11:10 am, April 11, 2023
First impressions are massively important, especially when you’re selling cars.
Indeed, I’d wager that the very first impression someone has of a car is the single most critical thing when it comes to selling one, which is why I procure most of my stock these days from private sales.
The auction houses have cottoned on to the fact that most used cars perform better on the market when they’re clean and well presented (even when sold in the trade).
In recent years, they’ve invested in in-house cleaning teams that take the scruffiest of part-exchanges and – at the very minimum – make them appear half-presentable before they’re run through the block.
Facebook Marketplace sellers, on the other hand, think a photograph of half a car protruding from behind a wheelie bin with an interior full of discarded McDonald’s wrappers is sufficient to draw in an audience of suitors, all of whom will be clamouring to get their hands on a 100,000-mile Vauxhall Insignia with an overflowing ashtray.
This, of course, is not the case, and as a result I quite often end up with a veritable bargain and Henry the Hoover ends up with a clogged filter, but with the right level of effort it can be worthwhile.
Indeed, it’s why I’m never open on Mondays, as I tend to spend the day trudging the mean streets of Birmingham’s less salubrious suburbs seeking out the wheelie bins that are guarding the best of the city’s automotive secrets.
I buy, on average, about one out of every five I see. The rest are often fit only for the wheelie bin they’re hiding behind, but I digress.
I’ve always said that if you want to be a success at anything in life, then the very first thing you need to do is make an effort.
Effort pays off almost as much as first impressions. And on that note, here’s a cautionary tale…
Big Mike often ends up with a real bargain but it takes its toll on his Henry the Hoover…
I’ve made no secret in these columns of the fact that I love an old Jaguar – I’ve been waxing lyrical about them in this column for a good number of years.
Back when I first started penning this waffle, you could pick up a really nice XJ8, or even better an XJR, for an embarrassingly small investment – one that was almost insulting to the magnificent car your £1,500 or so bought you.
Alas, that’s no longer the case, so I decided recently that I would actually treat myself to a genuinely good one while they’re still out there.
Unlike my usual acquisitions, I was prepared to spend good money.
This was essentially to be a private purchase.
A modern-ish classic for me to own and cherish, not my usual part-exchange beater with a big engine and an equally substantial mileage that I’d run until the MOT expired and then send over the bridge.
Indeed, I was even more than happy to break with tradition and buy it for retail value by visiting a specialist dealership.
After all, if you want the best, then you need to be prepared to pay for the best, and having committed many a big old Jaguar to the banger racing boys over the three decades in which I’ve been self-employed, I feel it’s almost my duty to invest in preserving at least one.
After a couple of months of searching, I came across a possible candidate: a smart black XJR with less than 90k on the clock, the perfect specification, two previous owners and an MOT history that showed it had managed to avoid any close encounters thus far with the welder’s sparky stick.
It was £8,000 – which is reasonable money for a nice XJR V8 these days – and only a 250-mile drive away from home.
Attention to detail is of paramount importance when selling a car, says Big MikeSo, rather than spend a Monday sniffing out stock from behind smelly wheelie bins, I decided to take a drive out in my current part-ex smoker – a Range Rover L322 with rusty rear arches – to take a look.
And here’s where the first impressions come into play.
When I rolled up, accompanied by the groans of a failing electric handbrake, my first impression was favourable. The car was clean, straight and well presented. But it didn’t last.
One of the very first things I do is take a good look at the tyres on a potential purchase, as they can tell you a lot.
The XJR had three lovely matching Pirelli P-Zeroes on it, but the tyre on the nearside front that always wears out first due to enthusiastic urban cornering was badged as a ‘Ling Long Goodride’.
I looked a bit deeper, and although the XJR had seen regular specialist maintenance until about three years ago, the most recent service (which was supposed to have been a big one) was apparently carried out by one ‘Frank’s Auto Repairs’, which I’ve never heard of, despite being in the motor trade in the Midlands all my life.
The stamp had no postcode or address on it, and when I pointed both this and the tyre out to the vendor, he replied with ‘Look, do you want it or not?’.
I chose not. And here’s the thing…
For a modest investment in one more Pirelli and a £300 service from a respected Jaguar specialist (of which there are many in the Midlands, most of whom do a very fair trade-to-trade rate), he’d have had a car that was still highly desirable.
First impressions and effort. They mean a lot more than so many people in our trade will ever realise.
That’s why those of us who are doing okay remain successful and why I’ll die on that hill.
This column appears in the current edition of Car Dealer – issue 181 – along with news, reviews, features and much more! Read and download the magazine for FREE here!
