Chatting to a pal the other day. He's a self-employed wholesaler, a sort of freelance sales rep if you like. Anyway, he claims to have had ten cars for £2500. He does a fair old mileage, 30-40 thousand a year and needs a medium / large estate.
Ten years ago he went the auction and bought a car for £2.5k. High mileage mainsteam brand diesel estate. Kept it for a year, put 35,000 miles on top of the 90,000 odd which were there when he bought it. Never spent a bean on it, no servicing or anything other than tyres and they were always the cheapest ones he could find.
After the year had elapsed, he got it MOTd and put it on Autotrader for £3000 and settled on an offer of....£2.5K. Trotted down to the auction with the cash and bought a similar car with lower mileage and a year or so younger.
He has now done something similar every year for the past nine years. Never tries to go for anything fancy and generally sticks to Fords, Vauxhalls and VWs. Reason we got talking about it was that I noticed he had just aquired another "new" car. Quite a tidy 100,000 mile Vectra diesel estate for...£2.5k !
He admits to having had to fork out for an odd repair over the years but steadfastly refuses to spend money on his cars unless the fault would make it illegal or immobile. Never gets them serviced and they only get a wash when he's about to sell them.
Maybe he's right.
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I would rather spend the money and get something I would enjoy driving for many hours a day.
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Oh, I would tend to agree with you Cheddar but I suppose it just goes to prove the old adage about there being options re cat skinning.
:-)
Last edited by: Humph D'Bout on Sat 23 Apr 11 at 23:06
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Would you not be racked with guilt treating a machine like that? I guess we all take pride in different things but I'm proving already this year to be as lousy at gardening as last year, so looks like I'll stick to cars for now :-)
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>>He's a self-employed wholesaler, a sort of freelance sales rep if you like
And you believe him?
Lolz.
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It might not be as cheap as he makes it sound.
Does his £2.5k include the auction and autotrader fees? And what about the cost of his time going to the auction, and waiting in for buyers.
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I do believe it, would he be using a Glasgow or other Northern auction site?...it would be possible to get cars cheap enough from English Northern sites, but unless he's good he'd struggle to get good enough bargains in the South...that was my experience last time i used the auctions.
There were still people doing well be buying North, and shipping truckloads South to resell when i stopped transporter driving, see no reason it shouldn't continue...much cash changes hands, say no more.
Hang round any auction long enough and it's possible to snap a real bargain up, i found it best to not be looking for a particular model or spec, but just buy when it happens.
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I'd be interested to hear from Bellboy on this one...
Has he ever bought ten 2-grand cars in a row that required no work whatsoever to put on the forecourt, and didn't return within the first year for 'attention'?
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Sounds quite possible.... 20yrs ago this is the way we ran cars except I did service them.
Example buy a faded red highish mileage Citroen ZX with two bald front tyres and needing a major service for £1200 (retail about £2500) from someone going onto lease and just wanting to get shot.
DIY service, pair of mid range tyres, T-cut and polish plus a full interior valet. Costs about £100. Run it for a while and easily sold on for £2000.
Similarly buy a Granada from the estate of a local deceased man for £300. Had been left in yard with expired MOT and covered in dust.
Serviced, just a new silencer for MOT then a full DIY valet so costs about £100 again. Ran for a while and sold for £1100.
We did this time and time again over that period... as mentioned by someone above not worrying too much what the car make/model was but just picking an opportunity at both the buying and selling end of ownership.
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Me i used to buy them for 5k and keep them for five years they were not worth much at the end but didn't spend much on them as all servicing done by me.
I can't be bothered swapping every year this car had it nearly a year so if i get another 7 yrs out of it will be happy.
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>> We did this time and time again over that period... as mentioned by someone above
>> not worrying too much what the car make/model was but just picking an opportunity
And there, in a nutshell, is the secret of buying a bargain at Auction. If Nicole wasn't set on a Polo, she would now be driving around in a very tidy and very cheap Skoda.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 24 Apr 11 at 09:11
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>>Never spent a bean on it, no servicing or anything other than tyres
>>After the year had elapsed, he got it MOTd
>>He admits to having had to fork out for an odd repair over the years
Ah there we go- back to reality.
Many salesmen are a bit like druggies - they tell great stories, but generally embellish them to make the scores sound bigger and the outlays lower.
If this guy has been a self-employed sales rep, covering 40k miles per year (£5k+ pa in diesel), AND has been doing this for a decade he must be a good salesman ;-)
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>> Maybe he's right.
Right for him, not for me. I don't like the process of buying and selling, I find I keep cars for longer these days. So I get them serviced because I like them to run well while they are in my posession. He says he doesn't service them but no doubt he doesn't worry about the odd noise or mechanical glitch unless it's stopping him moving. I couldn't be like that.
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...I don't like the process of buying and selling...
Me neither, partly because the 'friction cost' is so high.
This guy has done very, very well to pull off the 'sold it for what I paid for it' scenario ten times in row.
Even Celtic only managed nine.
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>>Even Celtic only managed nine
Tried to find a pic of neds wearing "Rangers 10-in-a-row" shirts but t'internet isn't helping me out.
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Oh I quite agree with most here in so far as I couldn't be bothered with the hassle and indeed I have a more finely tuned view of risk to boot.
However, even supposing, ( and let's be really mean spirited and cynical here for the sake of it )...even supposing he's spent an undeclared £7.5K on repairs over the period, £10k would be still not bad value for 10 years / 350-400k miles of motoring.
I do get his logic if you can call it that. Not my way at all. In preference I'd rather buy something I know to be good and keep it well as I did with my Mondeo estates.
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... £10k would be still not bad value for 10 years / 350-400k miles of motoring....
Hard to beat.
I expect his high mileage has helped in some ways.
The bangers will be more reliable doing 35,000m in a year than they would taking four years to do the same mileage.
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>> I expect his high mileage has helped in some ways.
>> The bangers will be more reliable doing 35,000m in a year than they would taking
>> four years to do the same mileage.
Agreed. I guess the guy, like a lot of people, just wants reliable transport and wants to do it the cheapest way. Most people on here are interested in motors and everything that surrounds them, and would pay a bit extra to be part of something they enjoy.
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So this chap (a salesman not a car mechanic) goes to the auctions as an amateur buyer once a year and buys 10 cars in a row without a problem.
He then runs them without a problem - or a service - and is able to sell easily 10 high mileage/no recent service history vehicles, again with out a problem in a market where there are hundreds of similar models for sale on Autotrader, most of which will have lower miles and a service history.
He certainly must be some salesman!
It all sounds too good to be true - and we know what they say about something that is too good to be true?
Probably a few grains of truth in the "story" but IMO this has been exagerated out of all proportion by the tale teller.
J
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The chap in question used to be a mechanic many years ago as it happens which can't hurt I suppose, but whether he's being economical with the truth or not it simply serves to illustrate that there are alternatives in life if you choose to follow them. Nothing more. Anyway, I just thought it might prove of some passing interest to readers of a motoring based forum. As usual however, there are those who want to turn everything into an argument. Carry on...be my guest.
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£250 per car? Sounds about right, but I wouldn't want them all at once - I find 4 is a bit of a clutter.
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if you were realistically driving 35,000 miles per year you would buy quality tyres like michelin greens and you would also have the car properly serviced to squeeeeeeeeeeeze every ounce of fuel out of the thing
its a fabrication in my opinion because if he could buy ten on the trot with no problems he would be trading the things from home full time rather than spending his life cursing traffic lights and white van man
next............................................
sorry humph tell him his pints are obviously boddingtons ones
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I'm amazed BB you haven't come across the folks doing just such mileages on ditchfinders and skipped maintenance... I've turned away a few folks in the past who treat their cars this way and wanted help when problems came up.
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Ten cars for £2500 - Hard Cheese
