First time at BCA blackbushe today

[Grantlfc81 88]

Never again. The prices were simply eye watering... was anyone else there? There was literally not a penny left in some of these cars.

[D&M 66]

We've only been to Blackbushe once. That was enough!

Could not believe how many people were there, sprinting between halls.... Staff were rude and miserable, and they lost the keys to the section we bought from so we had to wait over 3 hours for them to find them.

[justina3 518]

I think it’s just a game of numbers didn’t buy a single thing today, Myself however tomorrow is a different day thank god for on line bidding. 
 

yes you end up with the odd lemon but factor in all the time you save it’s still well worth it, driving around the country for me is just no longer viable. 

[Arfur Dealy 823]

15 minutes ago, justina3 said:

 

yes you end up with the odd lemon but factor in all the time you save it’s still well worth it, driving around the country for me is just no longer viable. 

Exactly my opinion, I do miss the buzz though...

[Mark101 536]

I used to love attending auctions, the food hall, the auctioneer, the banter. I only don't go because of time constraints. I bought 5 last week, the ones I thought were going to be risk free (a 1 owner Golf GTI and a BMW 325 6 cylinder petrol) turn out to be the risky bags. The banger MX-5, the U Grade S-Max and a 36k, 12 Honda stamp Jazz Auto are all fine, except - I bought the Jazz (£1,000 over book) for a lady who had called the day before who said she cannot find a small, petrol, automatic car for £4k anywhere can I help. Less than 24 hours later, I call and say got you one....You can guess the rest. Luckily (for her) I missed the call and got a voicemail saying.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I left a deposit on one after we spoke yesterday.

From now on £500 dipper no exceptions of sourcing. Happened twice now in two weeks.

Edited January 28, 2020 by Mark101

[Grantlfc81 88]

Bedford BCA is decent. Less crowded and nice people

[trade vet 704]

I must have bought thousands at Blackbushe.My favourite ,you can often nick something even when stuff appears unbuyable.However you have to put in a lot of effort with research which is now a lot easier.To buy two or three you have to target about 80 and if you attend you have to be switched on for hours to nick the odd one that slips through.( similar to XFS yesterday)

[Grantlfc81 88]

I bought 5 yesterday, but it was still amazingly expensive. Not sure what these people are selling these cars for. But they can’t be making much money.

[Earunder 69]

7 hours ago, Grantlfc81 said:

Bedford BCA is decent. Less crowded and nice people

Bedford is a f/ing nightmare now!  Sat there waiting for an hour and a half because they lost the sodding car, then it had 0 miles and the gate were as helpful as the "I'm here to Help!" jackets they were wearing.  Luckily one of the guys in the new "car collection" room was really helpful and got me enough diesel to make it to the petrol station.

From now on getting everything from Bedford collected by Movex or delivered by BCA.  I was fuming!

17 hours ago, Grantlfc81 said:

Never again. The prices were simply eye watering... was anyone else there? There was literally not a penny left in some of these cars.

Always been a pricey auction.  As others have mentioned though one or two slip through every now and then from Blackbush though and always Grade 1-2.  (Touch wood, fingers crossed for future)

Never thought I'd see the day Enfield and Pwood made more over CAP than Chelmsford!  

6 hours ago, Grantlfc81 said:

I bought 5 yesterday, but it was still amazingly expensive. Not sure what these people are selling these cars for. But they can’t be making much money.

Haven't bought 5 in a day from Blackbushe in about 2 years haha!  I'd be overly chuffed if I got that many!

 

[Tom 164]

I used to go to BB on a regular basis but the cars went down hill and the prices went up. Plus its a shit hole! 

[A & S 20]

On 1/28/2020 at 11:13 AM, Grantlfc81 said:

I bought 5 yesterday, but it was still amazingly expensive. Not sure what these people are selling these cars for. But they can’t be making much money.

Where did you buy from, was it Bedford? I managed to buy just 3 from Bedford on Monday, usually buy upto 10. Some of the stuff was making retail.

[OneCarefulOwner 4]

I've watched various BCA live auctions online lately and everything is hitting cap clean and above + fee's how do people make a decent living with these prices ?? 

 

[Stalker 180]

On 1/28/2020 at 5:11 PM, Earunder said:

Bedford is a f/ing nightmare now!  Sat there waiting for an hour and a half because they lost the sodding car, then it had 0 miles and the gate were as helpful as the "I'm here to Help!" jackets they were wearing. 

I hate it when that happens, You need to get the girl that pulls the cars to go find it..... shes mint! Proper kicks off at the other useless staff there as well!

[justina3 518]

3 hours ago, OneCarefulOwner said:

I've watched various BCA live auctions online lately and everything is hitting cap clean and above + fee's how do people make a decent living with these prices ?? 

 

If comes in over cap clean it goes out over retail my margin remains the same.

[Grantlfc81 88]

13 hours ago, A & S said:

Where did you buy from, was it Bedford? I managed to buy just 3 from Bedford on Monday, usually buy upto 10. Some of the stuff was making retail.

i bought 5 from blackbushe on monday, decent but bought a coupe that needed paint, but i like those ones.

[Mumsnet 0]

I'm a seller rather than a dealer and thought you'd like to know the pitfalls with Blackbushe.

The car I sold in the last 2 months had it's reversing sensors disconnected (water damage) and the aircon was so old it had fallen off the it's engine mounts. The turbo seals had gone and was doing half a litre of oil every 500 miles. Despite this WBAC gave me cash and I was grateful.

Within a week some dealer in Surrey had it on sale with sensors and aircon working (unlikely)

What was of note was that the car should have gone to the BCA site 20 miles away as it was over the 5 year limit for Blackbushe but they sent it to Blackbushe anyway. So avoid anything over the stated BCA limit there.

Disclaimer: My day job is in consumer protection so I am not surprised about b2b deals.

[CRW 73]

So you sold WBAC your car then condemn them for moving it on to somebody else?

Not sure why you are taking the moral high ground here.

Did you disclose all its faults to WBAC or did you just take the money?

[JDM1983 28]

Bought one online from Nottingham this week. Paid at the desk, women said are you ready to collect it now? I said yes and she radioed the guys outside, by the time I got out the car had been pulled up to the gate, and someone handed me the keys! Every time I buy at Blackbush it’s a nightmare to get the car out!

[JA Trader 58]

Just now, JDM1983 said:

Bought one online from Nottingham this week. Paid at the desk, women said are you ready to collect it now? I said yes and she radioed the guys outside, by the time I got out the car had been pulled up to the gate, and someone handed me the keys! Every time I buy at Blackbush it’s a nightmare to get the car out!

I agree Nottingham can be great to get cars out of.

I was at Wolverhampton the other week collecting one.

When i arrived to the key office i was the only one waiting by the time i got my car there was 9 people queuing for 15 cars.... this was about 45 minutes later

"Happy to help" my Arse

[BHM 994]

1 hour ago, CRW said:

Did you disclose all its faults to WBAC or did you just take the money?

I think we all know the answer.....

Also ‘works in consumer protection’. Certainly not doing their bit for business protection.

[Earunder 69]

15 hours ago, Mumsnet said:

I'm a seller rather than a dealer and thought you'd like to know the pitfalls with Blackbushe.

The car I sold in the last 2 months had it's reversing sensors disconnected (water damage) and the aircon was so old it had fallen off the it's engine mounts. The turbo seals had gone and was doing half a litre of oil every 500 miles. Despite this WBAC gave me cash and I was grateful.

Within a week some dealer in Surrey had it on sale with sensors and aircon working (unlikely)

What was of note was that the car should have gone to the BCA site 20 miles away as it was over the 5 year limit for Blackbushe but they sent it to Blackbushe anyway. So avoid anything over the stated BCA limit there.

Disclaimer: My day job is in consumer protection so I am not surprised about b2b deals.

So you sell a car to WBAC,
They transport it to BCA,
They sell it on to a dealer,
Great story...

Unless your gripe was that the dealer is selling it for a lot more than what WBAC gave you hence the little quip of it's unlikely they repaired the faults.  Well, it's most likely they have/will as it's not in any dealers interest to sell a car with a known problem as we are only going to get it back to repair them at a later date, then lend out a courtesy vehicle while it's being done.  Kind of a no brainer to fix issues no?

Nevertheless, thanks for popping by to tell us of your job.

[NOACROSS 414]

 

When I started out years ago, my old man and the other old salty dogs were always telling me that 'people get out of motors for a reason' and it's rare they just fancy a change.  If a car's in an auction and not on a forecourt then you need to be prepared for the occasional spanking.  Obvious I know, but replies not far above always make me chuckle. 

If we're confessing the obvious, I've lurched a few dogs at WBAC.  And a few of my missus' cars. Most memorable a 56 plate TT v6 DSG a few years ago as I hated the junk and they go wrong for fun like most of Germany's 'finest'.  Nice car, but I was always shelling out on it with the usual issues.

Anyway, sold it to WBAC.  Happened to see it in BCA sale the next week.  Two weeks later, the 'proud' new owner had tracked my missus down via facebook and was moaning about the speedo issue, lurchy gearbox etc.  Could we help him track down the garages that may have done work on it and what had we done on it.

I simply told him maybe don't buy from auctions next time as it's a big boys game.  'But it was cheap he said!'.

Edited January 31, 2020 by NOACROSS

[Casper 272]

16 minutes ago, NOACROSS said:

 

When I started out years ago, my old man and the other old salty dogs were always telling me that 'people get out of motors for a reason' and it's rare they just fancy a change.  If a car's in an auction and not on a forecourt then you need to be prepared for the occasional spanking.  Obvious I know, but replies not far above always make me chuckle. 

If we're confessing the obvious, I've lurched a few dogs at WBAC.  And a few of my missus' cars. Most memorable a 56 plate TT v6 DSG a few years ago as I hated the junk and they go wrong for fun like most of Germany's 'finest'.  Nice car, but I was always shelling out on it with the usual issues.

Anyway, sold it to WBAC.  Happened to see it in BCA sale the next week.  Two weeks later, the 'proud' new owner had tracked my missus down via facebook and was moaning about the speedo issue, lurchy gearbox etc.  Could we help him track down the garages that may have done work on it and what had we done on it.

I simply told him maybe don't buy from auctions next time as it's a big boys game.  'But it was cheap he said!'.

Your old man sounds very much like mine and said the same . And funnily enough I've had the same thing happen with stuff id entered into the auction to be told through a mutual friend  that it had an oil leak my response was similar go back and tell him that's why a ten year old car was sold in the auction with no warranty in the first place funny thing is it was £500 junker that had a fortune spend on it as i was intending keeping it as had bought it for a garage daily at the time but turned into a money pit and could have probably bought a 3 year old of the same model cheaper 

the junker that replaced it was a one owner high miler and never missed a beat bought from the  same auction house 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Casper

[OneCarefulOwner 4]

On 1/30/2020 at 11:48 AM, justina3 said:

If comes in over cap clean it goes out over retail my margin remains the same.

Problem is we are a car super market and have 220 cars mainly online sales, so we aim at low pricing structure and move them on. So cap clean ++ isn't in the game plan for us.