Carcraft

[oldcars]

Hi, i have read they have gone bust, when i first saw it i miss read the title and thought that bloody Punto has been his downfall 

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Carcraft has gone bump? Fucking brilliant, good to know that stitching up thick/skint people with shitty overpriced finance deals & PPI insurance eventually became an unsustainable business model. SHAN YOU CARCRAFT

[Mr Lobster]

Yep. Closed all their sites and laid the majority of staff off already as the administrators felt the business wasn't viable.

[Shep Shepherd]

I predict that there will be a lot of late model 'popular' cars with undesirable colours and specifications going through the auctions pretty soon.

[Felly Magic]

The auditors probably took one look at the stock and said 'Fuck me, not even Billy would try and sell these shonky piles of shit'

[320touring]

Should we crowd source fund Billy to buy em oot?

[colino]

"Administrators Grant Thornton said the group had suffered from "poor market reputation, lack of investment, a high cost base, expensive loan note financing and an insolvent balance sheet".  Just about sums up every car supermarket.

[Mr Lobster]

I wonder if we can go and steal some of their signage, paint a big 'V' over the top of the first 'r' in their name and then fix the aforementioned signage over the top of Billy's lock up?

[oldcars]

Should we crowd source fund Billy to buy em oot?

Raffle anyone??

[brickwall]

I'm sorry for the job losses, but this place was the pits. I suspect some  of the employees are not giving a toss.

[daveb47]

Suspect it will be the same as welcome car finance,go bust to get rid of the debts,then reopen under diferent name,same stock,same staff etc.

[Cavcraft]

It'll be interesting as it's rumoured they owned Webuyanycar, though I'm not 100% sure if that's actually correct.

 

I despised Carcraft, as it seemed to me they just bought as many ex-rep cars as they could, polished them up to high heaven then punted them out for as much as they could. The only thing I'll say (slightly) in their defence is that 'you' couldn't be ripped off on price, as if you don't do your homework reference values etc first, it's 'your' own hard luck.  

[colino]

British Car Auctions owns webuyanycar, Manheim Auctions owns the Car Group (wewantanycar).

[daveb47]

Billy owns "we buy any heap of shit" i believe.

[Charlie Croker]

I remember way back in 1998 a (rather thick) pal of mine went there and ended up with a M reg Hyundai Sonata on the infamous "we are gonna bleed you dry" finanace. The price of the "car" was £6000........Before any interest/ppi/warranty(warranty.lol). It was in a shitty shade of burgundy......shit spec.....I,e fuck all in it apart from a nice hole where the stereo should have been. I was told very recently he still has trouble going to the toilet after being shafted so hard.lol.

[fordperv]

I thought the title was cavcraft when I clicked on the thread

[Slappy]

Just having a play around on the free parts of Duedil. A Mr Houlihan amassed 14 directorships including director of Carcraft Group on the same day back in September. They are his 1st entries to their knowledge. Before that a Mr Robin Bridge was a previous director, he was there for 6 months, and he has now set up a company called clickcarcredit.com Ltd. Seems a little odd to the layman...

[Cavcraft]

Robin Bridge sounds like a super hero* who floods old cars with water before scrapping them.

 

 

 

 

 

*Or some twat from Chester.

[AlabamaShrimp]

I thought the title was cavcraft when I clicked on the thread

Snap

[chaseracer]

As long as there are beige pages on TEH INTERWEBZ, Cavcraft will live on...

[anonymous user]

Billy owns "we buy any heap of shit" i believe.

I thought that it was "You'll buy any heap of shit, and if not I'll raffle it"

[Slappy]

You see, you may mock the raffle, but Cavcraft almost certainly isn't in debt to the tune of £8 million. Raffling off stock increases* turnover. Probably.

 

Apart from that 1 time in 1996 when my cousins' tried to raffle off a rubber bumpered MGB in poo brown at a summer fete and nobody wanted it

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

The fact that Available Car.Com exist is a testament to the stupidity of the public. Overpriced stuff with weird spec and colours - again, it's the finance deals that drive it.

[Hendry]

Dare I say Arnold Shark will be announcing the opening of 10 new Motorstore branches in the next few days/weeks.

 

That undercover TV documentary showing the scams they were pulling and how they were treating customers a couple of years back won't have helped

[Inspector Morose]

Shiny suit sales have plummeted as a result.

[2MB]

There's one very near my house. The only point to the place for people with the ability to think was a warm dry place for bored 15 year old scallywags get up to mischief in. I knew my path from a young age when the cast offs yard round the back was infinitely more interesting than the lines of shiny but so very dull clone cars. The place has been in steady decline of stock and visitor numbers for years now. Good riddance.

[Guest Lord Sward]

Speaking as a motor trader, I can tell you the vast volumes of car stock in CrockCraft were owned by independent traders on a SOR basis to the 'stealership'.  Less of a car dealer than a finance house which gave a free car for every loan sold.  I doubt they had any stock on the books bar the odd bit of auction tat one of their 'buyers' bought at a knock-down price after the other traders ignored it for good reasons.

[Pillock]

The fact that Available Car.Com exist is a testament to the stupidity of the public. Overpriced stuff with weird spec and colours - again, it's the finance deals that drive it.

 

I bought from Available Car.

They offered me a better interest rate than my bank would - 4.05% or something. They let you sit in loads of stuff and wander around without any hassle, you don't get to speak to a sales droid until you go and ask. Yeah, some of the droids are a bit pushy with the extra stuff like underseal and wax (on a car that's already had three winters outside, erm, no) or reversing sensors, but just say no and they get the message.

I could have probably got a better deal for cash in a private purchase, but I didn't have the cash and I needed a newish, reliable car for 30,000 miles per year for work. And work were more than covering the payments so I was hardly losing out financially. 

Weird spec and colour? I got a vision blue Focus Titanium, which seem to make up a good percentage of the cars on the road. Wifey has an AvailableCar grey Touran which again is absolutely everyday spec. On that one, they even voluntarily did an MOT because it was less than three months til due, and did the cambelt because it was over time but within mileage. 

 

Not saying they're perfect - they successfully wiggled out of a warranty claim although did pay out on another. But AC don't appear to be as bad as Yes Car Credit, Carcraft et al.

[Bren]

500 people unemployed.

 

However I do not think this site has helped car craft one bit - some of the utter turd that has been offered for sale on here of late has helped drive the final nail in the coffin.

 

Below average cars, above average mileage, above book price to make the p/x look generous - sorry, but the public have caught on now.

 

RIP carcraft - you won't be missed.

[garethj]

British Car Auctions owns webuyanycar, Manheim Auctions owns the Car Group (wewantanycar).

 

Yes, and their business model is pretty clever - punter drops off his car and all the company does is shunt it onto a transporter and put it through the auction.  They might not make a lot of profit per car but they're absolutely sure what their costs will be.

 

As for Car Craft going under, I spent a miserable 15 minutes watching daytime TV yesterday and if they weren't charging finance rates of more than 1000% they were missing out, that's what everyone else is doing.