Discussion
I WFH a lot and I have a driveway. I've been thinking over the last few days I could possibly make 2/3k a year buying cheap motors for a few hundred quid and then punt them on for say a grand or so.
Has anyone here done this?
Some thoughts though:
1) if you've done this before do you add the second car to your normal insurance policy and then cancel it when the car sells, or do you just get a one day policy to get the car home, which would presumably cost £20 a day or so?
2) tax - presumably you just tax it monthly and cancel it when it sells? Am I missing anything with this or is it that simple ?
3) it seems in London any decent ulez compliant car with an MOT and that hasn't had Neil Armstrong as its previous owner is around £800-1k minimum. I've seen a fair few cars outside London for £395 (examples below). The bloke selling these is clearly a trader - where would he be likely getting these from? Is he buying stuff that would otherwise be scrapped for £150 and marks it up to £400 or would he be sniffing about at auctions for this sort of stuff ?
I'm sure I won't end up doing it but I've been giving it a lot of thought recently and wondered if any of you here did it?
Has anyone here done this?
Some thoughts though:
1) if you've done this before do you add the second car to your normal insurance policy and then cancel it when the car sells, or do you just get a one day policy to get the car home, which would presumably cost £20 a day or so?
2) tax - presumably you just tax it monthly and cancel it when it sells? Am I missing anything with this or is it that simple ?
3) it seems in London any decent ulez compliant car with an MOT and that hasn't had Neil Armstrong as its previous owner is around £800-1k minimum. I've seen a fair few cars outside London for £395 (examples below). The bloke selling these is clearly a trader - where would he be likely getting these from? Is he buying stuff that would otherwise be scrapped for £150 and marks it up to £400 or would he be sniffing about at auctions for this sort of stuff ?
I'm sure I won't end up doing it but I've been giving it a lot of thought recently and wondered if any of you here did it?
None of these old turds have been sold for the square root of nothing or sent to auction because they are tip top and trouble free so you need to be sharp at knowing what to buy and what not to buy and be able to fix the issues that all of them will have. It needs free cash and the logistics of fetching cars, taking them for repairs if you're not DIY, taking them for MOTs, taking them back will take more time than you think.
You also need to be prepared to take the hit if you buy a proper nail and have to cut your losses and weigh it in for scrap value
Ideally you get a trade policy for insurance that just covers everything, if you're only doing low value low risk cars and not too many it can be surprisingly cheap.
There are a million driveway traders out there, mostly filling out the bottom of the market where legitimate used car dealers can no longer make enough margin to bother, and it's a murky world of clueless chancers and appallingly prepared turds so if you actually put the effort in and sell well tested, well prepared cars you can make a bit of pocket money but really it's something to do for fun rather than vast profits that you'll never actually achieve.
If you're just buying and flipping without thoroughly testing out the cars, fixing the faults, and prepping them properly or generally adding any real value then you're just looking to be a used car scammer and you'll come a cropper pretty quickly.
Tax - you can get trade plates with your trade insurance policy to drive them and otherwise keep them off the road. If they're on the road yes tax month by month.
Try a couple and see how it goes, I promise it's less profitable and a lot more labour intensive than you hope unless your hope is to become yet another person looking to rip off people desperate for a cheap car fast by selling them clapped out old turds that stink of weed and piss. London has plenty of those already.
ETA - MOT history on that Hyundai strongly suggests it'll never get another (legitimate) MOT. You need to really know what you're looking for and how to read the limited info available on these old turds not to end up just being a glorified scrap man.
You also need to be prepared to take the hit if you buy a proper nail and have to cut your losses and weigh it in for scrap value
Ideally you get a trade policy for insurance that just covers everything, if you're only doing low value low risk cars and not too many it can be surprisingly cheap.
There are a million driveway traders out there, mostly filling out the bottom of the market where legitimate used car dealers can no longer make enough margin to bother, and it's a murky world of clueless chancers and appallingly prepared turds so if you actually put the effort in and sell well tested, well prepared cars you can make a bit of pocket money but really it's something to do for fun rather than vast profits that you'll never actually achieve.
If you're just buying and flipping without thoroughly testing out the cars, fixing the faults, and prepping them properly or generally adding any real value then you're just looking to be a used car scammer and you'll come a cropper pretty quickly.
Tax - you can get trade plates with your trade insurance policy to drive them and otherwise keep them off the road. If they're on the road yes tax month by month.
Try a couple and see how it goes, I promise it's less profitable and a lot more labour intensive than you hope unless your hope is to become yet another person looking to rip off people desperate for a cheap car fast by selling them clapped out old turds that stink of weed and piss. London has plenty of those already.
ETA - MOT history on that Hyundai strongly suggests it'll never get another (legitimate) MOT. You need to really know what you're looking for and how to read the limited info available on these old turds not to end up just being a glorified scrap man.
Edited by GeniusOfLove on Tuesday 7th October 10:58
Once you have sold the turds for gold, dodged the warranty/trader responsibility issues, you then get to fill in a self assessment for income tax, tell your home insurer you're running a business with customers on the property, and inform the neighbours of all turds/gold cluttering up the neighbourhood....
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