Rory RSC

Never buy them either mate. One of them could be innocent but if you gamble and its borked you just kick yourself.

IMO there are less cars coming through the sales than there used to be. A lot of the regional auctions are no more - (Anyone remember SMA they were my favourite by a long shot) I buy out of Bristol as its a cheap train ticket to go and get them picked up. If its a nice car you are paying for it. You are not walking into any auction anywhere in the UK and picking up a well optioned car in good nick that is a desirable car for bottom book or average. Half the stock is reserved at cap clean + 500 ffs. Buying good stock takes up hours and hours of time. No easy cheat round it.

Buy stock where customers want to travel from far and wide because you have what they desire. Do most of my business well outside a 50 mile radius due to having well equipped stock.

Is this kind of profit figure across the board in the US?

Did one yesterday in the light effort of snow we had here in Cheshire - Quickest sale ever customer turned up and car was still covered in an inch of snow, said give us a moment wil get it cleaned off - No its ok mate seen pics already and it looks good quick drive and ill buy it. Done and driven away £18k Audi in ten 15 mins max. Funny how round this way the roads are dead and people don't go out unless its an emergency meanwhile in Scotland people carry on regardless.

Hahaha wtf must have been dog eat dog back then

Its one of them I buy a few and half the time they follow through from auction ( usually after I have just sent a cheque and applied). Just wait it out.

I have never fixed a problematic auto box with an oil and filter change. Never once have I been so lucky.

I have a finance company wanting me to back a car because of a bit of laqueer peel, and the fact the exhaust is not brand new. MY PDI and independent MOT show the car is fine. Does not carry any weight where a finance co are involved.

Get the finance company to do it for you. Its just easier. Its not rocket science without that but it helps when you are busy with 9 million other things.

My findings when I used to use them mirror that. My main current finance company on the other hand.... Can even see the frustration for the rep's dealing I would get the finance in place. Might sell another car or 2 a month out of it minimum and its a given most customers expect a dealer to offer so give them what they want. Make it easy for the customers.

Problem with all of this stuff is you can do the best PDI checks in the world that we know are correct. We can get the car independently MOT tested and PDI checked by experienced staff. If the car is on finance none of this counts and you end up having to refund anyway.

Love to see the rest of that convo. 4 Decent cars sold, nice day good mood and then..... Recovery truck comes round corner I have just had someone ignore a warning light they reported 10 days ago and looks like they have destroyed an engine.

I always check. Nothing better than buying one in with a fresh MOT when the catalogue says its about to run out.

We had a right nightmare having a minor warranty job dealt with at our most local VW dealership. As we are trade they seem to think we are trying to stitch them up and instantly on the offensive. Pop down the road to one 15 mins away, different group, and they could not have been more helpful. Same story with BMW and Vauxhall. If at first you get the wrong answer go somewhere else until they tell you what you want to hear

I service all of our cars that have manufacturer warranty and just use gen parts and include the parts invoice and our no cost service invoice for the customer. Poor show from Izuzu I would fight it a bit further or simply try another dealer from a different group.

lets just say when they thaw out David Attenborough would be able to film planet earth 3 with the amount of wildlife those babies will attract

Hammer frozen sausages into his lawn

Those snowy drives back are not missed. Far friendlier though could not agree more.

Firstly I used to buy private. Spotted a niche in a particular model that was selling, learned it well found the common faults and bought models that needed these faults doing. EG we bought loads of Corsa C SRI with timing chain / headgasket problems then sold them as new chain or new headgasket which were the common issues people worried about. . You get to drive the car plus no nasty auction fee. You can't negotiate at auction. You can with private sellers when you wave money in front of them. I learned loads at this point and became very strong at negotiations which actually helped me with selling. Got a very cheap mechanic. Valeted them ourselves. Took out and maxed out a couple of credit cards to raise some money. Did not pay myself a wage as I had another healthy income fortunately at that point. I still pay myself hardly anything even now much prefer it building up into stock. I am all about the future of my business You need to be buying and selling fast. In and out and build momentum. Make it happen. Get a few cheaper cars. Spot something that has good margin and is popular and almost specialise to a degree with a particular model. You will land on it and know whats right for you. Keep an eye out on the market as at some point it will go off the boil. You need to be onto the next trend.

Very much so. I used to travel to Scotland weekly to buy when starting out a the prices and fees were significantly cheaper. Not anymore.

They are not the sort of people who end up buying online in our experience. We continue to do a good few a month this way and expect it to increase as people get lazier/more used to remote purchase. Payment in full in advance and really had no major issues to date so I can only go from that experience.

People complain they are not busy, its quiet etc and then find reasons not to sell people cars? Whats all that about?

Do loads like this and never had a problem. Most of the customers are just trusting and moving with modern times. The better our pics have got, the videos and the reviews the more we have sold remotely. There was one time when Tom went to deliver an MX5 to a family in London who were horrified when it turned up. They expected it to have 4 seats. He thought they were joking at first......They were dead serious and adamant they had seen 4 seater versions on Autotrader

Or Until I come along without looking properly and make a list minute bid on a well under cap clean lovely C Class AMG sport + model grade1 and then find out its a bloody manual..... Took ages to shift that one.