BIGNIT

Anyone charge for the fuel in the tank. I always make sure cars have 1/4 tank of fuel in and sometimes we get cars with 3/4 even occasional full tank. Thinking about charging (at pump prices) for the fuel in the tank. If I claw in on average say £15 per car and sell 20 cars a month that makes me better off by £3600 a year. Anybody tried this? How have customers reacted?

He says its still happening and will bring it back again. I can understand it coming on, but why would the car cut out?

Sold car to customer says traction control light comes on and car cuts out sometimes when going round bends. He brought it back couldnt replicate the fault. Auto electrician couldnt see anything wrong. Any ideas?

Thanks for advice, I rang them and informed vehicle is sold and to contact DVLA for new keepers details

Received parking notice for a car after we sold it. Can I give the parking company the customers details? They asked for it in writing - can I charge them as why should I use my time posting and writing it, my fuel driving to post it, and my ink and paper for free?

Its for sale or rent, I fancy buying it. It has B8 planning which I have been told will be fine for appointment only car sales (Im not 100% convinced). Apparantly screwfix and such like sell from b8 planning. Comes just under business rates. I wanted to know differences between having indoor space and outdoor. eg are there fire regs as cars are kept inside ??? Also thinking fumes from cars will that cause a problem? Currently seen the unit, like it. Its not perfect but price is good

Always wanted an indoor unit, is there anything that I need to know, Such as fire regs or health and safety stuff eg fumes inside or anything really. Always traded outside up to now

Thats the one. Thanks

Apparently we download one off hse website after doing risk assessment. Can anyone point me in right direction I cant find this certificate to download.

When a customer wants to have the car delivered without seeing it first. We charge the customer delivery, we do not take any payment for the vehicle. They then get to view/test drive at their home. They then decide if they want to purchase the vehicle after they have seen/driven it. There is no obligation to buy, but they lose the payment for delivery if they don't. Would this be classed as distance selling? I cant see that it would as the customer is viewing/driving the car before they decide to buy or not.

Sure I have seen mentioned on here about a trade sale group on facebook. Anyone point me in right direction of it? Is it any good?

I budget each car a month of advertising. I dont know exact averages but most dont go much over a month of advertising. I sell £1000 to £4000, older petrols with good miles, good history. Obviously that doesnt include prep times. Prep adds anything from a day to a month. But most are online in less than a week of arriving.

Hope it goes to £2000, nearly impossible to provide a fully prepped car, pay vat and make a wage for £1499. But I think £1999 is very doable.

Not the most constructive of comments, but yes they make me do slight adjustments. May be to 10% of my stock.

Theres lots of talk about the pricemarkers (generally negative). However, I reckon they are here to stay. Here are the adjustments I have made due to them. Anyone else make similair adjustments? 1) I want my cars to be good or ideally great price markers so if a car is fair but close to good I will reduce it but only by £100 or so. I wont slash a load off just to get a good price marker. 2) Similar to number 1, if what I feel a competitive price for a car shows low I will actually put the price up to get to great. 3) I will not advertise a car that states high price. So if I think a car is worth £4000 but the highest fair price marker is £3800 I will advertise at £3800. You need to make this adjustment before you buy the car if you dont want high price markers. Are customers actually bothered about the markers? Am I adjusting too much? Who knows. Whats your thoughts and do you do similair adjustments?

What are the benefits of this over the Autotrader checks?

We always service/fix faults/checked over by mechanic before advertised so car should pass mot first time once a deposit is taken (doesnt always work out like that though)

Cant decide if its best to MOT in advance or not. At moment we MOT once a deposit is taken or if car is within 30 days of expiry. Main reason we wait till got a deposit is if in the event something goes wrong an MOT 1mile/1day before collection goes a long way to showing the car is roadworthy at the time of sale. Also if we have MOT a car in advance I feel pressured to sell it quicker as it is obvious how long we have had a car in stock and of course customers wont be getting 12 month mot anymore. The reason I doubting my strategy is I get the feeling cars that have already been MOT in advance (ones within 30 days of expiry) are selling quicker. I also had a couple of comments from customers recently saying they were put off at first because the car only had 4 month mot when they looked it up. Even though it says in numerous places 12 Month MOT on every car. But this shouldn't be of any surprise because I am sure the majority of customers can not read. I also put viewing by appointment everywhere but every week get at least someone just turning up. So do you MOT in advance or not and whats your reasons behind it? I am assuming we all put a fresh test on every car, I do as I feel it adds value to the vehicle and it covers my back legally. Be interesting also to see how many on here dont put a fresh test on.

Thanks for advice everyone, in conclusion I think only way to know its for me is to have a go. Who would be best company to deal with for me. Ideally one who would help with FCA applications and would accept customers at this price point. And should have mentioned I run my business on an appointment only basis from an industrial estate not a traditional forecourt. (Dont know if that will make any difference)

Mainly stock cars between £2000 and £4000 price point I never offered finance as I rightly or wrongly always thought it will be a hassle (with declines, extra paperwork etc), I dont want customers rejecting car to finance company 5 months down line(should this be a genuine concern?) and I didnt like the idea of doing business with people who need finance on what is a cheap old car ( I dont want people with no money barley keeping up with repayments ringing me moaning it needs eg a tyre a few months down line ) Obvious plus point is I might sell more cars and I might get some commission (cant imagine much on a 3k car though). Is it worth offering finance on such a low price point and if so who would you recommend using?

What year vitaras? I get through a fair few suzukis never caused me any bother. You have to watch out for gearboxes on swifts and corrosion on Jimnys though.

Only advertise with Autotrader (no walk ins), usually sell 10 to 12 a month. August up to change of order (around 19 days) I sold 8 cars. Since they changed search (around 17 days) sold 2 cars. May be coincidence but I have given my 30 day notice just in case things dont pick up. Although I have had around 5 enquiries today, so hopefully will pick up this weekend.

Been a week or so since Autotrader changed search order to relevant. Inquiries and sales drastically plummeted. May be coincidence we will see. Anyone else noticed a difference? I did ring up to see what makes a car relevant, spoke to three people no one knew. Quite annoying saw a private advert with one line of text and only 3 pictures more relevant than mine with 20 pictures and large paragraph of text.

I put this on another thread, so apologies for repeating myself. I just had a 3 month trial with ebay/ gumtree, worked out at approx £120 per sale Autotrader approx £90 per sale Thats all that matter to me £ per sale. Ebay/gumtree brings a lot of enquiries but the quality of them is poor.

You dont get to drive them, very little come back, large fees, and a lot of auction houses false bid. My advice is dont use auctions.