The back lot/ trade in corner...

[ruffgeezer]

Every used car dealer has them, tucked away from the rows of shiny bland finance packages, the shonky and moss green collection of rag tag no hopers destined for the desperate or the scrappers...

 

 

What's hiding on your local lot?

 

Plenty of chod on this one near me...

 

[Ghosty]

Cue a string of comments about how they're all modern etc... 

[ruffgeezer]

Well yes, they are but some amongst them are getting a rarity now.

 

better pics to come when I'm next out walking the mutt.

[Hendry]

Looks like amongst others a Vectra B GSi and a mk4 Golf GTi, and far away in the picture an Astra H missing its passenger side headlight by the looks of it.

 

Do any of them have prices on them?

 

I remember in years gone by, the smaller independent franchised dealers had a trade in section or bargain corner or to clear or whatever. 

 

I remember in about 2003 Springside Motors Kia in Irvine had amongst others an M reg Escort base 1.3 for about £1200

 

William Clark Ford Kilbirnie had in 2002 a 93 L Orion Ghia 1.8 for £995

 

and Thomson of Beith Ford had in 2004/5 an L reg Cavalier LS for about £1300, and an R reg Fiesta 1.25 LX for £995 and I remember the advert saying "a few scrapes and scratches, hence price"

 

You wouldnt see that on any franchised dealer forecourt these days owing to franchise standards, corporate identity etc.

 

I miss the old days when main dealers generally had a few older cars for sale. Arnold Clark does a "value range" under £5k but even the cheaper stuff at £2.5K is still relatively new 60 plate Puntos and so on, and Evans Halshaw has "Runabouts" but these are really auction fodder, high mileage scruffy wrecked tatty examples, the Ford branch in Motherwell last year had the singlemost rusty Astra H ive ever seen, god knows how they thought someone would part with 3 large for a 10year old petrol Astra with surface rust on most panels. Im talking about in the days where low mileage, service history and excellent condition would see a dealer keep a car for retail despite its age and not just do their usual anything over a certain age is auction automatically. Oldest examples I remember were a 1995 N Nissan Skyline for sale at Arnold Clark Nissan Linwood in 2006, apparently one of the very rare proper UK Skylines Nissan brought over and sold here officially. Or in late 2009, Arnold Clark Vauxhall had a 2000 X reg E46 BMW 316i SE in green with only 11,000 miles on it for £6k, unfortunately their Fiat branch round the corner got all the BMW trade ins from Harry Fairbairn which were too old, high mileage, scruffy, or on sale for too long as BMW Approved Used Cars and they had an 03 plate 320D SE with about 55K on it for £6k as well so it was difficult to sell. 

 

Arnold Clark also had a couple of Proton franchises in Glasgow which were also "Trade & Save Centres" which basically amongst new Protons and cars traded in for new Protons, also sourced a lot of stock from Arnold Clark Finance's cars they had leased to businesses and companies brand new and were handed back to Arnie at the end of the lease, my dad bought one such car, February 2000, an August 1996 P Chrysler Neon 2,0 LE in emerald green with rare manual box and electric sunroof, 66,000 miles but full main dealer history, had been looked after for £4495, similar but lower mileage cars were £2K more, but anyway they had a very eclectic mix of stock, in the new Proton showroom they had amongst others a used P reg Citroen ZX 1.4 Elation, a white N reg R8 Rover 416GSi tourer, a nightfire red R reg Rover R3 216 GSI 5 door, outside an N reg Mondeo 2.5 V6 24v, a P reg Rover 820Si fastback, an M reg mint green Corsa B 1.5 Diesel Merit, but the 2 interesting ones were a K reg Proton 1.3 Aeroback in red for £988, and a J reg Lada Samara 3 door for £588.

 

You wouldnt see an Arnold Clark branch flogging modern equivalents of them of the same vintage, nor would you see them selling a sub-£1000 car or a sub-£600 car. 

 

What I find weird is I considered a 1994 M reg car old in 2001, but I dont see a 10 plate car as an old car despite it being the same age now as a 94 car wouldve been in 01. 

 

I also miss the car adverts in the newspapers where youd get a list of their used car stock, these days its all Macklin/Parks/Arnold Clark adverts advertising new, pre reg, nearly new and scoop purchase generic adverts advertising about 10 cars with a generic image. I suppose they dont need to when you can go online and view colour pictures and detailed descriptions etc. but I still miss it. There was 1 in the Road Record last Friday (we are in Glasgow) as a 2 page spread from a dealer in Carlisle of all places, which was the old fashioned list of cars with descriptions, but they had kicked the arse out of it with as well as spec, features, mileage of the car, some daft comments that make no difference to the car, stuff like "a real cracker this one, sporty looks and performance" 

 

what happened to just "99 T CITROEN XSARA 1.6 X, 5 DOOR, Hermes Red, PAS, Remote Central Locking, Steering Wheel Mounted Audio Controls, 1 Owner, 32,000 Miles, Citroen FSH.......................£5290" etc. 

 

And just what is the deal with dealers advertising cars on their own websites, ebay, gumtree, pistonheads, autotrader, everywhere basically, with "full electrics" or "electric pack" when its a Focus Studio that only has electric front windows! full electrics or electric pack means to me as a minimum all round electric windows and electric door mirrors, if theres a sunroof fitted it should be electric too, and a proper definition includes electric adjustable seats too. 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

I remember in about 2003 Springside Motors Kia in Irvine had amongst others an M reg Escort base 1.3 for about £1200

 

William Clark Ford Kilbirnie had in 2002 a 93 L Orion Ghia 1.8 for £995

 

and Thomson of Beith Ford had in 2004/5 an L reg Cavalier LS for about £1300, and an R reg Fiesta 1.25 LX for £995 and I remember the advert saying "a few scrapes and scratches, hence price"

 

Picking up a slight autism vibe here

[mk2_craig]

You want to see the prices of "the back lot" stuff here. There's still the odd optimist trying to get £3k for a 2001 Fiesta.

[Sir Snipes]

I remember the skoda agent in Bolton had a cheapie lot up the road from the main showroom. They had a mk2 Golf (I think a Driver, but not a GTi) for £800 and 200k miles. That seemed a lot 15 years ago but I guess the dubbers would pay that nowadays.

[Tamworthbay]

There used to be a dealer a couple of miles from me that had a £500 corner with a sign that said 'you don't need to ask the price, they are all £500. Drive away today'. If it had said trailer away today it would have been more accurate. I don't think one of them was ever worth more than £100 but they seemed to change quite regularly so we're either selling or being scrapped.

[trigger]

The bodyshop i worked for had a contract with a number of local garages back in the late 90s and all their runabout cars were the cheap part x's, sometimes you would drop a car back to the garage from being repaired and they wouldn't have anything else to go back so they would give you one of their shitters to get back to the yard in, these cars would often be more interesting than the modern car I'd just delivered, ones i remember the most were a B reg Civic saloon which had no arches, a Mk2 Astra 1.8 SRi with DTM upsweeps which went like fuck and a B reg Fiat Regatta which lost it's brakes and wipers in a monsoon.

[Split_Pin]

There's a 'value' or whatever, range of cars at a local SsangYong/MG dealer to me. However, as a generalisation, it consists of of 10 year old Astras, Kia MPV things and others from a broad range which are priced at around £2995.

[Lord Sterling]

I picked up a car yesterday from a back lot. Sadly it was a modernz 2014 Peugeot 3008. In the back lot I spotted a Rover 75, a nice E38 7-series, 03-reg Astra and a Fiat Punto.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

From 81 until about 84 , it was a Saturday morning ritual for me and a group of mates to visit Delgarth Car Centre in Stony Stratford- and it wasn't to Perv over the latest Lada or Yugo, strange as that may seem now.

Highlights for me were my first MklV Executive £100 and one owner , why did that get traded?

Audi 100SE £150, Volvo 144 GL manual injection!£100, Renault 17 Gordini £170. When I bought the Exec we also bought an orange 2000E Cortina that was a non-runner for £30 and towed it home with the Zodiac.

 

One of my mates got an immaculate 2 door Mk2 Cortina with a 1600 GT engine and Dunlop alloys for £60!!!!! He kept it for years . I passed on a Volvo 164E man o/d on the day I bought the Zodiac because it was too high an insurance group( I was only 18). This was when there were only 7 groups and I could only afford up to group 5.

 

Once got a Wartburg estate for £10 from a Ford dealer in Brackley, drove it home then discovered the headlights had rusted out so drove it to the bridge the next day and got £12 for it- the scrappy used it for years to cart the bottles around the yard.

[beko1987]

Well yes, they are but some amongst them are getting a rarity now.

 

better pics to come when I'm next out walking the mutt.

I was going to comment, yes their all modern but your hardly likely to find a back lot like you would in 1991 (sadly!). You have to work with what you have at your disposal!

[Lankytim]

It used to be fun going to a main dealer and seeing if they had any cheap part exes round the back. Got hold of a lovely Volvo 940GLE estate 16v once from a Volvo Main dealer once, had it years. Nowadays everything seems to go to auction no matter what, even the obvious scrap. I think dealers are afraid of being sued by someone if a £100 Vectra breaks down 6 months later or something.

[Aston Martin]

Trade cars cleckheaton?

[Jams]

Nissan garage in Tamworth has a back yard full of chod!! Well it's over the road but it's nice to see

[eddyramrod]

I've bought cars from bargain lots many times, including from the great Ginger McCain's place in Southport (he was a mate of my dad).  The first car I ever drove came from his bargain corner, a nine-year-old 1965 Cortina.  Since coming to Barrow I've bought two from local dealers, both seen on this forum and indeed both passed on to other Shiters. 

Across the main road near me there's a garage dealing in "prestige used" which basically means anything German and less than 10 years old; my Vectra came from there, and subsequently went to Craigtheprincess for his dad.  Elsewhere there's another dealer aiming a little lower in the market, from where I picked up the green 406 that went to Cavcraft.

In short, I'm a fan of buying this way and would do it again any time.  You can still find them!

[ProgRocker]

In the early 2000s I remember asking a salesman at Desira Fiat if they had any Unos or old style Pandas that had been part exed. He told me that they go straight to auction as they might get sued if someone buys a duff one from them.

[cort16]

I think it changed when they weren't able to sell the car direct to public without some kind of liability.

Now they just flush them all through the auction although recently I've heard that some dealers have started having monthly auction on site to sell off their trade ins. They can sell a car with faults but it has to be declared. If they sold something with a declared borked gearbox and it turned out to also have HGF they'd be responsible for sorting the HGF.

[clayts450]

We have an interesting motorhome sales outlet in my part of Nottingham which is a family run business.

 

About 6 months ago you could see all sorts of chod at the front of the dealership around the £500 mark but bizarrely prices have suddenly doubled in that short space of time.

 

I don't think they used to sell cars but then started offering PX deals on their motorhomes. You used to see 10-15 yr old £100-£500 snotters parked up outside looking very sorry for themselves. Real old school second hand car dealer stuff

 

Now their cheapest is a putrid yellow 306cc of dubious quality, yours for £895

 

 

http://www.glennsleisurevehicles.co.uk/vehicles/

[Hendry]

Picking up a slight autism vibe here

 

Huh? 

[Justin Case]

A local garage has some very nice secondhand stock, but keeps the part-exs on the forecourt of their workshop, which is just down the road from whre we have recently moved to. Among the cheaper stuff has been a clio with four different wheels for £349, A Hyndai Getz which looks quite straight at £395, a late Picasso looking very tidy at £549, a BMW Compact at £295 and as we now live in the heart of Small-Peugeot-Land, an ever changing selection of late 206s and early 207s at prices varying between £995 and £999, which seems modest for what you get. In what passes for  a showroom they have an MGF at £649 which appears to have taken root, but fortunately the chemists next door has run out of brave pills.

[Lord Sterling]

Huh?

 

I think what he means (is basically what he says) that you seem to write out some very detailed pieces which can be a trait of autism. You don't write so much a post but more of a thesis. Not a bad thing by any means but noticeable.

[Timewaster]

I once bought a Golf from the back row.

 

What a good* idea that was.

 

Golf was a good name for it really.

At least 18 holes, some hidden. Had to lug around a big bag of tools. Several un scheduled stops. Often involved a long walk.

 

Wasn't green. Wasn't a keeper.

[SiC]

I think what he means (is basically what he says) that you seem to write out some very detailed pieces which can be a trait of autism. You don't write so much a post but more of a thesis. Not a bad thing by any means but noticeable.

I think it is also the specificness of the details too - year, model, engine, trim level and some cases condition. All remembered despite being from many years ago!

[UmBongo]

I remember when the Autotrader was thick and full of juiciness, like a big, fat Quorn steak. Now it's pitifully thin and weak looking.

 

No need now, I suppose with the advancements in Internetism.

[AnthonyG]

Back in the early 1990s when I was looking for a first car smaller franchised dealers would have part-ex bargains. This was mostly boring* stuff like Metros, Fiesta Mk2s etc but one that stuck in my mind, possibly because my dad seemed quite keen on the idea, was a mint Allegro 3 in bright yellow (Snapdragon?) at Castle Garage Ludlow, which was a Rover main dealer back then.

 

Also I remember being warned off a row of quite shonky Mk4 Cortinas by a salesman at Ravenhills Hereford in about 1990, probably for very good reason - A local 17 year old ending up in hospital due to a combination of teenage bravado, poor driving and the badly maintained brakes on a 12 year 2.0 GL would not have been great publicity for them.....

[clayts450]

 

 

what happened to just "99 T CITROEN XSARA 1.6 X, 5 DOOR, Hermes Red, PAS, Remote Central Locking, Steering Wheel Mounted Audio Controls, 1 Owner, 32,000 Miles, Citroen FSH.......................£5290" etc. 

 

 

 

Totally agree with you on this specific point - there was no internet car sales when I was looking around for my first few snotters back in the late 80s, so it was old school poring through the small ads in the local rags.

 

Hmm, I sense an interesting new topic for us to discuss here, chaps - describe your shite in small ad form, maximum 20 words (you used to get charged by the word, so you used to get some great use of the English language by sellers eager not to broach the £1 price for a small ad).....

 

Shame I'm stuck on having my first few posts needing to be authorised, otherwise I'd have done it myself

[Lord Sterling]

Hmmm. Thinking about it, years ago I went to some car sales place in Stourbridge that sold newish cars off thier forecourt. When I asked the salesman if I could go and see if they had any old trade-ins I got laughed at. I wanted to punch the smag twat square in the mouth.

 

These days I'm supposed to be in the back lot somewhere taking pre-delivery pics of the car I'm taking so pics and questions can be had.

[oman5]

Years ago a mate of mine used to do pretty well out of scouring the back lots. He had a well positioned pretty central sales pitch in Newport where he set up a proper Arthur Daley type used car sales place, definitely catering for the lower end of the market.

He used to get his stock from one of those huge car supermarket places on the other side of town, the sort that chops out three year old Rep mobiles on finance to average folk. He'd just throw a bid in to take all of their part exes in one hit, it worked out at about £50-£100 per car, but the deal was he had to take the lot,warts and all. They were happy because they didn't have to mess about getting rid of em, and by the time he'd thrown some of his unemployed mates a tenner to drive them back to his premises, he'd still be into a winner, most of them were fine.