Fall in used car sales

[sierraman]

7 minutes ago, chadders said:

And you wouldn't want an open ended estimate to fix it.

At the end of the day it's a business with good and bad practitioners who need to make a profit, not a charity.

 

 

At the end of the day it’s probably the pump and ultimately on a 2002 Focus they ain’t gonna have or want to pay several hundred to fix that. And it might not solve the problem. Basically if you any sort it yourself you are on your own. 

[chadders]

I think part of the problem is that fewer and fewer people are interested in cars as anything other than A to B transport. Both my sons have been driving for over 10 years and have absolutely no interest and only check them over because I hassle them. Their mates are the same.

Their approach with the Focus that you mention would probably be contact WBAC and then buying a replacement on the never never.

[RichardK]

Touched a nerve there? I'm fine with profit and I'm fine with paying for jobs to be done - if they're done properly. But whether it's taking an XM to an XM specialist in Edinburgh for a manifold replacement and finding they not only didn't do the work, they scraped the car on their workshop door and wouldn't accept responsibility, or paying £1100 in 2001 for welding on a Nissan Laurel floor/valance and finding the panels hadn't been welded, they'd stuck a bit of metal over a hole with underseal and it fell off...

Sorry. I do know good garages exist and I've encountered a few, but the balance is strongly towards the customer not getting what they pay for rather than the garage being a charity dealing with other people's messes.

And part of that may well be down to some jobs being awful and garages not quoting enough to be profitable - but this all ties in to the problem.  Old cars = expensive to run = not worth fixing = job that was underquoted but someone still paid a lot for = car shits itself after expensive repair due to related bodge/oversight/shortcut = old cars are expensive to run (instead of £2000 spent on your old car buys another 2 years of reliability).

Then you see stories of Jag owners getting charged thousands in diagnostic and exploration fees because the mechanics just have no clue what they're looking for, etc.

If I had money to do so, I'd happily set up a garage and do the walk to go with the talk, I'm aware of my limits and expectations. I genuinely wonder how much of it is dishonesty (I do know how much was for the Borders garages I used a lot) and how much is circumstance.

Here's a side thought: how long does it take to swap a Focus engine and what does a replacement cost?

Remember reconditioned engines? I wonder how good they really are now. If your focus that won't run right is a 2014, not a 2002 that's reached the end of a useful life... £1500 in trying to get to the bottom of wear etc. issues vs how much to swap an engine? What if it were... £4000 for a reconditioned engine with turbo & DPF, and a new clutch and DMF in one package? No diagnostics, just old one out, new one in, £4000, 24-month/20,000 mile  warranty + extra cost Mechanical Brakedown Insurance targeted to cover the retained gearbox and fuel system parts?

[sierraman]

If I were running a garage I’d be happy as Larry swapping belts, servicing, sets of brake pads that take half hour but charge the full hour. Nice little jobs that you can cram a fair bit of profit into. I’d be sending all the shit somewhere else or pricing it in the stratosphere to cover the agg of some awful job like a diesel with some miscellaneous idling fault. 

You cant really fault them for working like this, why on earth would you want to be farting about dealing with some clapped out Astra that won’t run right, the owners watched every video on fucking YouTube so he wants you to fit something he’s got off eBay, then he’s busting your bollocks with how his mate who does homers will do it for £15. No public indemnity insurance or the proper equipment but people will just go with what’s cheapest. 

[RichardK]

You know that trust a trader thing?

They cover plumbers, builders, notorious cowboy trades for £1000 work as a guarantee etc.

The trust a garage version? Not a chance.

Think about it. You have a car with a book time routine £1000 cambelt swap. Routine maintenance. They can't even provide a paid in scheme that'd guarantee that was done right...

AS undoubtedly includes the good people, the skilled and responsible, the ones you wish you'd found before paying thousands for someone to systematically make a car worse. But like @PrinceRupert's experiences with the Jaguar specialist - it's far too easy to find the bad ones.

FWIW I do have a good indy tale - got an A-class auto serviced by a specialist, box and all, and they used genuine parts and charged a good rate. Except...

...they forgot to put the dipstick and tube covers back and sent the car off.

Not only did they rectify, they cancelled the bill. They were horrified they could have killed the car with that oversight.

[sierraman]

9 minutes ago, RichardK said:

Touched a nerve there? I'm fine with profit and I'm fine with paying for jobs to be done - if they're done properly. But whether it's taking an XM to an XM specialist in Edinburgh for a manifold replacement and finding they not only didn't do the work, they scraped the car on their workshop door and wouldn't accept responsibility, or paying £1100 in 2001 for welding on a Nissan Laurel floor/valance and finding the panels hadn't been welded, they'd stuck a bit of metal over a hole with underseal and it fell off...

Sorry. I do know good garages exist and I've encountered a few, but the balance is strongly towards the customer not getting what they pay for rather than the garage being a charity dealing with other people's messes.

And part of that may well be down to some jobs being awful and garages not quoting enough to be profitable - but this all ties in to the problem.  Old cars = expensive to run = not worth fixing = job that was underquoted but someone still paid a lot for = car shits itself after expensive repair due to related bodge/oversight/shortcut = old cars are expensive to run (instead of £2000 spent on your old car buys another 2 years of reliability).

Then you see stories of Jag owners getting charged thousands in diagnostic and exploration fees because the mechanics just have no clue what they're looking for, etc.

If I had money to do so, I'd happily set up a garage and do the walk to go with the talk, I'm aware of my limits and expectations. I genuinely wonder how much of it is dishonesty (I do know how much was for the Borders garages I used a lot) and how much is circumstance.

Here's a side thought: how long does it take to swap a Focus engine and what does a replacement cost?

Remember reconditioned engines? I wonder how good they really are now. If your focus that won't run right is a 2014, not a 2002 that's reached the end of a useful life... £1500 in trying to get to the bottom of wear etc. issues vs how much to swap an engine? What if it were... £4000 for a reconditioned engine with turbo & DPF, and a new clutch and DMF in one package? No diagnostics, just old one out, new one in, £4000, 24-month/20,000 mile  warranty + extra cost Mechanical Brakedown Insurance targeted to cover the retained gearbox and fuel system parts?

If you were running a garage, would you fit and warrant an engine that’s arrived on a pallet from an unknown source? Could be fucked could be ok. Or would you turn the job down?

[Stanky]

6 minutes ago, RichardK said:

Here's a side thought: how long does it take to swap a Focus engine and what does a replacement cost?

Remember reconditioned engines? I wonder how good they really are now. If your focus that won't run right is a 2014, not a 2002 that's reached the end of a useful life... £1500 in trying to get to the bottom of wear etc. issues vs how much to swap an engine? What if it were... £4000 for a reconditioned engine with turbo & DPF, and a new clutch and DMF in one package? No diagnostics, just old one out, new one in, £4000, 24-month/20,000 mile  warranty + extra cost Mechanical Brakedown Insurance targeted to cover the retained gearbox and fuel system parts?

Just my 2 penneth, but if I had a broken 2014 Focus and took it to a garage who would be willing to do this, and had £4k instantly available would I do it? Even with a 24m/20k warranty? Hell no. I'd be straight down to the local dealerships and put that same £4k down as deposit on a brand new car with a 5 (or 7) year warranty on PCP. 

Even if the recon engine were £2k I imagine the huge majority would do exactly the same, and how could getting an engine out of a car, including all the ancillaries, reconditioning it to the point there was a >98% change of it managing another 2 years/20k miles, selling it to a garage and having them pull the exiting engine and fit the new one for under £4k all considered?

I agree its wasteful, but if competent people want paying a not-unreasonable £40 an hour to pull and recon and engine, then a garage to install it for a not-unreasonable £50-60 per hour then costs ramp up very quickly

[RichardK]

1 minute ago, sierraman said:

If I were running a garage I’d be happy as Larry swapping belts, servicing, sets of brake pads that take half hour but charge the full hour. Nice little jobs that you can cram a fair bit of profit into. I’d be sending all the shit somewhere else or pricing it in the stratosphere to cover the agg of some awful job like a diesel with some miscellaneous idling fault. 

You cant really fault them for working like this, why on earth would you want to be farting about dealing with some clapped out Astra that won’t run right, the owners watched every video on fucking YouTube so he wants you to fit something he’s got off eBay, then he’s busting your bollocks with how his mate who does homers will do it for £15. No public indemnity insurance or the proper equipment but people will just go with what’s cheapest. 

I wish I were talking about the cheapest and the random asshat "mechanics" - actually found many who know cars and will do shit for a few quid an hour actually know cars and will do the job fine. I'm talking big adverts, £40-80/hour (over two decades) places, main dealers (Thornwood in Hawick for starters but Citroen deserve a shout).

Toyota charged £40/hour to fix my older cars at the main dealer and did the work 100% with a great attitude too. Even head gasket and valve seals on an ancient imported Sera. If a main dealer with new cars and easy jobs to work on can do it, (and because they did I was happy to pay more than the value of the car just on a "repair") it baffles me when someone who has set up to be in business doing this work then doesn't do it properly.

[RichardK]

4 minutes ago, sierraman said:

If you were running a garage, would you fit and warrant an engine that’s arrived on a pallet from an unknown source? Could be fucked could be ok. Or would you turn the job down?

Well, that's part of the problem - the mechanic in the example, says they can't trust the source of the engine - doesn't that say everything about what people expect of businesses in Britain?

The engines in the example would be "the business model" - not an unknown source, a specific parts supplier. But you're right; I sure as hell don't trust "reconditioned" engines and gearboxes - again, through experience. But you should be able to, right?

[RichardK]

6 minutes ago, Stanky said:

Just my 2 penneth, but if I had a broken 2014 Focus and took it to a garage who would be willing to do this, and had £4k instantly available would I do it? Even with a 24m/20k warranty? Hell no. I'd be straight down to the local dealerships and put that same £4k down as deposit on a brand new car with a 5 (or 7) year warranty on PCP.

Have you seen how much new cars cost? You pay that £4K down and then £300+ per month. A Dacia Jogger is £250/month - with a big fat balloon payment at the end.

As for the theoretical model - I make a few assumptions:

The engine swap is production-line style.
Before work is done, car's inspected - cooling system pressure tested & visual, code read, and a courtesy bodywork/suspension/brakes visual check just to warn customer if car would be uneconomic.

New engine comes from supplier (which just does this and is backing the warranty) as a built up unit ready to rock.

Old engine returns to said supplier.

Work is drop engine & box, separate and fit with new clutch (DMF is already on engine). If I thought the sums could match up with box already joined I'd say that would be even better, but then you have to keep different boxes in for recon.

All sensors etc. on engine are already installed, either tested/refurbed old ones or new OEM - policy of warranty to replace a failed sensor in warranty period but not all engines will have brand new sensors, might have known-good ones.

It's a thought exercise, and you know Toyota is doing refurbs on older cars now? They have a facility for it, not sure what the end goal is.

But it's the trust bit again - if you knew you'd get another 20,000 miles and two years of reliable, as-new-ish economical use out of the 2014 car for £4000, how does £4000 plus £7200 of payments on a new (and relatively basic) car sound now?

What about after ICE ban - a Kia EV6 is £800+ a month and £6000 down...

[Stanky]

23 minutes ago, RichardK said:

Have you seen how much new cars cost? You pay that £4K down and then £300+ per month. A Dacia Jogger is £250/month - with a big fat balloon payment at the end.

Oh undoubtedly £4k down if just the start, then its £250+ a month for 5 years, but during that 5 years you have a warranty, which the 2014 focus only has for 2 years. Now reframe it - because its Britain, that 2 yr warranty on the recon engine means it will last 2 years and 1 second, so you'll actually be on the hook for a £4k bill every 2 years to keep your 'old' Focus running with a string of replacement engines. 

[chadders]

Also paying out for anything else that might fail or wear out in an 8 year old car such as the aircon.

[RichardK]

Hmm. I don't really buy the "it'll expire right after the warranty" angle there, but I leased new cars for this very logic. Now I can't because I budget £3K pa for car - new or used. That got me 306 Cabrio, Beetle Cabrio, RX-8, almost my C6, C3 Airdream+, my low mileage 300C Hemi, and my Fiat Fullback pickup - all new apart from the 300C.

We buy unknown engine life expectancy cars for £3-4K all the time. 

But I can only afford a Dacia now on finance or lease. Nothing fancy - not that I'd resent a Duster 4x4 for £300/month but the £10K after a few years still to pay after the warranty expired etc. is not very welcome...

[sierraman]

A bigger issue is that many people won’t lower themselves to being seen dead in an 8 year old Focus. Got to be Premium, got to be German. 

Fools!!!🤣

[RichardK]

4 minutes ago, chadders said:

Also paying out for anything else that might fail or wear out in an 8 year old car such as the aircon.

The aircon on my 18 year old car also needs paying out on. That's a month of PCP payment. 11 to go...

[RichardK]

1 minute ago, sierraman said:

A bigger issue is that many people won’t lower themselves to being seen dead in an 8 year old Focus. Got to be Premium, got to be German. 

Fools!!!🤣

And here is the real issue, right there, for a lot of the mainstream attitude to motoring in the UK. We still see cars as a status symbol and still think anyone gives a shit about our status while scrabbling about in the bottom 95% of renting/mortgaged to breaking point etc. demographics, thinking we're rich because we could afford fancy things and cheap leased Mercedes while the banks added up the debt loading just to compensate for low interest rates...

[vaughant]

16 hours ago, chris667 said:

This was a really interesting film, if you have the time/inclination:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p04b183c/hypernormalisation

Love Adam Curtis stuff, fucking incredible. 

[vaughant]

5 hours ago, Dave_Q said:

Yeah it's a carbon copy of the last crash in 2008 but with cars instead of houses.

Credit available to anyone who asks, 100% or more loan to equity (got a balloon payment owing on the last car, no probs we'll roll it into the next one) and the whole house of cards set up on the assumption that almost everyone can always make their payments and the asset can be sold for a decent % of what is owed.

If lots of people default at the same time because, for example, they are now spending 4 times as much as they were last year on gas and electric, you could start to see thousands of cars hit the market at once depressing used values so the finance houses can't get their money back. With a corresponding increase in demand for old bangers.

But what can we do, other than stockpile some Micras and Zafiras ready to cash in when the time comes?

The first part of your quote was exactly what a guy I used to work with would do all the time, kept rolling his finance on to the next car until he had a diesel lQ3 that nobody wanted and had to literally use "option 3,throw in the keys and walk away".

What he'd owed vs the value of the car meant all his deposit, including his mrs newish-at-the-time Jazz and "equity" in it at that point were worthless, they didn't even want it in px against a new Audi. 

Bear in mind he'd been putting £350-400 pm into it along with the Jazz but they'd given him £1500 "cashback" a.k.a, a £1500 loan you're now paying 7% APR on. 

Still, he's been bankrupt and despite everyone who knew in work and the interweb telling him that he couldn't put  all his redundancy into his pension and then take it out the next day tax free, he still insisted he could and was going to use it to pay off his rather large mortgage for a 60yr old on a crap flat. 

Spoke to one of the other boys a few weeks back who said he'd confessed he was nowhere near able to pay it off and had in fact gone out and bought yet another car on finance. 

I firmly believe you're either in the save or spend camp and those of us inbetween sort of dip our toes into one another. 

I'm not that good at saving so I've tended to invest into my property as I feel its a safe bet which does now seem to be paying itself back if the current valuations are to be believed. Either way with houses, unless they suddenly put a youth drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre next door, generally if yours goes down by 20% so do all the others in the area. 

I also find newer houses have an odd effect on old ones as folk come and look, love the area, but hate the postage stamp garden and poor quality of most new builds hence start looking what else is out there to purchase.

Cars are different, a new model comes out with electric vanity mirrors or 6 billon watt lights and everyone has to buy one. 

Nowt as queer as folk. 

[vaughant]

I'd also say prices are getting a tad more sensible now. 

I picked up a Partner 2.0 HDi for under a grand this month whereas I still saw loads at 2k or more but they've been on sale since the last time I fancied one back in March. l

Some sellers are royally taking the piss as well expecting you to pay £1500 for something thats "ready for mot". So take it for an mot then? Or was "running fine until yesterday, just a flat battery". 

Sure. 

To be fair the people I bought it off were textbook decent sellers, took no deposit as he was happy with a handshake, took it off the website as soon as I said I'd insured it, got it ready, all cleaned or and smelling nice, found a few bits of paperwork for me etc etc. 

They lived in a nice area and it was clear the car had been with them a while from the logbook and mot history, just with mileage diminishing every year commensurate with WFH and a new company car which was evident upon arrival. 

I don't usually worry about things like that when I'm buying but it is nice to see there's still decent folk out there. 

[chris667]

Frankly, I am amazed how many independent car mechanics still manage to stay in business. It's a business model where it is much, much easier to keep going if you're unscrupulous with the standards of your work.

I've seen good and bad work from garages but the real problem is cars just aren't made to be fixed any more. And you genuinely can't forsee the next issue coming up with something as complicated as a car. So no, I wouldn't want to guarantee my work.

It's not like when I was 17, when I swapped the engine in my Ford Fiesta with my dad one afternoon. It blew up so we bought the engine out of a smashed up one from Passeys near Oxford. It was £50, IIRC. If such a thing happens to my car, it's a call to the knackers.

People have ridiculous expectations and almost no clue about the time it takes to do anything. I blame the Internet.

[cort16]

So in conclusion.

New cars are shit.

Prestige cars are shit.

Old cars are shit.

Basic entry level cars are shit.

Garages are shit.

Private sellers are shit.

It's all gone to shit

 

[RichardK]

1 minute ago, chris667 said:

Frankly, I... blame the Internet.

FTFY...

From fast international transactions and stocks/currency trading to half-assed narcissists on YouTube showing bollocks methods of fixing stuff, to just everyone who never had an opinion deciding they needed one for social media then never applying critical thought...

Whether things are worse or not, they sure as hell feel it since the iPhone came out and normal people got instant comms in their paws.

[RichardK]

FWIW when I think about garages standing by their work, I'm not thinking "it must last months" - more workmanship. So if someone breaks a timing cover, or slips with a wrench and punches the radiator, I don't want it covered up or ignored. The former I'd be like "well shit, let me get a new one to be fitted then if that snapped", the latter, I'd want a new radiator, but I'd prefer to even be told about it than have it pop up 80 miles later as an overheat.

It's a minefield but personally, I wouldn't have the opinions I do if the garages I'd used had mostly done the thing paid for, correctly. The guaranteeing anything else, like "I paid for a coolant change so my fucked water pump is your fault" I can definitely see happening, but it's not where I'm coming from.

As always, the question is "how do you make it better" - how do the good garages get protected, and the bad ones shut down, before customers who don't know cars are ripped off or have bad experiences?

Weirdly Nationwide of all places provide an example. They were doing suspension on my partner's Golf and I saw/heard them putting the bolts into the gun and rattling them in, not threading them first then buzzz. Inevitable happened and the lad comes through "captive nut's broken".

Manager started with the it's going to need a subframe, but the moment I said "yes, you're right, I watched the lad crossthread the bolt and buzz it in with an airgun without checking" - they obtained and fitted a new subframe.

But what if I hadn't worked on enough cars to know what had happened...

[Dick Longbridge]

2 hours ago, RichardK said:

And here is the real issue, right there, for a lot of the mainstream attitude to motoring in the UK. We still see cars as a status symbol and still think anyone gives a shit about our status while scrabbling about in the bottom 95% of renting/mortgaged to breaking point etc. demographics, thinking we're rich because we could afford fancy things and cheap leased Mercedes while the banks added up the debt loading just to compensate for low interest rates...

I reckon the concept of a car as a status symbol is the most prevalent it's ever been and will only continue down this pathway too. So many people I know have ticked up, modern motors. I saw a photo the other day of a lad I taught in primary about fifteen years ago. He's just moved into his first home with his fiancée. The photo showed them outside of their new place - the house was the inevitable white painted new build with grey windows. The cars were conveniently in shot too - one a nearly new BMW and the other a nearly new Mercedes A Class. 

[sierraman]

12 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

I reckon the concept of a car as a status symbol is the most prevalent it's ever been and will only continue down this pathway too. So many people I know have ticked up, modern motors. I saw a photo the other day of a lad I taught in primary about fifteen years ago. He's just moved into his first home with his fiancée. The photo showed them outside of their new place - the house was the inevitable white painted new build with grey windows. The cars were conveniently in shot too - one a nearly new BMW and the other a nearly new Mercedes A Class. 

So wealthy but on paper a man of straw. 

[cort16]

10 minutes ago, Dick Longbridge said:

I reckon the concept of a car as a status symbol is the most prevalent it's ever been and will only continue down this pathway too. So many people I know have ticked up, modern motors. I saw a photo the other day of a lad I taught in primary about fifteen years ago. He's just moved into his first home with his fiancée. The photo showed them outside of their new place - the house was the inevitable white painted new build with grey windows. The cars were conveniently in shot too - one a nearly new BMW and the other a nearly new Mercedes A Class. 

This has to be true as no one has bought one of these for their looks.

 

[sierraman]

That is absolutely hideous. I’d cut someone off my Christmas card list if I discovered they were renting that. 

[RichardK]

TBF if I had £80K and wanted an electric car, the iX would be a contender - it's a pretty impressive beast to drive. But so is the i4, and you wouldn't notice it over a 4 series.

And if I had the sort of money where I had £80K cash to spend on a car, I wouldn't, because that'd be a couple of years of not stressing where I could drive almost anything and fix it instead of working. And if I had the sort of employer who wanted to 'add to my salary package' by leasing me an £80K EV because I'd only pay £20/month in tax for an extra £1K of 'earning', sorry, I'll pay the tax and take the cash, 'cause that mortgage rate rise is lurking for these people. We haven't seen what's coming, yet. Not properly.

There was a time in the early 70s/late 60s with inflation - I have only heard of it, I wasn't alive - where people bought cars on HP, and inflation + interest rate issues meant the cars were worth more (in £ terms, not in value-to-earnings/new car terms) used than when they were new. Of course that finance they were paying was fixed to the old price, so they won. For a bit.

[cort16]

I just wouldn’t buy it because it looks fucking horrendous and has  chintzy buttons  made of crystals .It just needs some flowery drapes.

I’ve seen a few of them now and they look worse in real life . Remember the  good old days when the Ford Scorpio was considered ugly ?

[RichardK]

Thing is, I've yet to hear anyone say anything good about BMW's styling. They know. It still sells. I don't hate the iX as much as some other modern SUVs, but I can't think of anything modern that I think actually looks /good/ apart from maybe the A110 or Lotus Emira.

Dacia Jogger's alright, but then it's very much 'this is what it does and this is the shape it needs to be to do it'.