the joys of autotrader

[jackal]

everyone you call up either:


1. lives in caithness, durham or aberdeen .. where are these places ffs, and more importantly why do they exist if nothing ever happens there ???

2. is polish/easter european and a 'mechanic' has done 'all the servicing myself'. i.e. car is a weapons grade disaster looking for somewhere to happen

3. can't speak a word of english, just grunts and groans down the phone and becomes HIGHLY defensive, almost violent the moment you mention the phrase 'service history'

4. some rough sounding chap who responds by saying "which car mate". i.e. a two bit trader who places private ads and deals from some nasty old bungalow in Billericay. Errrr... like if you don't have a nice forecourt, good coffee and dont' offer a 200 point pdi, warranty and finance then WHY THE HELL SHOULD OR INDEED WOULD I PAY YOU A DEALER PRICE ? GO out and get a proper job mate, pay your taxes and stop scamming the autotrader system and the Government.


in summary: if anyone has a nice looked after Fiat Cinqucento then bring it over to sunbury and ill give you cash for it. CAB looking anymore.

Edited by jackal on Tuesday 30th March 15:33

[trickywoo]

You forgot the one selling it for his dad / brother / cousin.

[Seez]

Reminds me of some chump I phoned about a MK1 golf a while back and asked if it has got any rust on it, which I thought was a reasonable question for a 20 year old car (at the time) and it was up for £2k or something...

All I got was abuse, obviously I took that as a bad sign for the rest of deal and didnt bother going to see it. Mind you some people on here would still have bought it so there is your answer...

[MikeTiger]

Just had something similar,looking for MX5 for daughter.
Autotrader. Excellent condition etc etc etc.
He gave the location as on the edge of a "posh" part of town, in actual fact was in the very worst estate next to the "posh" area.
Usual crap on viewing, selling car for my mate.
Complete waste of time.

[ross-co]

jackal said:

everyone you call up either:


1. lives in caithness, durham or aberdeen .. where are these places ffs, and more importantly why do they exist if nothing ever happens there ???

Edited by jackal on Tuesday 30th March 15:33

Can you not search by distance, also Aberdeen is not that bad. Honestly.

Ross

[Harry Flashman]

To buck the trend, bought my recent acquisition from autotrader. Guy was friendly, professional, ran through a checklist with me and was honest about the car's failings, renegotiated a price on the phone to include delivery, delivered it to my parents' house. And it's a good one, at a very good price. Talked me through the car's service history, told me what stuff (in his opinion) was due on it.

I bought unseen - he gave me that much confidence. And it wasn't misplaced.

[G-P]

It's no better when you are genuine seller!!!

[useyourdellusion]

I've heard of the other places you mention OP.

Where in the merry hell is Sunbury though??

[anonymous-user]

I think this is just a general problem with car sales in general, I've come across a lot of people like this. I've given up with auto trader and bought my last car outside of an auction on ebay, I got it for a pretty good price too.

[boomboompow]

jackal said:

everyone you call up either:


1. lives in caithness, durham or aberdeen .. where are these places ffs, and more importantly why do they exist if nothing ever happens there ???

Edited by jackal on Tuesday 30th March 15:33

I demand to know what cars you're looking for given I live in Aberdeen and unless you're in the market for high-end exotica or clapped out farm cars you need to resort to looking at least as far south as Glasgow/Edinburgh before getting any decent results. Maybe it's just the way autotrader works; gives you the best results but they're at the other end of the country to where you live.

[5charlie46]

It goes the other way too, i sell the odd car, as it earns me a bit of money as im a student and my dads has a garage so it runs in the family... everytime i sell a car i get 10 phone calls a day from people who have no intention of buying the car, haven't read the ad and think that when a car is advertised at 2000 no offers it means 1500 quid... and why do people think paying by cash will make it cheaper lol... i also understand where you are coming from though but dont think we have it easy either!

[109 Bob]

useyourdellusion said:

Where in the merry hell is Sunbury though??

J1 - M3. Down the posh end of the country.

[skyslimit]

5charlie46 said:

It goes the other way too, i sell the odd car, as it earns me a bit of money as im a student and my dads has a garage so it runs in the family... everytime i sell a car i get 10 phone calls a day from people who have no intention of buying the car, haven't read the ad and think that when a car is advertised at 2000 no offers it means 1500 quid... and why do people think paying by cash will make it cheaper lol... i also understand where you are coming from though but dont think we have it easy either!

Thats the trouble, every two bit tosser thinks they are Mike Brewer. Dear Lord I'd love to slap him in the face. With an anvil. Fired from a battleship main gun. Sorry, I digress.

But all this 'I'll give you £1500, CASH!! wink wink' What IS that all about?

It's not like the car is advertised for sale with renumeration expected in doughnuts, or straberries, or tap dancing pygmy Albanians.

I really am starting to think the UK sub cluture of tosser is taking over. Selling cars did NOT use to be as bad as this in years gone by.

[steve_bmw]

skyslimit said:

I really am starting to think the UK sub cluture of tosser is taking over. Selling cars did NOT use to be as bad as this in years gone by.

i agree, you put your mint, genuine car up for sale and all you get it complete timewasters, i had to ask a bloke to leave once

also lots of cars you call up about, you get some yob who cant even speak in a friendly mannor, or has very poor english. and your right about the st area,
in the picture it looks fantastic, parked outside some mansion, you just know when you get there,you drive past the nice houses and satnav says 2 miles to go, your going to end up in bagdad!!

[wagon and horses]

I sold a micra recently as we no longer needed it.
1.3L
'T' plate
100k miles
12 months MOT
3 months Tax
shines up a dream!
mechanically invincible like all micras

Basically the ideal 1st car/cheap run around – nothing special

Guess how much someone seriously offered me...

£200 FFS! WHO ARE THESE PIKEY CHANCERS!

finally sold it for £1k 4 days later

[irish boy]

Its not just the small private ads.....went to a main vw garage last week to look at a 07 r32 manual with 40k. got there to find a dsg with 50k. and NO I don't care if 50k is "nothing to a golf" as the salesman tries to sell it to me.

[skyslimit]

irish boy said:

Its not just the small private ads.....went to a main vw garage last week to look at a 07 r32 manual with 40k. got there to find a dsg with 50k. and NO I don't care if 50k is "nothing to a golf" as the salesman tries to sell it to me.

I went to see one years ago which had jumped 15,000 miles and had the poverty spec alloys on, not the cost option ones, as described to me over the phone 2 hours earlier. The full service history had also magically turned ito a heat paper fax sheet of all the times their workshop had seen it. Which wasn't a lot. As for it being 'straight as a die, never been bumped', how come it has a metallic blue tie rod end ball joint then and overspray on the wheel arch liner?

This was also a main dealer. Sounded a bit like 'Harnold Park' funnily enough. True to form, the 'salesman' was a rude, slimy, borderline agressive tt with a foodstained necktie who couldn't sell Volvic in the Sahara.

Cue swift exit.

[jackal]

useyourdellusion said:

I've heard of the other places you mention OP.

Where in the merry hell is Sunbury though??

where does it say that.. i live in Hampton Court.. you know, like on the river THAMES, like where HENRY VII Lived, that big fat king who had millions of wives, pretty much the centre of england and best place to live unless you jump to a totally different solar system.

[jackal]

boomboompow said:

jackal said:

everyone you call up either:


1. lives in caithness, durham or aberdeen .. where are these places ffs, and more importantly why do they exist if nothing ever happens there ???

Edited by jackal on Tuesday 30th March 15:33

I demand to know what cars you're looking for given I live in Aberdeen and unless you're in the market for high-end exotica or clapped out farm cars you need to resort to looking at least as far south as Glasgow/Edinburgh before getting any decent results. Maybe it's just the way autotrader works; gives you the best results but they're at the other end of the country to where you live.

give you that

anything inside the M25 automatically carries a 25% premium

[R360]

I think they are all like that, i sold my Lexus last week and got a serious amount of time wasters offering less then half of the advertised price over the phone. Then i had the others texting me asking me for my best price, to which i replied with the asking price.
You then arrange a viewing and stay in all day waiting and they decide not to bother turning up or calling, i cant contact them as they witheld the number, granted i should have asked for one.
When you are getting sick of it you get a call, someone asks if its available and arranges a viewing, no other questions asked over the phone so i presumed it was another waster. However they turn up, like the car like the way it drives, happy with everything and make an offer.
However guess what still getting texts from people offering half whats it worth and justifying it as 'Big v8 are worth nothing so i will offer you... Im not ever bothering replying now that its sold. No point wasting 10p for text to knobs offering stupid money now that it gone.