grant8064

Just found this one...all depends on the car on old stuff IMO. We've just knocked out an 04 Focus auto 80k for around 2k but it was a rare find. Had £200 of paint, passed it's MOT with NO ADVISORIES (better than most of our newer stuff does) and you could tell it was proper just from the last owners...one of those lovely older couples that really looked after it and were genuinely sad to see it go. A proper car at proper money. Had an 06 S Class recently that was not proper and naturally made less than the Focus (not that we were retailing it) Cheap autos I could sell all day every day. The demand is beyond high and there is almost no supply so quite often we spend a few quid getting choppers up to standard and retailing them. An auto estate is gold dust at sub 2k. A reasonable 100k Fabia estate auto I would want £895 for but it would have to have a decent ticket and have been looked after.

Sounds fair to me. We've got an ex-rental at the moment and I made a clear point of showing the prospective punter who seemed to admire the honesty. It's one i've been running as a lunch run car and tbf you would never know because the things a mintbox so they're not all bad eggs

On a side note we use Sanatander for our business banking. Never met an account manager or had any correspondence but they were the only guys willing to open an account for us when we set up. Now you might be thinking we were looking for an overdraft, had a sketchy business plan etc...nope. Try opening a business bank account and asking to deposit a substantial amount of your own money to get the ball rolling with insurance policies in place, a business plan, forecasted projections etc, it's not easy. Barclays, HSBC and a couple of others all turned us away because we were depositing not borrowing. We almost couldn't get going because of the hurdles being put in our way. The worlds in a sorry place when you can't deposit and they only want to sell a new business debt and risk.

That was like us last weekend...did eight also and only had one of those booked in advance for a test drive. Happens but I wish it was more often. Two today which is OK for a Saturday...currently plodding along at an average amount for the month

It'll go. Ours was cheapest nationally (we're never ever the cheapest!) and they still had to go away and think about it. The worst thing is it's such a lovely car! Gorgeous colour, mint interior, lovely spec, full proper history...sometimes you just can't win

I just sold my Octavia DSG!!! Was a slog and i'm not gonna earn much but thank christ it's gone.

I've got a gorgeous Octavia DSG petrol in perfect old boy spec that i've been looking at for six months now. Finally got a tickle, hardly surprising given it's £500 below where it should be. Not a fan of them tbh. I think lacking a Skoda MD around our area doesn't help but we should still be getting AT hits and we're not.

Try and prep as well as can be and then just have a standard procedure in place for complaints. As for control issues, that can easily be overcome by doing a thorough handover explaining the controls, switches and buttons on collection and doing a quick demonstration. If nothing else it makes the customer feel like you care and helps with recommendations to their friends rather than just throwing the keys at them and getting a squiggle on the V5.

There's a lot wrong with the photos and text. Go look at some better advertised ones and try again IMO.

Snap. Aside from the expected EML three days later my biggest bug bear is the expectations from the buyer. All the VW stuff we've sold has been to such picky unrealistic buyers of USED cars where as anyone buying a six year old Frenchie has been fine with the odd curbed wheel or slightly scuffed carpet.

Yep. I can totally understand why many wouldn't stock them but so long as the customer is fully informed and the car is a proper bit of kit I don't have an issue with them. I find we get far more 'Jeremy Kyles' looking for strap on white Jukes and black A3's then we ever do on Cat stuff. Maybe we're lucky but they always seem to attract people who understand that a Cat D will usually just have had some body work or a smallish prang and they're pretty realistic about condition and expectations. We usually just get Cat stuff in chop and it's normally cheap Fords, Vauxhalls etc. I think Cat BMW's, Audi's etc would attract a more difficult punter.

I'd be retailing that all day long. 2/3rd's of book retail. Advertise it very clearly with Cat D in the title, description, invoice etc and wait for the phone calls. Have it gone by the weekend no doubt.

Seems every Ford main dealer has a two or three and most of the 'prestige' used have one in these parts. Only ever seen two being driven around the local area and both were demos driven by business managers or high up dealership guys. Not my bag at all but i'm sure some of the blue oval brigade must be buying them, there's a coupe of well specced ones locally for sub 30k which seems pretty cheap.

Bonus's??? Found over £2 in a chopper today and about 3 Euro last week...i'm literally coining it in lately

I think it was a bit of a freak occurance tbh...still not going to be rushing to refill on red stock. We're still paying strong money for white, blue and black but I agree that white doesn't have the draw it did last year for us.

RED CARS!!! I kid you not. Had our best ever trading day in years, done eight today, and over half were dog dick colour.

2008 top spec with one of those Rockford sound systems. We used to do well with them but big stuff seems to have really dropped off for us

Snap. Got a genuinely mint Shogun we've had longer than we should and a couple of others that I expected to go. Freelanders around the 08 - 11 plate seem to be doing well still though.

99% of the time it's just a bit of buyers remorse we find. The annoying thing is taking the car back and then having to use it yourself just to make sure it's OK. A week in an auto Yaris and a week in a 1.6 basic Astra were not pleasant

I'll give it a try in that case. Most of the gulls our way are the size of dogs so maybe i'll see if the do a golden eagle option!

It's a fair point but there's a limit to how much checking/due diligence Joe Public can do...that's our job surely. Maybe i'm missing something but is it just getting them to sign off a PDi form? ^^^ That wasn't meant to sound like a dig btw it's just a really interesting topic/ever continuing issue that seems to get worse each month. I've watched a few of your videos and it would be interesting to see if the content could be used as good evidence to be presented if ever anything went to the small claims. It's a lot more comprehensive than a simple online advert so you could make a decent case that the goods were represented fairly possibly.

It's seagulls...one of them saw off a fox the other evening so I don't think an ornamental owl's going to do much but i'll look into it!

Weather...and birds mess. Two things you're already beating me on being indoors.

Agreed. Call me a cynical old bastard but this is always my first thought. We come pretty close to refusing to sell cars to people over an hours travel away these days. It's always the distance sales that cause grief IMO and aren't worth the hassle anymore. Bad customers because they're either buying purely on price, your vehicle being the cheapest, and therefore can't actually afford to run and maintain it and will be seeking any kind of claim to save a few quid. Or the car is a rare bit and they're travelling because they have high standards and want the best one on the market which is all well and good until they get a bit of buyers remorse two weeks later realising it hasn't changed their sex life, their mates aren't actually that impressed and they suddenly realise it's just an eight year old lump of metal so they start trying to pick fault. Apologies guys...i'm not loving punters lately.

I assume you've checked the garage isn't owned by someone with the same surname as him and received a fixed quote already right? Surprised he's being so compliant but maybe i'm being overly suspicious. Just done £900 in fixes on a 5k Audi and they still complain because the rubber door seal has some signs of wear...funny that on a 8 year old 90k car. Sometimes I hate people.