Gavin@Rousdon

Clearly if the customer has done 10k miles you wouldn't be (as) liable, I base my warranty on 1000 miles per month, so 3 months or 3000 miles. Common sense has to be used !!!

If your going to take on Autotrader by offering a 'Free' site you need to be in it for the long run. 10 years and someone may make difference !!!

May sound harsh but a BMW X5 40d must be £25k worth of car. Would anyone on here be happy if their £25k investment was leaking oil after a couple of months?? My advise would be get it sorted and send the customer away happy. I'm guessing maybe it's an 10 hour job, if you have a workshop it's a few days work if not I'm guess you will be paying a trade rate. No one likes a £600 bill on a car that is sold but if it gets to court expect a far larger bill then that. Keep the customer onside and he may chip in a bit. We all sell cars in the attempt to make money but we do have a legal obligation to our customers too, it's what sets us aside from the cowboys who give the trade a bad name.

I do the same with adverts, it also helps your advert stand out a bit rather then just a pointless list of features. As for Scirrocos in my experience they need Leather & NAV to be good news and even then you need to buy well under CAP clean. VW Sale I went to last week 3 with Leather & NAV went though and made between £1500-£1000 below CAP Clean, on 2013(62) Plate

The USA, that crime free country with such a low rate of gun crime. I always wonder just how they manage to live such peaceful lives over the pond.

I use MotoNovo for finance who have always done me ok. For card processing I use Worldpay (used to be streamline). I get charged a set fee in pence for debit cards and a percentage for credit cards. I always pass on the charge if a customer wants to buy a car on credit card and most people accept this.

Getting FCA regulated is a hassle and an expense but worth it in the long run. In the past certain brokers wouldn't deal with you if you didn't have a consumer credit license, I don't know if that has changed with the FCA regulations. Hopefully your experience in PLC Land will mean you understand the wording when applying to the FCA, I found it a different language as I think did many car dealers!!! The money you can make from finance commission should outweigh the FCA fees especially in the £5000 market as you will be able to undercut most the online lenders who only offer great rates if borrowing over £5k. As for you chip and pin rate is seems very expensive to me, I pay less then that taking over 10 times more.

Stored on the iDrive when they can be bothered to put it on there. The last 4 BMW's I've had with this facility have had services missed off, I'm guessing it takes more then 2 minutes to do on a service so the mechanics can't be bothered anymore.

I have BMW and Mercedes covered at present Umesh. VAG is a nightmare and costs £5 everytime you want to view (they say they will refund if you make an entry). No joy with Mazda yet. I am finding more and more the dealers not entering servicing on the system and/or on the iDrive of the car (BMW).

I think we are trying to say that 99.9% of dealers do it this way !!! Order up some job cards and make a note of what work you have carried out so you have record yourself but a stamp in the service book is accepted proof. Of course we could start talking about Digital Service Histories but best to leave that for another day

Plenty of people wanting £1000 cars but 1 major fault could wipe out your profit. Some buyers won't car that the central locking doesn't work, yet other will be on the phone the next day. Oil leak on a 206, needs a new head gasket, not a big job but still a £250 bill. You say your wife runs a well established business from home, I'm afraid certain people who buy £1000 cars would turn up and hassle her. Nothing stopping you from taxing cars, but unless you register then in your name you won't get the tax back. I started out 15 years ago selling sub £1000 cars, I was lucky and had a workshop. Times were different then, if you don't believe me spend £500 on a Peugeot 206 and then track down an old K10 Nissan Mirca (G reg or H reg). Put both cars side by side and count how many more parts the 206 has on it.

You will need Trade Plates to drive the cars from auction. No car can be sold to the public sold as seen, putting it on an invoice makes no different. They are protected buy law and it is expected that the car will be roadworthy and fit for purpose. You could be liable for faults for upto 7 years in law, but in the first 6 months it is for you to prove the fault wasn't on the car when you sold it. Good look in the sub £1000 market, its not a nice place to be i'm afraid

Just an update, I gave it a go at a cheap price of £5800 as needed no recon and no prep other then a standard pdi, had the normal ebay emails everyday, about 5 phone calls from people in London saying they will be down the next morning, about 3 from people in Wales saying the same thing. Sold Saturday morning to a couple who live 8 miles away!! What I noticed is despite writing all the modifications in the advert people still emailed me asking me to list.................the modifications!!!

In the grand scheme of things this isn't a big forum and things run fairly smoothly. I imagine it would be the regular posters using it to start off with which doesn't seem a bad balance at the moment and would made have 10-20 cars on it to start with. Maybe start it with only regular members here first and them open it up to others providing they meet a criteria such as the one Jim proposes.

VAT Number and website maybe? It's a tough call as could turn it a lot of hassle of policing it if not kept simple. Maybe new members can only buy cars and not sell until 'approved'. It's a great idea James but I think you need to think how responsible you want to be for it as it's a good dead which could turn into a chore which wouldn't be fair on yourself.

That is my way of thinking, but as the bodyshop is full with cars at the moment I may test the water with it as it is at a cheap price and then change it back if its still here in a few weeks. I'm sure someone would love it and 1 Series seem to be in favour with younger drivers at the moment !!! Or maybe its my wishfull thinking !!!

Now I openly admit I hate cars that have been played around with, mainly because my opinion is that BMW/Merc/Vauxhall etc etc pay a highly talented designer a lot of money to make their cars look modern with everything working in unison, alloys suit the bodystyle etc etc. I'm sure they could save lots of money by giving a copy of Max Power to a few random people and let them loose for a few days but the results wouldn't be good in my opinion. As an occupational hazard I've had to take a modified car in, a BMW 118D, the car is mint to be fair and the mature owner has looked after it, he has also left me the original wheels and rear lights, so with a bit of effort, a new set of springs and a trip to the bodyshop to fix where he has drilled some LED reversing lights (Don't ask) the car would be back to normal. Now who would leave it as is, and who would change it back?????

14000 bitter customers looking for a £2k car and expecting a new car like they are used too. Not that I'm cynical but I imagine a few of those 14000 will be a nightmare with their expectations.

Everything that breaks was ok 10 seconds before it broke, that 10 seconds could be 3 years after they have purchased the car or 3 minutes !!! We can't tell the future and deal with things of a mechanical nature, at some point they will break. Amazingly most workshops aren't full of cars which people have just purchased so it a rarity, even more so if you prep the cars properly. It would be interesting to know what percentage of p/x's show faults within 7 days of being traded in compared to cars customers have just purchased !!!

I've not used a warranty company for a fair few years now but it was always a case of how you 'word' the claim to them, a leaking water pump would become a water pump with a collapsed bearing etc etc. If an engineer was ever sent out you know the claim would be hard work and mean a car stuck on the ramp for 3 days only for it to be rejected under wear and tear. One lady on the claims line seemed to be an expert on rejecting claims, I'm sure they got commission or bonus for it. I raised it with the rep about her and his answer was to put the phone down once you heard her voice and call back a few minutes later and hope someone else answers!! All in all the whole process was worth the hassle, it was just painful and not worth the free price hangers and floor mats.

It's seems a theme on here that dealer don't like roadside traders and how they try and get out of there responsibilities if a fault occurs with a car. Then we have a dealer wanting / expecting a customer to wait for two day for a fault to be looked at on a car he purchased that day. Then it's seems like the dealer wants the customer to foot the bill for using decent parts instead of cheap parts. Lets be fair, how do we think this customer is feeling at the moment about his new car and the 'experience' of buying it?? My advice is pay the bill and keep the customer happy, forget £13.99 coil packs and put it down to experience. If he had had the car 20 days it's different story. Once he had phoned maybe the best course of action would be to get the car back, lend him a car, sort the problem and take the car back to him. That way you are in control of the problem. None of us like spending money but faults occur on cars, sometimes it will happen on the day of purchase. Moaning about the less desirable elements of the motor trade and then acting like one doesn't help anyone

Is it that bad?? How old is the car, price, miles etc?? Most questions are just what a customer would ask in any case. Questions 5 and 6 are an matter of opinion but can be answered by saying.............In my opinion the car drives as it should, has no visible fluid leaks and no untoward noises that you wouldn't expect from a car this age and mileage. BUT PLEASE Mr Skillawonjker feel free to take an extended test drive and see for yourself. BUT If he offers to pay by Western Union Money Transfer via his shipping agent tell him to do one !!!

Not a part exchange but about 10 years ago I sold a TATA Loadbeater Pick Up to the local egg farmer. Imagine stereotypical Devon/Dorset farmer type in a little Britain type way and you get the idea. He brings it back for service and MOT and I have to drop him back to the farm in it. In the back are 6 big dustbins which he asks me to unload, not a problem expecting them to be full of grain. I was wrong, they were full of the slops and waste food scrapped off peoples plates from the local holiday camp. I'm sure people don't have stew and dumplings for breakfast so they were clearly from the day before and left in the summer heat. I still remember the smell now...........it never leaves you....never !!!

Amazingly the customer just phoned up !!! Asked if I remembered him and stated that we weren't too far away on price when he left (£1500 not far!!) Anyway with a bit of negotiation we did a deal at £14k. I didn't ask what happened to the 3 other cars he had printed off which he consider much better value then mine!! Not sure if its a case of a customer just not being very good at negotiating or having a 'head full of magic' and after looking at other cars reality set in.

Always seem to involve a Ford KA somewhere along the line!!! I that end of the market just doesn't seem worth it for anyone trying to make legitimate money. When I'm aboard I look at the price of old bangers and they seem so much more expensive. Maybe if the mindset of the UK buyer changed and they were educated that anything under £1500 should be considered a deathtrap it would give scope for honest traders to turn old cars into decent safe cars and give a bit more choice in the market. I'm sure we have all had customers asking about a car for a family member but expecting to pay £600 for something fault free. The public do seem to believe good cars can be purchased for £500 and then complain when they buy rubbish.