Garage of Luke's Garage - The UK's Cheapest Range Rover

[GarageOfLuke]

9 hours ago, lesapandre said:

Nice to see someone 'in the trade here'. WELCOME! 😀

As someone  who has been driving dubious motas for decades I can see the attraction of mint cars.

What amazes me at the moment  is the prices being asked for very cooking 50's and 60's family British cars. A £7000 Singer Gazelle?  - they were sad old things bought  by sad old people  when new and have not changed in the intervening years IMHO.

Haha, thank you! I was a little worried as to what people would think, there's some bargains in the for sale section but I've no intention of buying to sell from here, I'd only purchase stuff I intended on keeping for a bit, had a genuine interest in, or projects to save. I source a reasonable amount from the auctions and cars for sale on driveways can crop up with fantastic margins in them, but it's definitely easy to offend people - I've paid asking price for cars seen on driveways only to have the owners complain to me when they see it listed a couple of weeks later (usually after I've needed to do some prep work on the car) for what they see as a 'hefty' mark up. End of the day, we all need to make a living somehow. 

Prime example was finding a Chevrolet Spark (2011, 54k miles) up for sale at £250 by the roadside a couple of months ago. Knocked on the door, and within 20 minutes had paid the chap and was on my way home with it. He'd mentioned it having had a misfire, so I ended up fitting a new Lemark ignition coil, Blue Print HT leads, set of Bosch spark plugs and doing a basic service consisting of air filter, oil filter and some decent trade 5W30. Also put a set of brand new Toyos on it, and chucked it through an MOT which it passed. Cost £68 for the repair and service parts, £109 for the tyres on an eBay deal, and £60 for the MOT and tyre fitting. £250 + £237 in, I listed (and quickly sold ) it for £1595, so a nice tidy profit in it I'll admit. The old owner wasn't happy though, I'd had plenty of snotty messages off them the day I lised it on Marketplace. 

In terms of the prices for those cars, it's a strange one. They've become valuable through rarity, and rare through lack of value. It's a wonderful catch to find yourself on the winning end of, one day we'll be paying £10k for clean K11 Micras and Nissan Almeras, you watch! 

[Tadhg Tiogar]

9 hours ago, Schaefft said:

.... due to prestige many of them are LHD as well. ....

This is the bit I've never understood, especially when a great many of those cars were available in RHD. It was almost like there was kudos in making life a touch more difficult.

[GarageOfLuke]

I'm a day in and already forgetting to actually post the things that go on in the day to day! 

Today (Friday, but it's 2:29am and I've not slept so we'll ignore the fact it's actually Saturday) was a fun one, wheel bearing on the mighty Tiida which was rumbling away like my stomach every time I see a Philly Cheesesteak. 

I only recently dragged an air line through (I'm currently working in a lean-to out the back of my Grandad's business) and it's made everything a whole load easier. The old air tools have been stolen and I now hold them hostage in the unit - some of them (not pictured) are far far older than me and still work better than I do. Managed to salvage the pictured shield too, bit of a rub down and a quick lick of VHT (there was just about enough strength left in it) and it's back to doing it's job again. It's already been serviced, I've fitted new Borg & Beck front discs and pads, and once the new ABS sensor arrives (old one had plastic-welded itself to the mounting hole and didn't survive removal) it'll be ready for a pair of new front tyres and an MOT. Previous owner did a fair amount of work on it before trading it in (at an extortionate garage, I could have wept at the near-£1000 invoice for an exhaust mid section, back box, coil packs and plugs that I can source for well under £200), so it'll serve the eventual buyer well for a good few years with any luck. 

[GarageOfLuke]

On 11/18/2021 at 11:17 AM, BorniteIdentity said:

As mumbled in the welcome thread, I live about 3 miles from our OP and have seen @GarageOfLukeshuffling about the place too.  I took this photo a couple of weeks ago when I suspected there was a likeminded fella living in the area.

 

Welcome to AS.

Ahhh yes, the YRV - this photo is now showing for me! 

That was another one of my slightly...less intelligent moments, I'd gone through a 24 box of Chang over the course of the Saturday at this year's British GP, and found it on Marketplace. Japanese, Turbo and Lord Gears meant I'd sent the seller a deposit, car unseen, before I made it back to the tent. 

It was good fun for a few hundred miles (only cost me £400) but when the MOT expired, it became apparent that it wasn't going to pass without a fair bit of work - so it went the way of most YRVs, and it's innards are now keeping the remaining few in the UK alive. Cracking laugh though, was running a fuel cut defender and a manual boost controller, seller claimed it was over 150hp and I'd be inclined to believe the chap! 

[sierraman]

9 hours ago, GarageOfLuke said:

Haha, thank you! I was a little worried as to what people would think, there's some bargains in the for sale section but I've no intention of buying to sell from here, I'd only purchase stuff I intended on keeping for a bit, had a genuine interest in, or projects to save. I source a reasonable amount from the auctions and cars for sale on driveways can crop up with fantastic margins in them, but it's definitely easy to offend people - I've paid asking price for cars seen on driveways only to have the owners complain to me when they see it listed a couple of weeks later (usually after I've needed to do some prep work on the car) for what they see as a 'hefty' mark up. End of the day, we all need to make a living somehow. 

Prime example was finding a Chevrolet Spark (2011, 54k miles) up for sale at £250 by the roadside a couple of months ago. Knocked on the door, and within 20 minutes had paid the chap and was on my way home with it. He'd mentioned it having had a misfire, so I ended up fitting a new Lemark ignition coil, Blue Print HT leads, set of Bosch spark plugs and doing a basic service consisting of air filter, oil filter and some decent trade 5W30. Also put a set of brand new Toyos on it, and chucked it through an MOT which it passed. Cost £68 for the repair and service parts, £109 for the tyres on an eBay deal, and £60 for the MOT and tyre fitting. £250 + £237 in, I listed (and quickly sold ) it for £1595, so a nice tidy profit in it I'll admit. The old owner wasn't happy though, I'd had plenty of snotty messages off them the day I lised it on Marketplace. 

In terms of the prices for those cars, it's a strange one. They've become valuable through rarity, and rare through lack of value. It's a wonderful catch to find yourself on the winning end of, one day we'll be paying £10k for clean K11 Micras and Nissan Almeras, you watch! 

I don’t understand this mentality, if you’ve sold something for a price you are happy with and the buyer sells it on for a higher price, what difference does it make. You wouldn’t go in Tesco and bitch about them ripping the farmers off for milk. Likewise when you get people complaining you are a trader, they’ve got it in their heads you trawl the auctions looking for bollocksed cars to stick Steel Seal in to flip on.

[Split_Pin]

Welcome chap, interesting posts thus far. I'm always interested to hear from people who work with cars for a living, whether it be trading, taxi-ing or recovery work.

Tiida is an interesting one. My buddy Alan worked as a Nissan Teck for Arnold Clark at ashen time when these came in from  Cyprus. They used to be very common in Scotland for that reason, most wearing West of Scotland reg marks. 

I'm looking forward to more tales!

[lesapandre]

2 hours ago, sierraman said:

I don’t understand this mentality, if you’ve sold something for a price you are happy with and the buyer sells it on for a higher price, what difference does it make. You wouldn’t go in Tesco and bitch about them ripping the farmers off for milk. Likewise when you get people complaining you are a trader, they’ve got it in their heads you trawl the auctions looking for bollocksed cars to stick Steel Seal in to flip on.

+1 for this. Factor in your time at say £50ph...the consumables etc and any partial associated costs of insurance, premises and taxes and advertising  and it ain't a parliamentary second job type profit. 

You also have the risk it wd have had a hidden problem which you took...and that you might get someone unhappy with their new purchase.

People are funny about cars - I suppose because apart from Bitcoin it's  the highest capital thing most people trade in a relatively unregulated marketplace.

Good on you...

[GarageOfLuke]

11 hours ago, sierraman said:

I don’t understand this mentality, if you’ve sold something for a price you are happy with and the buyer sells it on for a higher price, what difference does it make. You wouldn’t go in Tesco and bitch about them ripping the farmers off for milk. Likewise when you get people complaining you are a trader, they’ve got it in their heads you trawl the auctions looking for bollocksed cars to stick Steel Seal in to flip on.

Yeah, I never understood it personally. I've sold personal cars that I've seen go up for a higher price somewhat soon after, it's never fussed me that much. Most recent instance was selling my FD RX-7 for £19k at the start of 2020, to then see it listed a week later for £26,500 - he didn't manage to sell it for about a year and ended up taking very close to what he paid for it. 

 

10 hours ago, Split_Pin said:

Welcome chap, interesting posts thus far. I'm always interested to hear from people who work with cars for a living, whether it be trading, taxi-ing or recovery work.

Tiida is an interesting one. My buddy Alan worked as a Nissan Teck for Arnold Clark at ashen time when these came in from  Cyprus. They used to be very common in Scotland for that reason, most wearing West of Scotland reg marks. 

I'm looking forward to more tales!

I'm actually quite glad to be learning about these - I've found an article that suggests the SE model, which had AC, bluetooth, all electric windows etc. was £8995 for a 1.6 manual when new - quite a good deal at a time where even a completely bog standard Micra was £7995. 

[lesapandre]

57 minutes ago, GarageOfLuke said:

Yeah, I never understood it personally. I've sold personal cars that I've seen go up for a higher price somewhat soon after, it's never fussed me that much. Most recent instance was selling my FD RX-7 for £19k at the start of 2020, to then see it listed a week later for £26,500 - he didn't manage to sell it for about a year and ended up taking very close to what he paid for it. 

 

I'm actually quite glad to be learning about these - I've found an article that suggests the SE model, which had AC, bluetooth, all electric windows etc. was £8995 for a 1.6 manual when new - quite a good deal at a time where even a completely bog standard Micra was £7995. 

Yup and if they are 'holding' a 20k car for a year that's a lot of capital tied up doing really not a lot - you still have to store and basic insure the thing.

I tip my cap to anybody who deals cars - you have to have asbestos cohones and the patience of a saint.

[GarageOfLuke]

Not much achieved this week so far, my fault for spending all of Monday out on track at Snetterton with my brother doing some basic tuition for him! 

Today I managed to get around to giving the Twingo a good machine polish before I do the proper sales photos tomorrow. I've done my 200km in it that I set myself to make sure it was running and driving nicely for the buyer - I especially wanted to do this after it had been sitting since July last year. Also popped a new battery on it as the one that had been in it, despite being disconnected, wasn't too keen on taking a charge. Last thing I want is to sell it to someone in the winter with a battery that's on the way out. 

[GarageOfLuke]

So, after last night's antics trying to polish up the Twingo, it's all done and up for sale! Sadly the rear end does need a little work paint-wise, but having seen a few high-km rotten Mk1 Twingos go for worryingly close to £1000, I feel like at £1,795 this one almost represents good value! Not to everyone's taste, but it's got MOT to October and I've just finished 200km of testing to make sure it's up to scratch (it is!). 

[Gruber]

Sacré bleu!  C'est fantastique!!

[High Jetter]

Je suis....

[GarageOfLuke]

Didn't get anything done on Thursday as I ended up slightly in Belgium. Funny how these things seem to happen. 

Today, the rain fell and the wind blew, but managed to get another car collected. I very much want to keep this one of myself if I'm honest as it's quite a useful thing, being a Titanium 2.0 TDCi. 

[GarageOfLuke]

Not much has really happened over the last few days - mainly just time spent preparing the Mondeo for sale through the renewal of the air filter, fuel filter, and oil filter plus some nice new oil - looks like it needed it too, so I flushed through a little before the final fill. 

I did finally decide to dig out the Roland Garros as well, and confront the situation that lies beneath - don't let the below photo fool you, turns out it's holier than a Vatican colander. Shame, but not wholly unexpected. 

[Daviemck2006]

It's good when a small home trader cares about his customers and treats them properly. I bought my caddy from a home trader like that recently. It was about 3 grand less than some others I have seen for sale since, it was 6 weeks away from a mot so he put it in. It failed on one rear caliper, and one ballpoint in the front suspension. He put on the new caliper and two new wishbones. Many would have slackened off the caliper and just the one wishbone, saving themselves a few quid, and the rear caliper would be siezing up again and I would have had to change it. Good luck to the op, I have dallied with selling cars, but only as a hobby, I couldn't be arsed trying to make a living out of it.

Sent from my SM-T585 using Tapatalk

[GarageOfLuke]

1 hour ago, Daviemck2006 said:

It's good when a small home trader cares about his customers and treats them properly. I bought my caddy from a home trader like that recently. It was about 3 grand less than some others I have seen for sale since, it was 6 weeks away from a mot so he put it in. It failed on one rear caliper, and one ballpoint in the front suspension. He put on the new caliper and two new wishbones. Many would have slackened off the caliper and just the one wishbone, saving themselves a few quid, and the rear caliper would be siezing up again and I would have had to change it. Good luck to the op, I have dallied with selling cars, but only as a hobby, I couldn't be arsed trying to make a living out of it.

Sent from my SM-T585 using Tapatalk
 

Yeah, it's always nice to see other traders putting the effort in as well - we've all got to do what we can to make up for the reputation brought to us thanks to the actions of some of the less savoury ones out there. 

Doing it as my only job certainly arouses some interest from many people - I think there's an element of intrigue to what it takes going from doing it as a hobby to doing it full time, realistically it's just volume and making it an objective to be doing work at least eight hours a day, and at least five days a week - even when it seems difficult to actually fill that time with meaninful progress on things in stock, there's always something that can be done to improve earnings. 

[sierraman]

Do you ever get much come-back with cars you’ve sold?

[GarageOfLuke]

10 hours ago, sierraman said:

Do you ever get much come-back with cars you’ve sold?

Not particularly - I find with dealing in this end of the market, people seem to expect far less. It's in many ways why it's nice to give them more than they're expecting! 

[GarageOfLuke]

Wasn't exactly what we'd call the most inspiring end to the week with the weather, but it did manage to shake the majority of the remaining leaves out of the trees. As such, it seemed like a good time to have a bloody good sweep out of the place. Having no doors on it really does make it a pickle, but I shan't complain at all as it's a damn sight better than working outside. 

The zero-service-history Mondeo is all done now in the maintenance department, so will have an MOT this week and a bloody good valet and machine polish - being black, there's a definite gain to it especially on the marketing side of things, makes it worth the few hours it'll take. 

[GarageOfLuke]

Not really much to update on as we move into the more...sedate part of the year, although I have now moved into a slightly more 'dedicated' workshop complete with actual lighting and power! Not only that, but I've got a sneaking feeling Dad and I are going to come to an agreement on a two-poster lift to fit (as we're going into business together as of 2022, due to the family business closing it's doors for the last time on Tuesday). 

I get to have some enjoyment tomorrow, delivering to the Peak District the JZS151 Crown that I'd imported and registered on commission for a customer. 

Meanwhile, have a photo of the new workspace complete with Yaris, which is frankly astonishing underneath (although sadly the bodywork does let it down a touch). 

To all those following this thread or reading this post, I hope you have a simply delightful Christmas/New Year

[High Jetter]

5 minutes ago, GarageOfLuke said:

as we're going into business together as of 2022, due to the family business closing it's doors for the last time on Tuesday

That's never a good thing to hear (I mean the second bit) especially if it's your family's business, not sure if I missed hearing about that. Best of luck for the new venture though, hope you'll still have time to keep us up-to-date on events etc.

[GarageOfLuke]

2 minutes ago, High Jetter said:

That's never a good thing to hear (I mean the second bit) especially if it's your family's business, not sure if I missed hearing about that. Best of luck for the new venture though, hope you'll still have time to keep us up-to-date on events etc.

It's actually not a bad thing - my Grandad is retiring and, put simply, my father and uncle have no desire to continue with horticultural machinery - dad's always wanted to do cars since his apprenticeship at Volvo back in the 80s/90s, so it's natural progression for him to effectively join me

[GarageOfLuke]

Managed to just about cram one last piece of business in before Christmas - had the joy of delivering the Crown up to the buyer in the Peak District, not the greatest day for it (lots of fog!) but a wonderful car to do it in, outrageously comfortable. 

[bezzabsa]

1 hour ago, GarageOfLuke said:

Managed to just about cram one last piece of business in before Christmas - had the joy of delivering the Crown up to the buyer in the Peak District, not the greatest day for it (lots of fog!) but a wonderful car to do it in, outrageously comfortable. 

JDM Lexus?? do like the colour combo though...

What are Jap prices like for 80's/90's 400cc motorbikes??

[inconsistant]

Great read so far, thanks for sharing. Love the look of that Twingo. Did it sell on here or elsewhere? 
I’ve heard of the Tiida before, from this article on Driven To Write:

https://driventowrite.com/2021/05/04/look-what-the-tide-brought-in-a-caledonian-curiosity/

Good luck for a successful 2022!

[GarageOfLuke]

On 12/25/2021 at 5:03 PM, inconsistant said:

Great read so far, thanks for sharing. Love the look of that Twingo. Did it sell on here or elsewhere? 
I’ve heard of the Tiida before, from this article on Driven To Write:

https://driventowrite.com/2021/05/04/look-what-the-tide-brought-in-a-caledonian-curiosity/

Good luck for a successful 2022!

Twingo sold off Car and Classic in the end, but there was interest from the ad on here! 

[GarageOfLuke]

Right, I've been back to work this week and have achieved...some stuff. 

Mondeo has been machine polished and, once some trailing arm bushes have been replaced, will be available with a fresh year of test! 



Yaris has been cleaned up and is now up for sale in various places with, you guessed it, a fresh MOT as well! 



And finally, I've been a massive idiot and bought myself another RX-8 for (hopefully) track duties this year. Oh well, I can't be handsome *and* smart...

...or either, for that matter. 

[warren t claim]

5 hours ago, GarageOfLuke said:

Right, I've been back to work this week and have achieved...some stuff. 

Mondeo has been machine polished and, once some trailing arm bushes have been replaced, will be available with a fresh year of test! 



Yaris has been cleaned up and is now up for sale in various places with, you guessed it, a fresh MOT as well! 



And finally, I've been a massive idiot and bought myself another RX-8 for (hopefully) track duties this year. Oh well, I can't be handsome *and* smart...

...or either, for that matter. 

 

[loserone]

That tiida is fit.