Big Motoring World and Cargiant results, JLR begins phased restart, and the 'most unreliable cars' revealed – with Tom Ellis, episode 225

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Probably not with any of your stock, James, but I'll give it a go.

Well, John, it's funny you should say that.

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That's right, John. Every vehicle bought and collected via Carwell's auctions in September counts as one entry.

So the more you buy, the more chances you get to race against Matt Watson himself.

You can sign up today, John, at carwell.co.uk slash partners slash win.

Terms and conditions apply.

Welcome back to the Car dealer podcast where we pick our favorite stories of the week and ask an industry guest to choose which were the best.

I'm John Ray and joining me as usual, it's only James Baggart.

Hello, James.

Hello, John. It's difficult just to do that dealership phone rings.

I mean, that is hopefully that's a sale.

I'm going to have to blank that out for data protection now show me that number.

Oh, OK. Yeah, sorry. Good luck in the edit. Good luck in the edit. I forgot we do video.

Anyway, John, how are you? Nice to see you.

Well, I mean, we've had a busy week and we've been in Wales, South Wales, shooting our road test of the year feature for a couple of days.

But we've escaped for one of two reasons, one of which is the horrible weather, which meant that we had to get everything done in two days.

So it's not the real reason that we're back early.

It's part of the real reason.

Let me explain. Let me explain.

So our road test of the year every year, we booked some very nice cars in to the best cars that have gone on sale in car dealers showrooms in the last 12 months.

Something we've done for, well, since the magazine started in 2008, nice excuse for a jolly of driving some nice cars, but also some good content.

We do videos off the back of it and lots of other stuff.

Always gone to Wales because some very nice roads there used to go to North Wales, amazing.

Then they covered it in speed cameras.

So we decided to go to South Wales.

And we should just point out that's not because we're speeding.

It's just that they get in the way of the photograph.

And that's exactly it, John.

Exactly. Thank you.

And then, yeah, then we started going to South Wales.

This year, John and Jack booked the hotel and they decided to book us in.

I mean, just let me slightly set the scene.

We've got a 330,000 pound Aston Martin, a new Corvette, 100,000 pounds.

We had some other quite exciting stuff, you know, the sort of stuff that attracts a little bit of attention.

And John decided to book us into a travel lodge in Murford Tidville.

I mean, it sounds good.

I mean, it sounded good.

It was near Nando's.

It was near it was near a harvester.

Great idea until we're woken up.

Well, we won't woken up John.

We're because we're in the back of the hotel.

But all of our colleagues were woken up at midnight by men in balaclavas on a quad bike.

Trying all the door handles of all the lovely cars we had outside.

Luckily, luckily they didn't steal the Aston Martin or Corvette.

They broke into an L200 and stole all of their tools.

So obviously this happened in the middle of the night.

All the rest of the team didn't go to sleep.

We're rather panicked and basically spent the rest of the night staring out the window.

Any of the cars that we had there to make sure they didn't get nicked.

So I woke up to many WhatsApp messages the next morning completely blissfully unaware

because I'd gone to sleep after taking a medicine in tablet and put my ear plugs in.

So I completely unaware that anything had happened.

And we decided to can that night stay in the travel lodge.

Even though I was looking forward to Nando's and we came back early.

So yeah, quite an eventful couple of days wasn't it John?

Yeah, but no cars were harmed in the making of Rotestia.

L200 tree surgeons.

Yeah, did feel sorry for that.

I felt more sorry for all our colleagues again who are at the front of the hotel as you say.

Because not only were they woken up by the balaclava covered men on their several quad bikes.

But the alarm on this Mitsubishi L200 went on for another three hours

before the owner came out and moved it.

He just dragged it away.

Like a dying swan disappeared into the background.

Beeping off it went, yeah.

Oh dear, oh dear.

What a state of affairs that was.

But the other thing I'll just say about Rotestia is I found it a little bit depressing this year, John.

We had.

That was part of the problem.

But some of the cars we had were just they weren't quite as exciting as they have been in the past.

And I don't think that was through any fault of the people that were booking them.

It was more the fact that cars are losing a little bit of their appeal to me.

The new cars especially.

They don't stop bonging.

Some of the, I mean, that we got a Land Cruiser in.

Tired to Land Cruiser.

Which has got like six, seven different warning bongs you have to turn off.

I mean, it was unbelievably annoying.

So yeah, it took the shine off ever so slightly.

Yeah.

And also, I mean, like the not to get into Rotestia content.

Apologies to our guests who are in serious.

Yes.

We did have a couple of cars were quite hyped up, weren't they?

So we had an LP in a 290.

Is that what it's called?

Yes.

The Renault 51.

Renault 5 great car.

I really like Renault electric cars as we know.

As our listeners will know because I didn't shut up about my McGann.

And I came away from that LP in a bit disappointed.

I just thought steering was not great.

Very, very light.

Very devoid of feedback.

It's just not what a hot hatch was supposed to be.

Very, very torque steering as well.

I couldn't kind of couldn't drive it like my old Clio 200 I used to have.

No, exactly.

And I think we love a hot hatch and we had an Audi RS3 there, which was mega,

absolutely mega 400 brake horsepower four wheel drive, fantastic hot hatch.

And then you jump out of that into one of these electric cars that they were

trying to engineer excitement into.

And they just didn't do it for me.

Unfortunately, I just find electric cars so dull.

And when they try and make them exciting, they just feel like video games.

And it's just, it's not a future I'm looking forward to.

Anyway, John, can I just do a bit of a plug, please?

Sorry, we've been here for six minutes now.

I didn't realise we were on the clock.

I'm doing it, John.

What I wanted to say is if anybody listened to this, wanted to send us a

voice note or has an interesting story or wanted to join us on the

podcast, I've been listening to some other podcasts and they do this.

We've got a WhatsApp number. They can WhatsApp us on.

It is 07463 383310.

So what I'd like to hear from is anybody out there listening.

If you've got any interesting stories about the motor trade,

if you want to join us, any comments on the stories that we're making.

If you get annoyed by these ridiculously long intros, please let us know.

Send us a WhatsApp 07463 383310.

And John may or may not play them.

We might not get any. Who knows?

I'll put a number in the thing in whatever the show notes below.

Also, I just want to say, James, I really enjoyed your delivery there.

We've got a WhatsApp number.

Like your mum might say, Auntie Barbara's on WhatsApp now.

WhatsApp?

It's a new thing.

It's a new thing. Very exciting.

Anyway, send us a WhatsApp.

We want to hear from you.

Lovely.

Right, I'm going to introduce our guest now then because we've

talked enough about Mercer and WhatsApp.

So I guess this week is Tom Ellis, creative director and used

Cardiola Carl Wright.

Welcome Tom.

Morning, gents. How are we doing?

Very good. Thanks. Nice to see you.

I mean, for those people watching on YouTube,

they'll be thinking where on earth is Tom in the world?

Because he doesn't look like Mercer Tidfield.

Yeah, a little bit warmer than Mercer Tidfield.

Just in Spain at the moment, actually.

So taken two weeks off probably for the first time in a long time.

So, yeah, just coming away to just get my head clean and just

chill out, I think.

Well, nice to see you.

Thank you for giving up some holiday time to chat to the

Cardiola podcast.

Massively, massively appreciated.

Tell those people listening then a little bit about your

business and what you do, where you're based, et cetera.

So we're based just outside of Swindon,

a little town called Rorten.

We try and claim on the edge of the Cotswolds or

Welch here, but we're really just Swindon based.

But yeah, we've got a nice business down there.

70 cars in stock.

It's been, I think with everyone, anyone that has had or has

an independent dealership knows it's been a very

challenging couple of years.

Since the start of the business, we've grown sort of

beautifully well.

When I started, I was a first employee.

We had 15, 20 cars in stock and the land was,

the land was a bit messy really in truth.

We arrived and there was a lot bad blood in Rorten

where the couple of businesses before us weren't very

good.

One of the guys, Esso, I loaded the cars and disappeared

overnight with stock.

So we sort of arrived on tainted ground really.

So we had a lot of work to put into the local

community to restore a bit of balance, a bit of

trust within the land really.

So, and yeah, it's sort of just grown from there

really.

But yeah, it's been a really, really nice journey

today and the last six months for us have

been probably the best.

I think something's really nicely changed in the

business and we're on a really nice trajectory now.

I think the structures we've got in place in the

business now are really strong.

So how many cars have you got in stock and what

sort of stuff do you sell?

Yeah, so 70 cars.

We've got 70 live is the idea for us.

We probably sit around 66, probably live listed

everything consecutively.

But our package, if you like, is 70 on

auto trader and other platforms.

And then, yeah, so we're turning...

Last couple of months, September's quite quiet for

us actually.

I don't know how everyone else has found September.

It was a bit of a weird month.

We've done a bit of a high for the last six

months, but September was a bit quiet.

We stock anything really.

So we've got sort of anything from a Viva

at five and a half grand up to a new M2

at 52, 53.

So we don't really cherry pick.

We'll buy and sell anything really in a sense.

How do you buy these...

Sorry, Tom.

How do you buy these vehicles?

You've got some interesting stuff there.

Do you use data to pick stuff?

Is it gut feeling?

Yeah, I think there's a bit of both.

You're banging on with that.

I think everyone knows you get a gut feeling

about a car.

We do use data quite a lot.

Interesting.

We ran some, a lot of market research

recently in terms of the last sort of

year or so with just profit in the

metal for a lot of vehicles.

And PSA cars were our least performing

by quite a significant margin.

So with that to note, we're pretty much

under the conversation now whether we

might just stop buying and selling PSA cars.

The issue for us is we've got very high...

It's not an issue.

It's a good thing in a sense, but we don't...

Our prep levels for the business of the prep

levels, we don't save.

So we have extremely high levels of prep

that goes in, cosmetic and mechanical.

And I find the issue of PSA cars,

because you're not blessed with a large margin

to begin with, they can cost so much money

to get fully prepped.

By the time you get to sell things,

it's just not worth all the headaches.

So PSA we're starting to come away with.

But yeah, we trust our gut a lot,

but at the moment we're doing a bit more

active consideration to days to turn.

That's something I've looked a lot recently

and a lot of the changes we've made

in the business of late the days to turn

from this year to last year have been

massively different just from little

departure, run and prep.

What sort of numbers are you doing

on days to turn at the moment then?

So the last couple of months,

last three months, we've been

averaging about 39.

Last year was about 46.

So we've pretty much swiped nearly

a week off on our days to turn,

which is pretty good numbers.

So September haven't worked out.

It wouldn't be that much.

We only dealt 52 cars this month.

The last couple of months we've been dealing

in around 90 to 100% stop turnover.

So yeah, that's where we are

in the last three months to date,

excluding September.

And I think I overspote you a little bit

when you were answering about the sort of stuff

that you stopped.

What did you say about EVs?

Yeah, we've pulled EVs and it's

interesting because we talked briefly

about this at the car podcast live,

the car dealer podcast live.

My question, I can't

remember who I was trying to speak with.

Was the name Richard?

Might have made that up.

From Australia?

No, the used car dealer on the front right.

He was actually on the panel.

Oh, Alex Bradley.

Alex, sorry, my apologies Alex.

Yeah, so I was trying to have a quick chat

with Alex because my question was

is it related to location?

Because in the run the Swindon area,

we don't have a clean air zone.

You'd have to go quite far to find

one, Southampton, Bristol, Birmingham, you know.

So I don't know

whether that's a factor,

but I did have a really interesting chat

with a couple of people there

and they did shed a little bit of light

because we are petrolheads,

but at the end of the day we're here

to make money as a business

and the EVs we just didn't

found quite work for us.

So we're very tentative on the edge

and the only other business is not

confident in putting the money against them.

So that's where we are at the moment

with EVs unfortunately.

Yeah, we've got a couple in stock at the moment.

I've bought a Volkswagen e-Golf in

which I've advertised this week.

I had very good metrics on

WaterTrader, which was the reason

that we dipped our toe in the water with it.

And actually we've had a lot of calls on it.

Actually I think there's somebody coming to see it today.

Can you repeat what Joe sent you yesterday

about it, about the customer who came in?

Yeah, Joe took a phone call.

We had a very, very strong lead on it.

Customer was desperate to buy it.

Had a long conversation.

Said, have you seen the video?

She said, no, I haven't seen the video.

He said, you are aware it's electric.

She went, oh, I thought it was a diesel.

It's not for me.

She hung up the phone.

But I mean, there are some people out there

who want an electric e-Golf.

And we've tried our hand at a few of them.

But I think it's

as a dealer you sort of do need to dip

your toe in the water a little bit.

It's done there and it's not worked.

We've tried it twice.

The first time was the karma

getting there where everything tanked.

So you could almost write that off

because everything dropped.

So we were very tentative from that

to go again from that.

And it was actually, I think it was

an interview guys did with Cap.

And I think this

was probably a year and a half ago now

where the days to turn on EVs

were quicker than ICE engines.

So let's have a go. Let's not be too proud

to at least trial them again.

And we were quite selective

with what we purchased.

I didn't feel that we were too

ridiculous with what we were buying.

There were pretty sensible

mid-price stuff. So we were trying to keep

prices between 12 to 16

which predominantly fits our structure

of the business anyway with where we stopped

most of our cars. We were averaging

about 16,000 pounds on average

I would suggest maybe 14 to 16.

This didn't really work for us

and it's, yeah, there's

can't quite work out why

there's probably conversations

in-house that are we not selling them correctly

or is the market just not there for them

in the location we are? I don't know.

Yeah

it's something everybody needs to try at least once

but you've got to make your own decisions, isn't it?

I think the market's obviously heading that way

and you have to work out whether it is

for you or not.

Tom, you've got a fantastic reputation

for checking out the website before

you joined us.

You've got some brilliant awards

you've run highly rated from Auto

Trader for a number of years. You've picked up

some used car awards from us

and some nominations there.

What's the secret?

How do you make it work?

I think the way that we've always

so when I

I'll cut back a little bit.

When I first started with the business

I knew Tim and Nathan years ago from

I used to manage and

I'll cut this a bit short but I was bowling

over Christmas one year and Tim

was in the R and X to me and he said do you want to come work for us

because I was falling out of love with

I was a milter keen to the time and didn't like the restaurants

and then I had an interview with Tim and Nathan

and I really liked the vision for the business

everything they talked about was

strong business or morals ethos

and it was a very it was like a slow burner

it was a very long journey for them

it wasn't didn't want to make a couple of quick quid

and disappear.

We've always we've always hired

based on people that fit the parameter

of where we want to take the business so

all the highs we've got in the business

they're always junior sales we don't want to bring anyone

that's experienced because we find we can

develop and grow them to meet the same

way that we structure the business

so that's

that's something I think is really key for us

we've worked really hard with the local community

and I think the reason why the last

year or so or couple of years we're having

a lot more financial success we've ever done before

we're getting so much more return business

we've got

a lot of structures in the business in place

that ensure that we

try and retain

customers in like a life cycle post sale

which a lot of people don't do

people might think I hire one or two people that

make a phone call every now and again but

we are soliciting customers from three years

ago but we have touch point setup

with each customer and that just

installs a huge amount of levels

of trust and respect with them so even if

there's a customer two years later on

than purchased that has a fault with the car

they can notify us of that through

this system and we can at least

have the conversation which

some dealers shy away from

I'm happy to know about that because at that point

you might have lost that customer you've got every opportunity

to put it right so I think that's

a large proportion of why I think

we're having success but

I just think it's mindset mentality

we understand how the motor

trade works we understand

the consumers from

their point of view I know a lot of words

screamers get thrown around in the motor trade

which it does and they're obviously very reasonable customers

but we just

don't shy away from anything we just

endeavor to put stuff right even if that means

you've got to bite your tongue and just stomach something

you probably shouldn't have to

because at the end of the day for us it's

a long term gain and goal for us

with the business

and you've moved from

hospitality into automotive

it sounds like

what have you

brought you into this

and what have you learned since you joined

because you find most people

who work in automotive have been in it

all their lives

it was difficult because

the first thing I noticed was

going straight into sales

everything in hospitality was yes

and everything in sales isn't no in a sense

but you have to be a bit more

I wouldn't say confrontational but

sometimes a fully agreeable

personality type doesn't work too well in sales

you have to tread very carefully it's a fine line

between upsetting the customer

and then working and negotiating a deal

but that was a big change for me

where in hospitality everything just felt a bit

yesy and I think sales you have to be a little bit more

you have to just fight

a bit more than you do

but I've always liked cars for me so that was the main draw

for me and like I said I knew Nathan

and Tim

from the restaurant so it was a bit

of a brainer for me to just try and move into something

and yeah that was it

I think just because I was passionate about cars

I like driving cars I like being around cars

so that was a big draw for me

and do you enjoy the job

or do you find it a bit too stressful

it's very stressful

hence

two weeks to myself in the middle of nowhere

but what I like

I think it's a bit tricky but what I like

about the trade

is it's always evolving it's always changing

you're always learning and developing

which I think is really key

so it's something like that where I don't feel

in the motor trade

if you become stagnant that's when problems happen

so you always force yourself

to develop and grow so you create a very nice

mindset along so with the motor trade

and I think you could take that

and implement that in any

business or any structure in any other

sort of workplace

because the motor trade moves so fast

probably more so than many other businesses

so that's what I really enjoy

is just trying to keep up to date

or keep on top of it or be ahead of the curve

and that's what I really enjoy

about the trade I think

I found it very interesting

you telling the story about how you call back

these past customers

there's not many used car dealers that I chat to

who would

mine their databases like a new car dealer

I think

with new car dealers it's a little bit easier

because the chances of the car going wrong

in the first three years

well they know they can bring it back under warranty

whereas with used cars

sometimes you're like

you're quite pleased not to hear from a customer again

because when you do

invariably it's because there's been a problem

that is a real

mentality shift for some dealers

there'll be dealers listening to this who just think

I never want to speak to these customers ever again

but you're clearly making it work and selling cars

as a result

I think so

we've actually

not to put it as a sales pool

we've actually created a zone separate

entity and business

we're reeling out to other dealers at the moment

but when we speak with dealers

they get very like I don't reverse

if you think about the money you've invested

of a business

on average to solicit a new client

or customer it's about 360 quid

so if you've got a thousand

people in your

inquiries just think how much money you've spent

at the moment that you're not using

you've spent the money to earn

that customer why would you not want

why would you want to give them any opportunity

to go elsewhere apart from think to come back to you

so it's very

I get it why some dealers are very nervous

and yes there are

I'm not going to be too proud to say there's times where we've said

look we've had a bad experience with this customer

because it can happen we'll remove them from our list

we know that's the end of the road

it's very minor that happens but

we are quite selective but

on a very rare occasion with someone

you know if you've said to buy a car back

or do something then of course they'll be removed from our system

but on the whole

we want to nurture them because it's

I think even if a customer's had a bad experience

if

you're still nurturing them within

the network in that sense

or if you know you can

like I said you can just try and rectify it

which

means a lot to them and

you'll never know what can happen

or a customer's complained on something on the reeling

on the system

we've invited them back down to site and they've

ended up parking changing and buying another car

like it's

it works quite nicely actually

and I think that's a big part of how we maintain

the reputation we've got reeling

and on that part

exchange question I mean that was going to be my next point

when you're inviting customers back

when you've sold them a car and you have to have

a conversation about what their car is worth

at that point in time

I mean this might be my experience

but I always fear that that customer

is going to be really

put off by that conversation

they're not going to like the fact that they're

they buy it retail and we buy it trade

so as soon as they've disappeared

there's that immediate difference isn't there

and give a year's worth of depreciation

down the line

it's going to be even more painful for them

how do you manage those conversations

and what do the customers think

when you offer them so much less for the car

and what are they looking for

I think so yeah it is very

difficult and sometimes

customers can't quite wrap their heads

around it which is sort of understandable

some people don't really have an in depth

intricate knowledge of how sort of business

works or the motor trade works but

we don't dictate the price of the car

we're given the price of the car

all we can do is be as fair and just

as we can to say look

this is what the book prices for your car

however I understand the circumstance

will endeavor to give you the most amount

of money possible because at the end of the day

that's what your car's worth it doesn't matter

what the circumstance has gone on now

beforehand that's the value of your car

so all we can do is try and help with the value

and that's it we don't dictate the price

we can just be as fair as we can

after sometimes a bit of screaming and shouting

you get to be a conversation in the end

and yeah

and what about your bread and butter cars

what do you always buy

what's the best sellers for you

our best sellers

at the moment are really weird

cars not really weird cars

F types

Mustangs

and

loads of recently

you've been selling these

the last couple of F types

we've sold

they've been in and out within a week

honestly

even the last six or so

the days to turn the F types are crazy

you normally generate products alongside

so you can get a nice

you know you can get a nice shrink on the back of those

and weirdly for a JLR product

touch wood

they've not really gone wrong

so they're a bit of a weird anomaly

within their product range

to throw too much dirt at JLR

with everything going on

but yeah bread and butter stuff

high and die, small I-10s

I know you're quite hot nose as well aren't you James

so little I-10s or 20s we do really well with

love them

obviously anything small automatic petrol

just in and out the door in seconds

we stock loads of minis we do really well with minis

the beauty of minis I can find is

if you're

because sometimes most dealers are pretty

squished on now

with minis you can get a load of extras on them

so if you can work off retail

against other dealers working off cap

cap doesn't really have much of a consideration

against the optional extras

so if you know you've got a really aggressively

you can always normally win the bid against one

bid on cap because you know the retail is far

superior to cap because it might have

8 grand of extras on top or something

and what about the cars you won't buy

what's on the

what's on the banned list

I always love to hear what's on dealers

banned list

well PSA cars now so Peugeot and Citroen

only just because they're just

we do wet bikes we do belts

not wet bikes we do belts on every single one

they just because we just can't run the risk

so and then it's difficult

you can't buy them chipping a

belt because you just wouldn't end up

winning the thing so unless it comes in

part exchange you can have a sensible conversation

but if you're trying to buy it anywhere else

you just don't get the luxury EVs

we don't touch

and then I

tend to not like to

get anything in

Nissan or PowerShift

with those gearboxes but

they say they tend to sneak through occasionally

so where do you get

where do you get your stock from and who's in charge

of that at your site

I think it's a shared responsibility actually

which is a bit weird so

I've got my own sort of buying outlets with

other traders

and other people

Craig who's the operations director

buys out of some other people he knows

with the trade, Tim who's

the owns a business, Tim's been in and out the trade

for multiple years now and around the Bristol area

so he's got an extensive trade network

and we do buy

we've got our own buying sites across the south

west at the moment that we source on

we were buying out of Mannheim in Bristol

but it just wasn't quite

working and the days to turn

were the main reason the profits were right

actually considering it was just the days to turn

by the time we got them back from Bristol

we took them to a Polish shop paint shop

it just slowed everything down so

that was the key for us

so that's where we source at the moment from

and

what do you love about the motor trade

for those people

listening who may be

not in the trade yet

how would you sell it to them

like I said because it's always evolving

it's so different

I do like

I've grown to like

objection handling in a sense

and that's quite a strange thing to say because you're always dealing with objections

everything is an objection in the motor trade

so it's

it's rewired my brain and how I think

and to me that's been invaluable and I think

if you can work for a good

independent dealer that has a good

development and growth plan

you can go quite far

with it and I love the journey

you know that's what I'm most passionate and I love about

the business

from what happened because

I think I mentioned to you the card dealer live

when we won in 2023

used card dealer awards for best customer care

Nathan who was Tim's business partner

passed away the start of the year so it was a very turbulent time

for us

and I think that's when the business just

almost weirdly kicked up a gear

it's very strange it was everyone knuckled down

and I've just I've really enjoyed

that whole journey with it

I'm not saying somebody needs to die for that to happen

but what I mean is it's like the whole

it's been a I just love the journey

of the motor trade so far I think that's been

that's been the most enjoyable thing is just seeing the growth

and the development that you can be

so intricately involved with

within the business

well Tom thank you for joining us

from your holiday it's much appreciated

but there is a lot of stories

to cover this week so we should probably do some of those

John we'll be

right back now John

I'm really enjoying how easy it is to pay

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that does sound pretty good

if you want to find out more dealers can log on

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slash partners slash car

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this is a paid partnership in association

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John guess what

God you bought more ducks haven't you

no ducks John wrong there

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and when I haven't got the time to list

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that sounds awfully familiar

so are you selling all your stock there now

not exactly John

but if I do have a sudden influx

of Kia Picantos

I know where to send them

dealers can find out more

at dealerway.co.uk

now back to the podcast

certainly

so James and I are going to run through our favourite stories of the week

and at the end Tom gets to decide

which one of us chose the best ones

and who's the winner

James you won not last week

because we didn't have a winner last week but the week before

oh dear

so you've got to start say some words now

thank you John

lots of results

have popped up

in the last week which has been a little bit frustrating

for us hasn't it because we've mostly been on the road

I wrote two of the

results stories for the website on the M4

this week so yeah I mean that's the first

for me

but the one I'm going to pick is one that I did

on Saturday actually

because it was a big story

big motoring worlds

profits John

for 2024 were revealed

I say profits there weren't any of those

their

numbers

losses rocketed more than a thousand

percent

from a 1.1 million

pound profit in 2023

to a 10.7

million pound loss

in 2024

now the firm said

a lot of this was due to

well they actually called them

these results transformational

which they are

in a sense aren't they

a bit like how the

Balaclava men transformed the back of the L200

oh

yeah ouch

so yes they called them transformational

they issued a press statement

about the

about the accounts with a number of comments

and normally when you get a press statement

before the accounts have come out

or at roughly the same time

it means that they need to give it some

context

and obviously now we can see why

there's been some massive changes

of that business

obviously Peter Wardell the founder

and majority shareholder

in that business

was ousted last year subject

to a massive court case

in the high court it's still

waiting to be played out that one

and I do

I was sort of thinking about it when I was writing these stories

Peter is probably looking in

on a business that he founded

that somebody else is running

and they're effectively

using a lot of his money

that the business still owes him

£6.5 million

shareholder funds

are

65 odd percent his

yet massively

they chalked up this massive loss

and those numbers are being depreciated

all the time

it must be very difficult for him

to look on

a business that he set up

with somebody else running it

and making these losses

it would be all very well if it was the other way round wouldn't it

but it must be very very

painful to see that

Lawrence Vaughn

he's the CEO of big motoring world

he said they invested

in operational processes

and systems to become more focused on their customers

and they added new sites

to extend their national reach

so during that year they bought

Leeds and Canock from available

car

and decided to consolidate its

Peter Brissites they bought two of those

John you might remember from SW car supermarket

always a little bit weird

that they had two sites in Peter Brissites

so they decided to just close one

and put them into one

so yeah a difficult

year for that business

revenue increased 23%

which was something they wanted to shout about

it was up from £697 million

in 2023 to

£859 million

in 2024

and they opened their ninth and tenth sites

in the year in Sheffield and Norwich

so they were obviously on a bit of a growth spurt

but

you know like I say

it must be very difficult to look on

a business that you started

that is now losing what

effectively is your money

so yeah a difficult set of results

there for big motoring world

one of the worst we've seen this year

yeah and it's

I mean this did catch my eye because

whenever we've talked

difficult financial years about

used car supermarkets

not doing very well because of the way that

used car market has been

big motoring world

has always stood there as this

lone figure almost

doing exceptionally well against

all the turbulence but

so when you see a 1000%

drop in profits

well yeah you kind of stand up and take

notice don't you but

I do think you have to temper it with all the

expansion that they've done

you could argue maybe it was a bit too

rapid this expansion I don't know

because big has always been

southeast

dominant really I think the furthest north

site well furthest north they've been

really as Peterborough to have that prep centre

I think

but it's generally London Kent etc isn't it

which seems to be their heartland

I don't know I don't really know what to make

of these but yes I would imagine

Peter Waddell is watching on

frustrated

and annoyed but then

I would be if I was in his shoes for

other reasons than the profit dip

yeah

the other thing I was just going to say on this

there is an interesting line in this which is the firm

said it also lost revenue after gap insurance

sales were disrupted by the FCA's investigation

into the product which of course

we turn back the calendar remember those times

where it all was a bit questionable

that I can imagine

was an enormous amount of their revenue

gap insurance and value added products just

because of the way that they sold cars

you know it wasn't it wasn't money on the

well lots of dealers operate like this it wasn't

money on the chassis was it for them

so I can see that would have had

a big impact

must be difficult must be hard work

running a big car supermarket

business at the moment

do you look on at these big car

supermarkets jealously or do you

think I'd rather be steering world clear

that sort of size

I think I'd

like to stay clear of it it's so

it's so difficult like you said with

dealers now have to rely

on products in a sense because

obviously everything's gone up so much since

after COVID obviously you're probably running

costs about 30% more but the only thing that

hasn't changed for any dealer is your margin

to work off vehicle so

companies like that have to rely

on the product sales

to prop up the profit in the

metal so when that gets stripped out it makes

such a big difference to

to any dealer but certainly

someone like a big car supermarket that relies heavily

on it

yeah definitely

John move us on please

I could talk about more results

but I'm not going to I'm going to talk about

JLR so we've got a couple of

JLR things floating around this week

so I'm going to if you don't mind James

I'm going to squish two into one and then

you can talk more about results because you love

results don't you

so the first good news

is that JLR has started its

controlled phased restart

has it though has it because

no they said they were going to this week

what this story said on the 30th of September

so I'm assuming that they have

well I just haven't seen any news of them

actually doing it

well okay so

what we have to say is they haven't

just started everything at once it's a phased

restart

and you know I suppose

where do you where do you draw the line

at what is the start of the phased restart

I mean is opening the doors and turning the lights on

a phased restart

but I think their plan is to start

at their Wolverhampton

engine and

electric powertrain production facility

first to get that going electric propulsion

plant is called here which is a lot of

piece

so that'll be the first thing which will start

it says here towards the end of this week which is

now so it could well be up and running

now which would be nice for them wouldn't it

and then I suppose they'll start doing

things after that I partially brought this up

because you reckon James things wouldn't be up

and running until the end of the year

and I just like pointing out when you're wrong

but anyway that's some good news for JLR

haven't made a car yet though John have they

neither of you James to be fair

so that's one part of this

but the other part is we had

we wrote a story about data some data from

motors we suggested that demand

for used JLR models was

dwindling

as a result of the cyber

attack fears being in the news

which you know on the face of it you can kind of understand

you get lots of

I mean I'm not going to say it's negative publicity

the cyber attack is not

particularly positive publicity is it

that you know your production facilities

are growing to a halt because everyone

that I will not I haven't

been quizzing people on JLR cyber attacks

things as I walk down the street

but you know how it is James you're at

some sort of gathering and

people are aware that you're some sort of

motoring journalist type person

they go oh yeah it's a

JLR thing and I'm always surprised when people

actually talk about industry news

who aren't listening to this podcaster

we say are not in this kind of

frame of mind so I think

it has got out there because it's been in BBC news

and so on

I'm rambling but you can see how

it might have some sort

of impact just in terms

of fear mongering or whatever so

motors reckon through their

market insight report

that there's been a steep drop

off in JLR

well people searching

for it on their platform presumably

JLR

weren't very happy about this

story were they James so they say

that they've got data completely

to the contrary so I mean I can

read their statement in fact here we go

where is it they reckon there's no evidence

of a declining consumer confidence

since the cyber attack and

they reckon that Jag well obviously Jaguar

is not really part of this

but they reckon they've had higher demand

in Jaguar stuff because of the low availability

since production ended blah blah blah

I could go on basically they refute

the claims don't they and

they would quite like us to

undo this story which

we're not going to do because the data is there

so we'll see unless motors suddenly come

back and say oh no we

put the percentage point in the wrong place or whatever

I was surprised about this one I mean

we've obviously talked at length about this this

week I mean so I mean you summarised

it well motors came up with data

that they've looked at it that shows that

Jaguar Land Rover interest

has fallen especially

since the and they've coincided

with the cyber attack so

September traffic has dropped

I mean they know what their data looks like motors

because it's their platform

they've also said that

the UK's top 30 car brands

all increased views

apart from Land Rover

so you've got motors on one hand

saying one thing and then

JLR I mean they were frankly fuming weren't they

with the story they demanded that we remove this

story from our website I think one other

publication did remove it

from their website and we went now hang on a

minute just because you don't like the results

of the data doesn't mean you just have it removed

it's like you know it's like

a politician saying I don't like that pole

get rid of it you know it's not

how it works you know data's

data opinion is opinion poles

poles are poles and

I think that we

obviously let them have a right of reply

and their data might say something different

but it doesn't mean that motors data is wrong

it's what motors are seeing so I mean really

we got brought into an argument between motors

and JLR didn't we

which I found quite surprising

I mean we had a number of emails about

this including one at 8pm at night

from JLR so they were clearly pretty

cheesed off about it

and we put their comments in but I think

you know JLR I mean let's

let's face it I mean they've had

a hard time haven't they so I sort of let

them off this one but I was surprised that

they quite how touchy they were

about this story

yeah I didn't really get it either

Tom what did you make of well

JLRs let's say

their production restarting

good news yes or no

I think it

I think it can only be good news

based on obviously

the government that give them was it one and a half billion

sort of grants towards them haven't they now

and just you want to restart

poor people that don't have any jobs

anymore obviously don't have any jobs but

currently in limbo not knowing where

their job sits I think

was it 150,000 total

I think JLR is 30,000

itself but with supply change it's up to

150,000 people are affected by it

it's an astronomical amount of people

that are influenced by this so I just

really hope they can get it running

as soon as possible

yes and of course we saw some

horrible headlines about what will happen to all the supplies

as you say it's not just JLR is it

it's all the supply

network right

James take us away from controversial stories

please

I will try John I will try

from

mostly controversial now you

put me on the spot there John

but I'm going to go with

news that

can I go with another result story

because I've started with big motoring world

which is a car supermarket

that made a loss last year and I just

want to focus on another car supermarket

a single site one

car giant which chalked up

a massive pre-tax

profit for 2024 John can you guess

what it was were you paying attention

as I was writing this story and talking to you about it

in the car you weren't talking

to me in the car honestly I just had smooth chill

for company

furiously typing away

well I'm going to guess James is it

121.2 million pounds by chance

wow that was a very accurate guess John

it's like you're looking at our website

yes it was

121.2 million pounds

which sounds a huge amount

of money because it is but

you have to sort of you have to delve

into the detail with car giant

now car giant is based in west

London very near

I think John you know this area

a little bit better than me very near is it

HS2 a massive hub for HS2

it's what is going to be the HS2

the only HS2 station

until they bother to connect it to

Euston or wherever they're going

and I'm pretty sure car giant owns that

land so yeah and I think probably

when they bought it in whenever car giant

was up 1998 90 90s or whatever

it was in not a

particularly nice bit of west London

and now it's all getting a lot of

regeneration money so of course

every square inch of land that they have there

is worth a lot more than it was in the 90s

yeah so this it meant

that their property portfolio jumped in

value during the year by 98.8

million pounds in one year

it jumped 98 million

one year yes yeah I mean that's

not bad is it yeah

so yeah they're in

they're definitely not in negative equity

they are in a very good place

but then if you delve

slightly deeper into the account

and look past the pre-tax profit numbers

they did

actually see

a bit of a drop so

the in terms

of the numbers they actually genuinely bought

in turnover for the group dropped

from 352 million

from 491

million the year before so that

they sell a lot of cars this business

and that's obviously a lot less

cars have been sold in

2024 so when you strip out

that property revaluation

the company said it's underlying profit before

tax showed it made

22.4 million in 24

down from 28 million the year

before I mean that's not to be sniffed

out is it 22 million

pounds from one site

is an incredible is an incredible

amount of money they sold

25,900 used cars

during the year

which which fell

from the year before by 8,000

units so that is obviously where those numbers

are numbers are changing but still

I just think it's an amazing business have you ever been to car

joint job you ever look amazing I

haven't I've been on the Elizabeth line and driven past

it driven past it trained past it

but no never been

my brother bought a car from there and he just said that

like the process was just

unbelievable you know huge numbers of people

went on Saturday with my dad huge

numbers of people turning up you know he

basically sat in a queue it's

it was like he said it's

yeah it was a bit like Costco felt a little

bit like a kind of you know airport terminal

huge amounts of people you have to wait

your turn to be seen I mean incredible

business and

shows that there is actually

life left in this large format

used car business big motor

world on the other hand is obviously

lost this money but shows you here

the site in London one single site

incredibly well run has been for years

still turning a massive

profit James if you were sitting on

property that was worth 98

0.8 million pounds more than

it was last year yes I would

yes I would

move to you know move out

yeah well I wouldn't I wouldn't be sitting on

property I would be sitting on a really

really big boat

that's why we did

that's why we did but clearly

they know they know much better than

I did but yeah an incredible incredible

set of results and I just think

when you compare them to those other ones we talked about

a moment ago even more even more

stastling what do you think

Tom have you ever been to car giant

no do you know

I've never I've never stepped

foot in a car supermarket

no I mean they have different places

yeah

what do you think of these results

that's just phenomenal numbers obviously that's just

that is just crazy

numbers again so fair play to them

well it gives you something to aim for doesn't it

gives you something to aim for

John move us on

if the land values in Swindon rocket

your quid's in

I'm going to jump to

a slightly nicer story

which I must admit I'm reading for the first time

as I read it out to you but it's

used Van dealer as Mark 20 years

in business by taking

staff on holiday and I don't just mention this

James because I don't know

I think I've dropped something

2028 I think it'll

be is 20 years of

blackboard media company

runs car dealer just throwing that out there

and if I think if you were to book now

Barbados would be affordable

but anyway this is not about us

and James on taking us on holiday except

to mirtha this is about JL

Vans who are very kindly

as I say given their staff

a nice holiday

they're a very successful van dealer

we've recognized them in used car awards

before but I thought I was just

really nice wasn't it

very nice thing to do and perhaps it shows

how much money is in used vans

but I mean

yeah I don't know if your

profits from cover car are quite enough to

take your two staff

John you're breaking up a little bit

sorry my internet's

not working quite well

okay alright so you're not going to comment on this then

Tommy planning on taking

your staff away as a

reward for the good work

not away we obviously

we try and give a little bit back to the staff

as much as we can so we normally take

all of them to one of

the award ceremony so I'm aiming

depending on how our

guests went on Monday to take

everyone to these car dealer awards so

we try and do that just to give them a nice

evening out in London so they can dress up so

yeah I mean there'd always be a conversation

even maybe 10 years or 20

years in Swindon to reward

all the staff that have put the

graft in of course but it's a lovely thing

for that company to do it's a

great thing for the staff

yeah fair play to them

fair play to them

I don't know what you were talking about

so yeah anyway right I'm going to move on

I would like to pick a

story about the most unreliable used cars

John this is

a survey that what cars done

and it's the one that we pay a lot of attention

to because they ask 30

thousand drivers every year

about their cars

that they own and what problems they've had

with them and how much the repairs have cost

and they what they do is they

draw up this huge survey

rating cars with a percentage

so they turn all of that data

into a reliability rating

I really like as well I'm just going to throw this out

that we've used a picture of what appears to be

a Peugeot and Citroen service centre

to talk about this

if I'm honest it's the only one I could find

at seven o'clock in the morning while I was in a

travel lodge hotel so yeah

sorry about that

yes but interesting interesting

data from them it shows the Nissan Duke

was top of the pile

Nissan Dukes made from 2019

onwards I say top of the pile

it was the least reliable car

some 24% of owners

say what car

experienced a fault and 60%

of those faults had cost them more than

1500 pounds to repair

ouch

interestingly the latest

generation model Volkswagen

T-Gran was the second most

unreliable car and the Kia Sportage

made between 2016

and 2021 was

third worst I was quite

surprised at these cars and I was actually surprised

at the top three completely

I thought there's quite unusual

cars I certainly haven't

experienced it with T-Gran

and Sportage is that I must

say that was James you haven't bought

anything made I don't know

after about 2010

yes moving on

moving on the most reliable

cars John though was also

incredibly interesting there's a joint

top

I just

fell down to reveal what it was

that's what you're saying

the joint top

number one John Hyundai

i10

what a car

maybe we should have had one of those a road test of the year

Hyundai i10

Hyundai Santa Fe the Kia EV3

and the Toyota

Giaris what a car

with a joint top number one

so four cars in the first place

for the most reliable cars all scoring

100% in the survey

then it was a Toyota Igo X

understand that

and then the Vauxhall Groundland Petrol

so in

2024 to present

a Toyota Mini Volkswagen

and a Porsche McCann

an interesting survey you can find the full results

on our website

but I always think it's very interesting to see

what owners think of their cars

kind of steer us

when it comes to what we're going to buy next

I don't want to say these

survey results are nonsense

because I won't go that far and also because I'll have to see

someone from what car

on an event probably in about two weeks time

and I don't want them to punch me in the face

but when you look at these

there's some sort of I don't know

I think you have to take them with a pinch of salt don't you

so this is Reader's writing in

to say

oh it's been awful this has gone wrong

and so on and Reader's saying

oh no I love my I-10 it's been fantastic

da da da da da da

so you're all right

this is probably the closest you're going to get to a proper

reliability survey of every

used car in the whole world

aren't you but I don't know

why is a Volkswagen T-Rock 99%

reliable and a Tiguan

which is sort of the same car

in a way 64.2%

like that's the same

with the Duke I don't know

all right we'll each say

Nissan maybe has some

slightly more problematic

powertrains or whatever like any manufacturer does

but I don't think a petrol Duke can be that bad

surely can it

very strange I will

I don't know I noticed

the appearance of the Mazda CX-60

as well at number four James

that particular 4x4

that I had as long term for quite some time

is that the one yeah

that's the one that you said always sounded broken from

you and

creeps every time I drove it into my driveway

yeah I mean

I'm surprised the CX-5

isn't on the list there

but maybe it's a little bit too old

possibly

an interesting survey though

I always find that fascinating

what did you think Tom

are any of those cars

a surprise to you

yeah I'll be honest but I was reading

the list yesterday actually or late last night

so there were a couple of surprises

you bang on

what John said between the Tigran and the T-Rot

because on the Tigran a lot of the complaints

or spends were to do with the infotainment system

but I would assume that was

shared unless I've

completely off on that one

but I know with Tigrans apart from a leaky sunroof

they're normally pretty good

we've had issues with sunroofs before

but yeah and most reliable

for a Grand Land petrol

so it's 23-24 to present

but the previous ones to those

I know we've had a lot of problems within the business before

but I turn

I'm not surprised to see it out there

like I said they're normally bulletproof

those cars

yeah good cars though

unless I bought them

and have to basically sell them a scrap

because they're not very good

anyway

whose car is it mine

can I speak to one more in that was yours

I'm just going to

I don't know if I can cause a story or not

but anyway there's been

our story says electric cars approach

universal tipping point

as government urged to cut VAT

on roadside charging and this obviously

we've had lots of please

can you please get rid of that

or reduce it to 5% on roadside

EV charging because it's

completely imbalanced with

home electricity prices which are

I don't know

almost 10% of the price of what you'd pay

to plug it in a rapid charger

but this has come from an EV

marathon drive

which the team at Honest John if you remember

Honest John James

I do yes

Honest John well they've taken it upon themselves

to drive a 2024

MG4 extended range on a 1285

mile drive

from Cambridgeshire to the Scottish Highlands

I mean I'd rather poke myself in the eye

I think than do that

using only roadside chargers and

compare the cost with the same

journey in a Mercedes

E-Class diesel

which averaged 48.8 miles

per gallon if you're still with me

please listen

so the cost

in total for this 1200

mile drive the MG

cost 200 pounds to charge

and the Mercedes cost 172

pounds to charge and of course

the Mercedes probably could have done that in

I don't know two tanks of fuel so you wouldn't

have to stop a million times

but this is kind of what I've been banging on

about every time I have to plug my car into

a rapid charger which is that

if you actually do the maths of it

it works out at about like the equivalent

of about 35 miles per gallon

if you're going to drive really carefully in your EV

and

it's just such a punishment

to be charged that much

when you're trying to well I'm not trying

to be green to be completely honest with you

when you are supposed to be doing the thing

that's for the future that everyone's

going to have to do to be

hitting in the mouth with the

price of rapid charging

while you're out and about is really

annoying

I think that was a story about EV charging

yes it was

I drifted off into looking in my

emails

okay

maybe Tom's got something better

I won't ask James alright Tom I mean

have you driven an EV much? Are you frustrated by the

I mean

I could

probably learn about EVs all day long

the one thing I think that people are overlooking

which no one's really had an answer for

is the government

they reckon it's 24 billion they make of fuel tax

the duty on fuel tax

so if we went EV overnight where is that

money coming from so the

only way they can do that is just to keep increasing

prices of electricity

and just offset from there so

I think that's only going to get worse

personally for me so

yeah it's a difficult one

I'm not going to send James to sleep again

but the problem that we have is

your home charging

has a maximum price

set by off-watt or whoever it is

and I don't think business electricity

has the same cap

as you guys will be aware I'm sure

powering your businesses so I think

it's the

electricity companies making lots of money to

get rid of this and then

you know you see sometimes those

little charts that show where the money

from your tank of petrol goes

and like the fuel retailer from each litre gets

2p of the 148

or whatever and the tax man gets this amount

I think it's

with electricity from charge points

I think the charge point operator gets a reasonable sum

because they're using that money

to offset the cost of installing this

very expensive rapid charger

but I think a lot of it goes to

electricity supplier because there's no

no max amount set on it

and I mean

why can't you for example have

off-peak rates for EV charging

when you're out and about because

lots of people are going to want it like we did in Wales James

we plugged them in overnight

yeah that went well doesn't it?

it did it was great yeah

one of them just didn't talk to the charger

decided he didn't want to do it

yeah I had a nice evening

doing that before the battle club with men arrived

yeah I don't know I just think that would be

if you could carry some of those things over as well

because the grid is empty

you know after about midnight pretty much

so just use that

time to offset

and give people slightly cheaper charging

and then you wouldn't have these moans

I've said my piece now

James are you done?

I'm done yeah I've got nothing to add to that

okay I'll go

and make you a coffee

lovely so

before I asked your verdict are there any stories

you think we should have talked about this week

but we haven't

no the only one that I had

were the most

and least reliable cars which James went over

so that was the only thing that I was

going to bring up if it wasn't mentioned

excellent okay so I'm going to have to ask you

who chose the best stories

or what was your favourite story

I'd love the

I think it might be you John with the

use van dealership

that's taken over on holiday

I just think that's such a brilliant thing to do

it's a bit of good news and a lot of bad news isn't it really

I think so

we can take something out of that and credit to them

I think so do you think so James

that's a nice thing to do

oh sorry were you talking to me

well done John well done

thank you thank you very much

well all that's left for me to say

as I wave the holiday brochures

under James's nose is thank you

to Tom for joining us today from all the way

in Spain it's lovely to have you

on and we'll let you actually get back to your holiday

now

yeah nice to see you Tom thanks for joining us

I appreciate it

and thank you as well to James

for agreeing to take me to Barbados

and thank you for listening

we'll be back next week with another episode

so make sure you're subscribed

and that goes live James has bravely

put his whatsapp number

in the thing below so you can call him at

any time of day or night

I mean maybe don't call maybe just send a whatsapp

I probably won't answer the calls

you've not thought this through have you

I haven't no

ok if you want to check out the stories

you mentioned today take a look in the show notes below

or head to CardiMagazine.co.uk

thanks for listening and goodbye

Big Motoring World and Cargiant results, JLR begins phased restart, and the 'most unreliable cars' revealed – with Tom Ellis, episode 225

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