does this mean that as a women its wrong to walk around with a £2500 handbag or £1500 pair of shoes when you can pop along to BHS and by something to do the same job for £25? and if somebody came along and vandalised them by chucking a tin of paint over them they'd deserve a medal? I know a lot of "full on swanky car drivers" including women and to most of them its one of there prized possessions that get driven very carefully and considerately. Oh and she's obviously never seen a 21 year old in a fiat 500 abarth!!

Yeah it was a tea time sale and I can only think the lady I spoke to had had a long day but she was adamant it wasn't a legal responsibility for them to disclose it being written off and it was my car. I only buy a few cars from Manheim a month so you're probably right that they didn't fell the need to help me.

I find Manheim quite difficult to talk to if there's an issue. I purchased a Fiat 500 from Colchester online a few weeks ago and as soon as I'd won it I HPI'd it, turned out to be a CAT D - not listed, not mentioned by the auctioneer but they were adamant I was having the car. I wasted hours on the phone talking to them, waiting for them to review video etc eventually rang up my local centre and spoke to somebody I knew who agreed they were wrong and got it all cancelled for me but why did it have to turn into an argument and I'll never buy from Colchester again.

I've also been with them around a month and have only had a couple of enquiries. It would be interesting if they could release some stats to us much like the other online advertises do so we can see what there customer is interested in - is a RAC cars buyer a C2 VTS person or a Volvo V70 - I do believe that different websites attract different customers. I did have one customer turned up and wanted RAC finance and an RAC warranty, I tired to explain I didn't offer any of these but they could go to RAC direct they wasn't interested and started to question my connections to the RAC which I explained were minimal. I just wonder if the RAC are getting the right message across? I had a good search though there website the other day and there's £150 scrappers, cars without MOT's, cars advertised price as a finance payment etc all advertised which goes totally against how RAC cars are trying to promote themselves.

yep totally free trail and for the money it offers pretty good value for money. Only downside is you get the odd eBay loony who will bid you £2500 for a £5000 car but these are easily dealt with.

I buy a fair bit from BCA online and find them pretty fair if something's delivered other than described. I've sent cars back and had my money refunded without hesitation, cars arrived with spec missing and they'll offer a payment etc. I'd love to buy local and most of my stock was up until 2-3 years ago but unfortunately nearly all my local franchise dealers have been acquired by big PLC who have auction only policies. Those that are left are having a field day with trade stock with buyers almost fighting over it,

Yep also get mine from ebay, not quite the quality of the originals but once there on the car you can't see the difference