Is this an unreasonable request
Discussion
Fox- said:
FLASHG1981 said:
As someone who had a company buying and selling cars I can say that I don't ever recall who sent me a message asking me any questions about the car ever having bought one from me. The more recent cars I have sold I ignore any emails I receive.
Bizarre attitude. I've asked questions about every car I've bought. The last two I bought privatley gave me detailed, polite and well written replies answering all of the questions I had. As a result I then drove hundreds of miles to hand them over piles of folding notes and drive away in the cars they were selling.Why would anyone who isn't a bit dim not have any questions about a car before viewing it unless it was literally for sale next door? Most adverts are far too light on information to make a decent judgement call.
My default assumption is that anyone who refuses to provide reasonable information does so because they know the information they provide will put the buyer off. I therefore waste no further time enquiring about cars for sale by people like that.
It works both ways too. I had a car for sale last year. A guy emails me with what almost qualified for an entire A4 sheet of questions. I spent 30 minutes answering them in great detail. 24 hours later he left a deposit without viewing the car and 2 weeks later he drove it away for prety much asking price. Good job I didn't do what you do or it may still have been for sale!
FLASHG1981 said:
Also I wouldn't see someone having four expensive tyres as a good sign more likely to be someone who likes to push the car to the limits and best to be avoided.
I also use this as a qualification question. I don't care about the genuine reasons for fitting ditchfinders. Im not interested, rightly or wrongly I see 4 premium tyres - even if they are P6000's which are a pile of s
te - as an indication that the owner wasn't always looking for the cheapest way of doing something. I'll often change the tyres once I get a car - but I ask whats on there so I can make a judgement call, along with other bits of info, about how I feel the car has been owned.I'm prepared to accept that I'll miss the odd bargain this way but I'm also confident I dodge plenty of junk, too.
When I was flogging my Puma a few months back I had a guy email me with a whole load of questions, one of which was wanting to know the current MoT certificate number. I'd not seen this asked before and was starting to think 'scam' but after doing a bit of research I discovered what a little gold mine of info it holds on your car history so happily sent it along to him.
Then I got another email asking for registration mark. This was pretty much the point where I thought 'idiot/time-waster' as there were 15 hi-res 1280 wide pics embedded in the ad, most of which showed the number plate clearly on display in all its glory.. I was tempted to post back with a "open your f
king eyes" style reply but I somehow managed a polite "ABC123Z, but it is clearly visible in the photos if you look! Rgds." reply. He replied back that he was viewing the ad on a mobile device and couldn't see the pics on it, which is entirely plausible as 15x 1280 pics would probably chew up his bandwidth and may have disabled them.Later that evening he emailed me again wanting some close-up pics of the rear arches where they meet the sill (a common rust trap on the Puma). By this point I'm started to get cheesed off as it's a pain in the arse taking pics and uploading them to my FTP but I obliged and had them to him within the hour. He said he'd come and view it the following evening and he did do. After a short test drive he paid the full asking price without any haggling and off he went a happy chappy.
Total cost/effort to me: approx 20 mins of my time to have my car gone within a week for its slightly over-inflated asking price. I'd call that a good result.
Back on topic, OP your questions are non unreasonable at all. If they can't be arsed to answer them to your satisfaction then it's their loss. Strike them off your list and move onto the next ad.
Roo said:
S10GTA said:
The Xsara I was looking at was only 750 quid but I asked what tyres were fitted. I wanted to know if they had kept OEM or if I needed to factor in 4 new ones.
You asked about what make of tyres were on a £750 car?Seriously?
Edited by S10GTA on Wednesday 25th July 07:48
FLASHG1981 said:
As someone who had a company buying and selling cars I can say that I don't ever recall who sent me a message asking me any questions about the car ever having bought one from me. The more recent cars I have sold I ignore any emails I receive. Also I wouldn't see someone having four expensive tyres as a good sign more likely to be someone who likes to push the car to the limits and best to be avoided.
It's st car salesmen like you who give the industry a bad name tbh. Don't forget the issue of shyster dealers "forgetting" what they said on the phone when you have driven 150 miles to view. If it's written in an email there is no denying. The last 5 cars I have bought, the legwork has been done by email. Even my sub-grand shed. Business must be good if you can afford to turn away all these punters...
Edited by NiceCupOfTea on Friday 27th July 21:43
S10GTA said:
Roo said:
S10GTA said:
The Xsara I was looking at was only 750 quid but I asked what tyres were fitted. I wanted to know if they had kept OEM or if I needed to factor in 4 new ones.
You asked about what make of tyres were on a £750 car?Seriously?
Edited by S10GTA on Wednesday 25th July 07:48
Haggleburyfinius said:
On the subject of emails.
My business is in the leisure industry.
Email conversions are less than 10%. Telephone 60%. Walk ins 90%.
I often wonder whether it is even worth the time to respond to incoming emails. Also, the enquirers with the most questions invariably never buy!
On the other hand, how many of those 10% email conversions would either phone or walk in?My business is in the leisure industry.
Email conversions are less than 10%. Telephone 60%. Walk ins 90%.
I often wonder whether it is even worth the time to respond to incoming emails. Also, the enquirers with the most questions invariably never buy!
When I'm booking team meetings, I'll pick a selection of promising looking hotels, set out what I want, and email them. If they don't respond, then they potentially miss out on £3k worth of business.
Howard- said:
markmullen said:
I agree £3,000 is a lot of money to some, and I have no problem with that, it is just the unrealistic expectation that a car at that price will be like new. If you want an unblemished, untouched, astoundingly clean never smoked in (a lighter? oh the huge manatee), never had any paint, never thrashed, never seen bad weather or road salt car the only way to guarantee it is to buy new. At the lower end of the market you are going to have to accept compromises and if it turns out that you have to replace the set of low treaded Jupiter Darkhorses then so be it.
Come on, he's asked about the service history, what tyres it has and any MOT advisories. Elementary car purchase enquiry questions regardless of how valuable the vehicle is.
Perhaps it needs to be remembered that the general public don't have a clue about tyres apart from that they neex tread; I know many people whose cars are always serviced bang on schedule but wear mismatched Kwik-Fit specials. People simply don't understand their importance, but they are about the easiest component to change so not a deal breaker. Bald tyres are a different matter...
Haggleburyfinius said:
Email conversions are less than 10%. Telephone 60%. Walk ins 90%.
I'd say my stats are similar in the motor trade. I operate by appointment, but if someone makes an appointment and turns up then 90% of the time they'll buy, and maybe 50% of phone calls result in an appointment to view.Edited by daemon on Sunday 29th July 00:13
hadenough! said:
A question for thoes who don't think people who send emails asking questions buy cars.
I've found another which is a 260 round trip away.
So do I:
Drive up there and view it on the off chance
Email asking some relevant questions to help decide whether its worth making the trip to view?
OR pick up the phone and ring first?I've found another which is a 260 round trip away.
So do I:
Drive up there and view it on the off chance
Email asking some relevant questions to help decide whether its worth making the trip to view?
daemon said:
Haggleburyfinius said:
Email conversions are less than 10%. Telephone 60%. Walk ins 90%.
I'd say my stats are similar in the motor trade. I operate by appointment, but if someone makes an appointment and turns up then 90% of the time they'll buy, and maybe 50% of phone calls result in an appointment to view.if you advertise a car on the 'net, then you have to expect that a reasonable proportion of enquiries will be via the net - as in Emails? no?
Last car I brought was advertised in PH classifieds, I initially sent an email with a (short) list of specific questions, got a reply within 1 hour, followed it up with booking an appointment to test-drive it (also by Email), never spoke to the salesman till I got there.
Can't see the problem with this, Salesman was professional, answered the questions concisely, sorted out what was required, got the sale in a time-frame from Sat PM to Monday morning.
At the time, I was looking at 5 other cars, if I had picked the phone up to all of them (assuming they answered on a Sat afternoon), it would have taken me all day, as it was, I had 6 replies to my initial emails, and worked from that.
from the salesman's perspective, the initial mail would have taken them <3-4 mins to answer, if a salesman can't be arsed to put that kind of effort in, then don't advertise on the internet!
Scuffers said:
daemon said:
Haggleburyfinius said:
Email conversions are less than 10%. Telephone 60%. Walk ins 90%.
I'd say my stats are similar in the motor trade. I operate by appointment, but if someone makes an appointment and turns up then 90% of the time they'll buy, and maybe 50% of phone calls result in an appointment to view.if you advertise a car on the 'net, then you have to expect that a reasonable proportion of enquiries will be via the net - as in Emails? no?
In the last month i've maybe sold 1 that came from an initial email enquiry.
The vast majority of conversions are from phone.
Scuffers said:
Last car I brought was advertised in PH classifieds, I initially sent an email with a (short) list of specific questions, got a reply within 1 hour, followed it up with booking an appointment to test-drive it (also by Email), never spoke to the salesman till I got there.
Can't see the problem with this, Salesman was professional, answered the questions concisely, sorted out what was required, got the sale in a time-frame from Sat PM to Monday morning.
At the time, I was looking at 5 other cars, if I had picked the phone up to all of them (assuming they answered on a Sat afternoon), it would have taken me all day, as it was, I had 6 replies to my initial emails, and worked from that.
Note that i am giving you information based on my experience and based on what i am seeing every day, that is to say, email enquiries in my experience rarely lead to a sale. That is not to say i don't respond to emails in a timely and appropriate manner. I've fired off a couple of replies there now to emails that came in this evening, so it will be interesting to see if there will be any follow up.Can't see the problem with this, Salesman was professional, answered the questions concisely, sorted out what was required, got the sale in a time-frame from Sat PM to Monday morning.
At the time, I was looking at 5 other cars, if I had picked the phone up to all of them (assuming they answered on a Sat afternoon), it would have taken me all day, as it was, I had 6 replies to my initial emails, and worked from that.
Scuffers said:
from the salesman's perspective, the initial mail would have taken them <3-4 mins to answer, if a salesman can't be arsed to put that kind of effort in, then don't advertise on the internet!
I advertise on the internet because thats where my target market look for cars in the first instance. I'm happy to respond to emails, texts or phone calls, however emails in my experience generate the least percentage conversion rate.Edited by daemon on Sunday 29th July 00:37
In the bread and butter car market email enquiries are usually st enquiries...yes there are exceptions but they are the lowest quality enquiry....not sure why that fact irritates many PHers but it's true.
The higher quality the car, the higher quality the email enquiry becomes ...
Make of that what you will.
t enquiries...yes there are exceptions but they are the lowest quality enquiry....not sure why that fact irritates many PHers but it's true.The higher quality the car, the higher quality the email enquiry becomes ...
Make of that what you will.
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