Big Motoring World vs Trustpilot, employee car ownership scheme under spotlight, and IMDA calls out service history GDPR excuses – with Nigel McMinn, episode 220

Jon, have I told you I'm addicted to Carwell's auctions?

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Well, that's more than you will ever need.

Exactly, Jon. So, dealers, if you're not on Carwell, you really should get in on the auction.

See what I've done, Jon.

Oh, God.

Anyway, to find out more, sign up for free at carwell.co.uk slash partners slash auctions.

Welcome back to the Car Dealer Podcast, where we pick our favourite stories of the week and

ask an industry guest to choose which were the best. I'm Jon Ray, and joining me this

week from his dealership, in fact, is James Baggott.

James, why are you sat in front of a very leggy diesel Toyota Auris?

What leggy, Jon? It's average mileage for the year, I think you'll find, 100,000 miles.

And this is a little bit weird. I'm at work and you're in my house.

How did this happen?

I'm not actually going to let you back in again.

Oh, dear. Yeah. Now, I've had to rush down to the dealership this morning because

I had a notification from DHL that this parcel, which is in my hand for those people

who have watched on YouTube, was arriving from Japan. That is the ECU for the broken

Suzuki Jimny that we imported that has arrived on special delivery, ready to be bussed up

to Robin Luscombe of Luscombe's Leeds next week with the Suzuki Jimny in the hope

that we will fix it. When I spoke to Robin Luscombe this week, he gave me in his

typical Yorkshire fashion the words, if this works, I will bear my bear arse to Leeds City

Centre, is what he said. So I don't actually have much hope. This is going to fix the

problem. That's not what you want to hear, is it? From the dealer that is going to be the

easiest salvation for the problem. But yeah, for those people who don't know what I'm

talking about, basically we imported the Suzuki Jimny. A man broke the clocks as

he tried to break the clocks as he tried to get the odometer into miles from kilometres.

It now doesn't have a working speedo. We've tried three sets of clocks and everybody

speaks who says the ECU is fried. So I spent £1,000 on this one on special delivery

from Japan and I don't know how much with Robin Luscombe next week to fix the problem.

But this is a car I sold eight weeks ago and I've got a screaming customer who's

desperate to have their new car. So we're trying to do everything we possibly can to

get it sorted. But John, I have news for you. Do you? Yes, guess what I did this week?

Bought some cars. I did buy some cars, yes. I actually bought eight... Was that news?

No, but the news is what the cars are. I bought eight more imports. Oh, yes, you did.

Yeah, but you bought them from a strange and far away land, didn't you? Yes, I did.

Not Japan, John. Norwich.

Equally, you did need to fly there.

Probably would have been faster. Yeah, a lot faster than driving there. But yes, I spoke to a dealer

who specialises in imports. He had 300 of them on his forecourt. While I was there, five

containers turned up from Japan and he was busy unloading them all. And he basically

said, what do you want? He said, go and have a look around the forecourt, pick which ones you

want, and then we'll see if we can have a deal. So Joe and I had a little walk around, picked

some Volkswagen Ups, Volvo, a couple more Suzuki Jimneys, had a sit down in his office.

He told us the number, which, funnily enough, was exactly the same as the number that we

wanted to pay. So we shook his hand, paid him the money and they turned up on

Wednesday. But the good news, John, with all of these is they're all done. All of the

paperwork is done. No more headaches with the DVLA. They're ready to retail. And they're

going to have, they're all going to have better margin in than anything that I've

bought in the UK before. So you've presented that as a very exciting and new

development. But what you basically just told everyone is that you were rubbish at

dealing with imports yourself, and you've just paid someone else to do, take all

the profit out of them for you. And then you can sell the people. So

that's a shame. That's a shame. But yeah, you're right. That's exactly what's

happened. And also by negotiation skills, when he, when we sat down around the

table, you know, hard nose, motor trade discussion, and he put his number

forward, what I should have done is gone back with a number far lower, and

then we should have met somewhere in the middle. But instead I just went,

yes, thanks very much. And the look of surprise on his face when I agreed

to the first number that came out of his head was, yeah, shows that I'm not

very good at business.

Okay, well, shall I introduce our guest who has far more experience and is

much better at business than you, James. Sorry to say that. Well, joining us

this week is Nigel McMinn, former COO of Lookers, of course, and now

managing director of Pibus Recruitment. Nigel, thanks for joining us.

Hi, guys. Nice to see you.

Nice to see you. Did any of that sound familiar? Nigel?

No, thankfully, none of that sounded familiar to me, James, but I mean,

I'm in awe of you. Talk about sleeves rolled up leading from the

front.

Trying to give it a go. It's, yeah, it's been a lot of fun and games.

But anyway, enough of that. Nigel, you know, there's no such thing as

a free lunch here at the Cardi the podcast. I'm going to ask you

some, ask you some questions before even lunch, actually.

But yeah, I mean, let's start. I mean, you've been in this industry for

quite some time, and it's just for those people that are hearing about

this for the first time, let's have a little bit of a rundown on your

career.

Oh, blimey, that's 30 years, James.

Let's do the shortened version.

Yes. Well, technically 29 years. I started on the 96 on a T-plate

selling Nissan Micros at Reg Vardy Nissan in Sundland.

So yes, I worked for Reg Vardy for 11 years.

Joined as a financial analyst, actually, I'm an accountant by

training. I've tried to hide that all my career, because it's so

irrelevant when you you're on the sort of sales side of the

business. But yeah, the first commercial role was general

manager of Sundland Nissan. 11 really happy years at Reg Vardy

saw Sir Peter actually this earlier this week, still looking

really well. And, you know, they were great, great days at

Reg Vardy. And it was a brilliant company. And he was a

brilliant leader. And so yeah, I always say, without causing

any offense to anyone, that I joined Reg Vardy, and I never

left Reg Vardy. I left Pendragon. They bought the business

in 2006. And it was just culturally very different. You

know, it was an enormous organization, they were

grappling to sort of integrate that and Bram or before it. And

so I decided to move on and went to a family business based

in Newcastle owned by the Squires family. They're still

great friends of mine, and became managing director for them,

seven very happy years there. And then my one of my oldest

friends, Andy Bruce, tapped me on the shoulder of Volkswagen

meeting and said, you know, time to come and join the big

boys. And I said, no, no, thanks. I'm happy where I am. But

he persuaded me to go and join Lookers. And, you know, I

had I had a very good time, enjoyed Lookers. I thought

we made a big difference to it. You know, and then obviously

we had a couple of profit warnings in an FCA investigation,

you know, which was, which was pretty distracting. And so, you

know, that my time and Andy's time came to an end there. And

and then I spent four years up in Glasgow trying to do a

management buyout with Andy of a fleet business, a fleet

and leasing business up there, which for various reasons

didn't happen. And so I've now done what many people do, which

is fall into recruitment. I don't think anyone leaves school

and says, I'm going to be a recruiter. But but it suits

somebody who has worked in either, you know, one role or

one industry, all their life, because, you know, with a bit

of gray hair and having worked at a lot of different places

with a lot of great people, you know, you end up with

quite a nice black book of talent. And of course, in

recruitment, you know, it's not rocket science, you know, it's

just finding good people, good companies that, you know, there's

a sort of cultural fit. And so I'm only six weeks in, but I

have to say that it's thoroughly enjoyable because,

you know, I've gone from a sort of quiet life of walking

the dog and maybe one phone call a day to to like 25

phone calls a day, most of which are sort of reconnecting

with people that I've known from the past. So it's a very good

sort of social job, if that's the sort of thing you like. So

so hopefully that's a very quick rundown of 30 years.

I mean, I can see why this new business is a great fit for

you. And I'll come on to that. But I just, you know,

want to touch on a couple of things that you mentioned

there. I mean, the looker's thing must have been

incredibly stressful when that came out. It was just before

COVID as well, wasn't it? It was the end of 2019. And it was

all sort of kicking off during COVID. I mean, personally, that

must have been very, very hard.

It was James. Yeah. Because until that point, I'd had a kind

of easy, unblemished career. I'd never really been for an

interview. I'd never asked for a promotion. And things

had just kind of happened. And results had always generally

come. I mean, we all have our tough periods. But long before

the FCA investigation, you'll remember that around that time,

the new car market was going backwards at about three or

four percent. And so from a peak, it was just losing pace. And

it was becoming very difficult to sort of make up the short

falling profits from used car and after sales. So the

trading environment was challenging. Costs were

escalating already, you know, back then, before we hit the big

period of inflation. So I think I was under more pressure. And I

was probably suffering from stress. I think we're all

encouraged to talk about it more openly now. Long before any of

the kind of really tasty stuff happened. But the FCA

investigation was very stressful. And it was very

distracting. You know, we were asked to put in place the same

standards as a bank. And the reality is that I don't think

any motor group in the country, no matter how compliant and how

well regulated and how well resourced in that area, I don't

think any motor group in the country would have passed the

test of being at a banking standard. And, you know, it was

made abundantly clear to us, we expect you to operate like a

financial services company that happens to sell cars. And the

reality is I think that the whole industry, maybe even still to

some extent today, considers themselves as car retailers

first, that also use financial products to facilitate the sale

of a car. But that's not the way the regulator sees it. And so

we have to put a lot of resource in. It was very

distracting and very stressful. And of course, we were trying

to keep the ship sailing forward in a tough trading

environment. And, you know, I accept that if you have two

profit warnings in a year in a public company, then somebody's

gonna have to pay the price, James. But you know, it led to a

year of extreme stress following the departure. You know,

because obviously, there was a kind of chain of events

that, you know, unfolded. And whilst it all resolved

itself, you're absolutely right. In the middle of that, you

know, it was a very, very difficult period.

Because you kept on getting dragged into it, didn't you? I

mean, I remember when we were writing all of these stories

back in the time, back in that period, there was, I mean,

Lookers was on the news agenda near enough every day for a

long, long period of time. And you and Andy couldn't say

anything, could you? I mean, you see, you were having to

watch on all of these, all of these headlines and on our

publication and many more without being able to have

your say. Yeah. Well, and of course, we were in a legal

process. So you couldn't, even if you'd asked me to say

anything, I couldn't have said anything. And we often found

out what was going on at Lookers by reading the news

headlines in your, your publication. You know, quite

often, that was the only way we were finding out what was

going on. And so although it all resolved itself, yeah, it

was an incredibly difficult period. But I think that can

either make you or break you. And whilst it did feel at times

as if it was going to break us, because it's a terribly

distressing sort of period when you can't get the

microphone back and say, look, we haven't actually done any

of this stuff. There's, you know, there really isn't

anything wrong. And it will all resolve itself. And of

course, some people want to believe it, James. Yeah. You

know, and maybe, maybe you deserve, I reflect back and

think maybe I deserve some of that, maybe, you know, there's

a certain degree of kind of arrogance or overconfidence or

I don't know, you know, maybe you get a bit carried away

with your own hype. Sometimes when you live in a sort of

bubble at the top of one of these companies. But I have

to say, I've come out of it, feeling much more grounded,

much more humble, much more sort of connected to the

things in life that really matter. Because in truth, for

probably 20 years, I'd hardly seen my family. I'd largely

disconnected from friends because work calls always took

priority. And, and actually, you know, I probably didn't keep

myself in good shape, probably drank too much. It's a social

sort of industry. It's easy to fall into that trap. I

suspect there'd be lots of people in senior positions who

will recognize that. So, you know, I was in four different

hotels and four different nights a week. And to me, a hotel

was a bar with rooms. You know, so part of the way I coped

with the stress was probably go another, you know, a beer or a

glass of wine.

Yeah, I'm sure that's all too familiar with many people

listening to this Nigel. And I suppose this sort of that

what you've said there answers a question I was going to

say about, have you ever wanted to go back and do it

again? But it sounds like it was kind of it was a bit of

an end for you in the motor retail world. I mean, when that

lookers deal came about with with Canadian with the

Canadians buying into it. Was there was a party you that

thought maybe I could get some back in and buy it myself?

No, definitely not. Yeah, I mean, I should just complete

what happened really because because I realized I needed

to get sort of fit for purpose in that year following

the departure from lookers. I stopped drinking all

together. I lost a lot of weight. And I started running

and then cycling and getting a lot of fitter. And as I say,

reevaluated reevaluated my priorities in life. And I

realized actually, I was a much happier person at that

kind of healthy grounded level. And what it made me

realize to answer your question, James, is that I was

under a much greater degree of pressure than than I had

ever even acknowledged to myself. So albeit, you know,

I was really tempted to get back into it at many times

over the last few years. Part of me realizes I don't

want to go back into that kind of relentless seven day a

week, 14, 15 hour a day. I mean, just never stops

does it? It's the nature of retail. And I largely

loved it for the best part of that 30 years. But you

need to, if you're going back into it, you need to

know you're going back into the lion's den. And there's no

way you can switch it off. The emails and the reports

and the, you know, the people, it's an intense thing.

But I suppose the other thing is in truth, you

become yesterday's man really quickly. And I can see it

in recruitment now, James, that if somebody's been

out of the firing line for a year or two, it becomes

much harder to get them back into this position that

they were in. Companies will will always favor somebody

who's right in it now. So even if if I had wanted to, you

know, I'm not so sure that that could have done the

motor trade, though, is incredibly addictive, isn't

it? I mean, I can see that just selling, you know,

terrible tighter ours is like the one behind me. You

know, I can see like why people do it. There's a

high of buying something, preparing it, selling it

for a bit more money, turning the money. It's in some

ways, it is a little bit like gambling, isn't it?

Because you are you're gambling on whether that car

you're buying is going to sell. So I can see why

it is so so addictive. What would you say to

people out there listening to your story who might

relate to it might be in similar situations? What

would what would you say to them?

Firstly, I would say, you know, be honest with

yourself. You know, if you if you are finding that

you are on a treadmill and it's not making you

happy, or you're really suffering with it, or

you're just struggling with the particular role

that you're in. You know, I would say just do

something about it because, you know, I know

it's a cliche, but we're only here once. And

there are other alternatives. I think sometimes

when when you're in something a long time, you

think it's the only thing you can do. When when

in reality, you know, the industry is a broad

church. And there are lots of great companies who

are suppliers to the industry, or their finance

or leasing companies, or their remarketing

businesses or digital businesses, who value

people who've been at that cold face and

played that game. You know, how many can I sell

and what's the score on the profit sheets?

You know, it is like it is like a sport, but

they value that kind of hard experience at

the cold face. And so there are lots of other

things that can be done in the industry that

might give you a better balance if if that's

part of the problem. So I think acknowledging

yourself first and not sort of bottling it

and, you know, trying to sort of hide it

away is the first step towards a kind of

healthier, happier life. But I think most of

us just sort of brush it under the carpet

and say, I'll be fine. Yeah, just get on

with it. Yeah. So the the new business

that you've got involved with, talk me

through that. How did that come about

and what's it all about? Well, when Andy

and I went from Lookers, one of the

franchise directors for the Ford Division

was a long term colleague of mine, Colin

Pibus. And he left within about a year of

us going and he set up a he went into

recruitment himself. And I think the

intention was that he he would just

leverage his contact book. And he would

help place some of the good people

that he knew into to other companies.

But it grew much quicker than he

expected. And over the course of the

last sort of four or five years, he's

built a really nice business. And I

think he recognized that there there is

a gap in our industry for automotive

people with our automotive background,

doing automotive recruitment. They

used to be one or two companies that

were, you know, quite well known in the

industry for for doing that sort of

thing. But for one reason or another,

they seem to have kind of disappeared

into obscurity. And there are some

perfectly good generic recruiters. But

then they're not staffed or run or led by

people with our sort of automotive

background. And so he's built a nice

business. And when I found myself this

year thinking, maybe it's time just to

sort of hang up my boots, you know,

I'm 57 this year, my dad retired at

57. You know, I really don't want to

go back into that relentless job. So

what will I do? Colin rang me and he

said, I'm look, I'm selling this

business. I want to go traveling.

Your name has come up as somebody

who might run it for the private

equity company that backs the bigger

agency that he was selling to. He

said, Would you be interested? And I

said, No, not at all. I said, Oh,

right. He said, You wouldn't be

interested. You know, you've got a

lot of contacts. You know, you could

add value. You know, a lot of the

customers too. I said, No, no, I'd be

interested in in doing the job. I think

it sounds quite exciting, but I

wouldn't be interested in working for

a private equity company, essentially.

So but maybe you and I could do a deal.

And so I went and met him, discussed

how he'd structured the deal and I

matched the offer and bingo. Here I

am. Incredible. I mean, taking on

going from from what you were doing

before to taking on a whole new

business. I mean, you're effectively

starting again on you. I mean, do you

get the same, do you get the same

buzz? Do you enjoy it as much?

Do you know, honestly, I can tell you,

James, I get more of a buzz out of

this than I have for years and

years. I mean, I always really

thoroughly enjoyed. I used to say

to Mark Squires, stupidly, you know,

I enjoy this job so much, I'd do it

for free. And I did. I thoroughly

enjoyed the, you know, running these

car dealerships. But it did get

harder and harder. And this gives me

all the social connection. It gives

me all the influence over people's

careers. I get to work with motor

groups all over the country. And I

have to say, many of the people

owning or running these motor groups

have been friends over the years

for 30 years. So I love dealing

with both the customers and the

candidates. And it feels so kind of

obvious and straightforward for me

to do it. But I don't have to pay

their wages. And I don't have to

look at the spreadsheets every

night. And I don't have to worry

about whether the stock is going

overage, or whether we're, you

know, we're making margin out of

the recovery rate and things

that, you know, it doesn't

come with all the stress of

that. But I get the not the

good bit. And the people bit of

the job, James, was always the

bit that I enjoyed best. Building

teams was always the bit that I

enjoyed the best.

What about the, so where are the

challenges in the recruitment

market at the moment? And we've

heard anecdotally that there's a

lot of problems with finding

good technicians as an example.

What do you see now you're on

the ground?

Yeah, I mean, we, well, we

recruit mostly for after sales.

I mean, we do all the roles in

the dealerships and a lot of

the senior roles above general

manager, more on a kind of

anonymous confidential basis.

But the bread and butter is

is technicians. And you're

absolutely right. The real

pressure points seem to be

around technicians, particularly

level three qualified techs

and body shops, the pay rates

for painters and panel beaters

particularly, I was quite taken

aback when I when I've seen

firsthand now, what the sort of

market rate is for these

qualified skilled guys.

You know, they're earning more

than newly qualified

accountants and lawyers and

doctors. You know, these are

what sort of numbers are we

talking? 55 grand basics, 75

OTA. Wow.

That that's a very common sort

of pay rate for for a skilled

painter or panel beater now.

And what about in the other

areas of the businesses?

Are there any challenges there?

I mean, is it is it very

competitive finding finding

good people? I mean, are they

in really high demand?

And yes, sort of name their

price? Yes, it's interesting.

I mean, it appears that, you

know, the CIPD, the sort of

HR Institute and many other

organisation have done studies

on this. But I can tell you

anecdotally, this is how it

feels that about 30 percent

of people in in jobs are

actively looking. And so they've

registered their CV proactively

with someone like us or, you

know, on CV library, one of

these sort of big resources,

and they're applying for jobs

and they're looking out for

ads. But 70 percent of people

are are passive. They just go

to their work. They've never

thought about leaving,

possibly a bit institutionalised.

You know, they're just

happy tipping up to work and

it's not on their radar.

The value that a company like

us adds is that through a

network of contacts, general

managers, service managers,

workshop controllers, through to

the techs, is that we can

chat up the 70 percent of

people that aren't looking.

And if you're only

recruiting from the 30 percent,

they tend to be the ones

that don't stay very long

and they're off to the next

job within a couple of years

and they're the kind of, you

know, revolving door.

The real job, if you want to

slow stuff turned down

and you want to build stable

teams, you've got to recruit

the sort of people that aren't

looking. Yeah. And generally,

that's quite difficult to do.

It takes a lot of time and

effort and, you know, a decent

network of contacts.

And more generally, you're

talking to lots of dealers.

You mentioned during our chat

you're making lots of phone

calls now. What are you hearing

from dealers out there?

I mean, obviously, when you're

chatting to them, what are they

what are they most concerned

about?

Far and away, the biggest concern

is the, you know, is the push

towards electrification

without necessarily being the

kind of underlying retail

demand to support it.

And so, you know, all the

kind of obvious things that you

report on regularly,

but the pressure that that then

flows through the business

because, you know,

traditionally, there are lots of

release valves to help

hit that target on there.

And we all know what they are.

You know, it might be pre

registration, the obvious one.

It might be putting them on

rental or lease fleets.

But what I'm hearing is, you

know, those release valves

feel very risky

to dealer groups because

you're effectively then buying

that asset one way or another

you're holding it for a while

and, you know, what's it really

worth? And do you really

want, you know, your rental

or lease fleets or your

preregistered stock to be so

heavily geared towards

something where there isn't

this underlying demand?

And what I'm hearing is, you

know, if the target for the

Zevmanda is 28 percent,

you know, the underlying

retail demands probably half

that. And so you've got to

find ways of hitting

that target. And I think

the pressure it seems to be

causing right the way through

the business, flowing into

used cars is the biggest

distraction.

If you were running a dealer

right now, what would you be

focusing your time and effort

on?

Well, I already was in this

space. You have to focus it

on on building overhead

absorption through after sales.

I think most companies think

that it's that it's all about

hitting the new car target

when the reality is if you can

make the underlying profits

from the used car department

on top of a fully

absorbed overhead.

I mean, I know that's tough, by

the way, I'm not underplaying

how tricky that is.

But if you can have very high

absorption of your overheads

from after sales, make

your profits from after sale

from used cars.

Well, then, you know, the new

car thing can be challenging,

but you've got a healthy

underlying business model.

And but of course, the costs

are tricky. That's the other

whole area that everybody's

saying is that, you know, that

national insurance rise, you

know, has caused a big

ripple effect because we're

still a very labor intensive

business. Thankfully, you know,

there's still a lot of human

beings needed in these businesses

and that's a lot of wages and

it's a lot of national insurance.

So that the cost

escalation is difficult.

But yeah, I would be focusing

on after sales and used cars.

If you were going to start up

another dealer group now,

what brands would you want

to have in your portfolio?

Give me three brands that you

just think you would definitely

have in your dealer group.

I'm just fascinated, considering

you've had so many over the years.

Yeah, yeah, God, that's a really

good question, James.

It's not like you to ask a good

one like that.

A low blow, that was.

Well, given the rest of the day

off.

So, I mean, there's not an

incredible amount of science

behind this. This is going to be

more of a kind of, you know,

instinctive, emotional sort

of reaction to that.

But I think if you've got

brands where

there is a strong underlying

emotional pull towards the

product, I think you give

yourself a much stronger chance

of being able to make money out

of it.

And so I know it's gone through

ups and downs.

But for me, Range Rover,

Land Rover would always be in

that top three

because, you know, I remember

as a little anecdote for you,

20 odd years ago, one of the

dealerships that I was running

in my patch for Reg Vardy,

we had Land Rover in Edinburgh,

Perth and Cooper.

And so I sat in the dealership

in Perth.

You can imagine big sort of

shooting, fishing, hunting,

sort of community.

And there was this farmer who

who sat in front of me was

really unhappy because it was on

his second gearbox with his

Range Rover.

And I think he might have even

just changed the engine or

something.

Terrible problems.

And he sat in front of me and

said, you know, this is my

sixth Range Rover.

I won't do the accent.

He said, this is my sixth

Range Rover.

And he said, look at the

problems I'm having with the

thing. It's an absolute

disgrace, you know, and every

time it's in here for weeks

and, you know, you take forever

to fix it. And some of it's

covered under warranty, but some

of it isn't.

And I thought, yeah, fair enough,

you know, we're going to lose

this guy.

And he said, so let me tell you,

I just hope my next one's a

lot better.

And I thought, wow,

you know, and so

a brand like that has

such strong emotional pull.

It's so I mean, people have

tried to copy the Range Rover

and there's some perfectly

good products, X7,

you know, GLS, you know, big

lumps of cars, but nothing seems

to quite match what a Range Rover

does.

So number one, probably

would be that.

For similar reasons, but a much

broader range.

And I think that they have

nailed it with the electrification

is BMW.

You know, I think the ranges

on those BMWs, the

sophistication of the cars

that, you know, they were

always known for the precision

engineering. But I but I think

they've become beautiful again.

They had a they had a period where

they perhaps didn't look so great.

They looked a bit numb, but

they're beautiful looking cars,

brilliant engineering, and they

they're getting the electrification

as good as anybody, I think.

Throw in a Chinese one.

Yeah, go on. Yeah, if you had to

pick a Chinese brand in your third,

which one would you go for?

Well, only because they are

an absolute powerhouse.

And I do recognise that I mean,

somebody said to me recently.

Well, you do realise that the

Chinese have already won.

Yeah, we just don't realise it yet.

Yeah, we haven't woken up to it yet,

but they've already won.

So I think I would pick the

absolute Goliath powerhouse

of B. Y. D.

Because I mean, they are

going to be successful and they

are going to make sure they are

successful. And I think the cars

are beautiful.

You know, I mean, you see them

driving on the roads and they

look fab.

And I hear from every every

franchise holder who's got it,

how how well it's doing for them.

So I mean, it's clearly working

from a business proposition as well.

So. Yes. And interestingly, that

was one of the themes that's come

out of my sort of tour of

speaking to heads of dealer groups

is that all of them seem to be

sort of realising that they need

to get into the Chinese brands and

are very positive about, you know,

a mother jacu, you know,

seems to be selling very well as

well. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Nigel, thank you so much for being

so open and honest with us and

having such a frank conversation.

It's been very refreshing and good

to see you. But for those people

listening, if they want to get in

touch here promo time,

how can they do it?

Yeah. Well, I think quite a lot of

people probably can get access to

my number any time.

But yeah, ring my mobile 07591

764446

or Nigel at

pibusrecruitment.co.uk.

Yeah. And listen, we

we'd love to hear from anybody.

So thanks for the thanks for the free

ad. No, no dodgy text message

to Nigel, please.

Right, great stuff.

Thank you very much. But John,

we should probably do some stories.

We interrupt this broadcast for

some breaking news.

John, I don't want to panic you,

but the Cardio podcast live is

coming round really rather fast.

Yes, I know that, James,

because I own a calendar,

but clearly you've been not paying

attention.

How dare you, John?

If I hadn't been paying attention,

how would I know that it's on the

September the 24th in Abandon

that we've got the Polestar boss,

Matt Galvin, Vicky Hart from

Waylands and Alex Bradley

from Small Cars Direct on with

us? Hmm?

Well, technically, it's closer to

Didcot, but I'll let that one go.

Anyway, I bet you've forgotten

how people can book tickets.

No, John, because on my script

right here, it says head

to cardinamagazine.co.uk

slash podcast and

people listening to this can

book tickets with the special

discount code PICCANTO

for 10 percent off.

There's a social barbecue after

the recording and plenty of

time for a social catch up

with other like-minded dealers.

We look forward to seeing you

there.

This is a paid partnership in

association with Dealerway.

John, guess what?

Oh, God, you've bought more

ducks, haven't you?

No ducks, John.

Wrong there.

I've actually got a new habit.

I've signed up for Dealerway

alongside more than two and a

half thousand other rated

and vetted car dealers to sell

my trade part exchanges.

The site is designed for dealers

to sell their part exchanges for

more money quickly and easily.

There's no sellers fees and

buying a car costs just

£99.

One of the cheapest around.

And when I haven't got the

time to list the car myself,

I can even watch out them

the details and they do it all

for me.

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.

We'll be right back.

Now, John, I'm really enjoying

how easy it is to pay sellers on

car well.

I'm presuming you'd rather not

pay them at all.

No, that is true.

But now I can do it with

car well wallet.

You can pay sellers, finance

houses and more instantly,

literally in one click.

It's secure, easy to use

and gets rid of all the pesky

finance back and forth.

So it's a total game, James

and John.

That does sound pretty good.

If you want to find out more,

dealers can log on to car

well.co.uk

slash partners slash

car well dash wallet.

Now back to the podcast.

So James and I are going to

run through our favorite

stories of the week.

And at the end, Nigel

gets to decide which one of us

chose the best ones and who's

the winner.

Unusually, James won last week.

So you get to go first.

Wow, one all, John, in this

series.

So I'm going to try hard.

I am picking news

from used car supermarket,

big motoring world

and the controversies there

continue, John.

This week they were suspended

from Trustpilot, the reviews

site for allegedly breaching

the reviews.

The platform has put

a notification on their profile

to say that they have breached

their rules and their trust

score has been hidden as a

result of that.

We looked into this in detail.

We spoke to big motoring

world and asked for their

their side of the story.

Lawrence Vaughn, who is a CEO

there now that Freshstream

has taken over that business

and Peter Waddell is obviously

in the wilderness at the moment.

He is not.

He's in Kent, probably.

To you, that is the wilderness,

James.

But yes, so Lawrence Vaughn gave

us a very long comment

summarised as a

potential misunderstanding, he said.

So the allegations on this are

that the

the used car supermarket had

basically been encouraging people

to write them positive reviews.

There were some

there were some allegations that

this had been taken place.

Lawrence told us that that might

be misconstrued in the fact that

they said they asked their customers

to fill out a satisfaction

survey for themselves.

And it might have looked like they

were trying to encourage positive

reviews on other sites like Trustpilot.

But we know how important reviews

are. It's obviously very, very

important for this business.

Clever Car Collection, it's really

helped helps give customers trust.

And there's no those new rules that we

talked about. Was it last week or the

week before that have come into

force, the

could fine customer

fine dealers heavily

10 percent of global annual turnover

or three hundred thousand pounds

if they break these rules about

reviews.

So a difficult situation

for big motion world this.

I mean they are, you know, not

really afraid of controversy.

I mean, they seem to call it there's

quite a lot of it around

that business.

But this one's not going to go down

well. They say that these allegations

are completely false just to give

their side of the story.

And they are working with Trustpilot

try and have their reviews reinstated.

But yeah, difficult difficult situation

there, John.

Yeah, I thought the the bit of text

that Trustpilot put on their page

is a it's vague

to the point of you sort of

think, well, what are you on about?

Because it says this company has been

inviting people to review them in a way

that encourages positive reviews.

Well, you could lots of things could

encourage positive reviews, including

giving good customer service.

So where does it end?

I mean, like yesterday, we went

to Starbucks to be not James and we

were handed a receipt at the end that

said you'll get two pounds off

next time if you give us a review.

Is that I know that is

encouraging.

It's encouraging a review, but is

that encouraging a positive review?

It's very fine line, I think, on all

this. I mean, I don't quite know

the in and out of this.

And there's a few more allegations

in this story from people on

Facebook. There's a Facebook group

about big motoring world

problems, as it's called, because,

of course, it's an enormous cut

supermarket. And unfortunately,

you will with used cars get

issues, won't you?

And as we know, customers are not

always even handed

in their evaluation of how

something was handled when

the car goes wrong.

So, yeah, I don't know.

But this is the first thing I've

seen like this.

Big Motoring World has obviously

been on the BBC having had problems

with with customers.

There are those two Facebook groups,

one of which has got 6,700 members,

the which is called Big Motoring

World Complaints with lots of

people moaning about how

how they've done business with

that with that company.

Well, they, you know, they're

selling a huge number of cars

on there. They had 7,700 used

cars in stock when I checked their

website earlier this week.

It doesn't always doesn't always

go well.

But what I will say is I went to

Lawrence Lawrence Vaughn CEO.

And I said, look, these are the

allegations. This is what's

happened. I mean, we broke the

story earlier this week, but he

came back with a very long

and detailed comment.

You know, and that doesn't always

happen with these businesses.

Sometimes you go to a company

and they just say no comment

or just send send you something

very short. He went into detail

and we published a lot of that in

our story. So people who are

interested can go and read what

you had to say. But he clearly

cares about what's happening

there. He clearly cares about

trying to improve it and

pointed out a lot of that in

his comments. So I think fair

play to them really for putting

their hands up. They, you know,

they this has obviously happened.

They have been banned from

from trust pilot, but looks

like they're trying to do all

they can to to put it right.

No, I mean, it's a difficult

one. This isn't it, but I think

from from from what I understand

that they're the first dealer to

have been banned from from trust

pilot. I mean, it doesn't look

great, does it?

It doesn't.

But I agree with everything

you've said that the reality

is that these reviews play a

very important part in

customers decision making

and their sort of trust in

the in the dealerships.

So I understand why all

dealers, franchised or

independent, will encourage

people if they've had a good

experience to write a good review.

You cut the end of the day, you

can't you can't ask somebody

to write a good review if

they didn't have a good

experience.

And it just seems a kind of a

necessary brutal reaction from

trust pilots, you know, given

that virtually everybody on

that will be doing something

similar. I think they had to

do something because because

of these these new rules

really on a wider point,

Nigel, to sort of slightly

move away from the story.

I mean, use use car super

markets have had quite a tough

time, haven't they? I mean, it's

that sort of format, which

sort of grew in popularity

is has dropped down.

Many of those listed businesses

as they were have closed them

down. Do you think it's still

a viable business option?

I mean, clearly not for the

sort of, you know, the

franchised dealer network.

I think there is a place for

it, James, if you're going

to push into the older

vehicles, which is something

that traditionally all of us

as franchise retailers have

struggled with, because when

you're having to put it in the

franchise silo, of course, it

has to come to a high

preparation standard, it has

to have a manufacturer warranty

on it, that the team

in the dealership will feel

under pressure to create the

same sort of margin as a

nearly new car.

And so the conditions aren't

set very well to retail

older cars. I'm talking

five, six, seven, eight years.

And, you know, I've just been

to Northern Ireland and seen

my friends. I saw that on LinkedIn.

Yeah, I mean, look, they are

brilliant retailers, both

Colin Senior, Colin Ross,

Keith and the lads over at

Car Brothers. But they have

built a brilliant business

purely on the back of

retailing five, six, seven,

eight, nine, 10 year old cars.

They brought in a 10 year

old S type Jag.

Ah, I mean, it still

looks great.

I think they, you know, they

bought it in for kind of 10

or 11 grand or something.

It's a big lump of a car.

And it made me realize a bit

like Charles Hearst did, if

you gather those together in

one area, and I think they

called it kind of budget

direct or first time buyer

or something and sweep them

away from the dealership, then

there's a place for it where

you're going to retail those

cars that in truth would

have gone to auction.

And so I think there is

still a place for it.

But on a general level, the way

that that Pete Waddell, who's a

mate of mine, did it, I

thought was great that sticking

a thousand BMWs in one

massive site and giving a

reason for for people to come.

Well, if I'm in the market for

a BMW in the south of England,

well, I'm going to go there.

I've probably come from all

over the country.

So I think done correctly,

there is definitely still a

format there that can work.

But the generic sort of use

car markets, use car supermarkets

that are competing head on for

two, one, two, three, four year

old cars, the franchise dealers

are good at that now.

Yes, it's interesting how it's

all that landscape has changed.

But John, over to you.

That's my first story.

Lovely stuff.

Right, I'm going to talk about

employee car ownership schemes,

which is something that I think

if you're not in the industry,

if you don't work for a car

dealership or you don't work for

a car manufacturer particularly,

you've probably not actually come

across.

But it's a way of for those

who are not aware of which most

of our listeners are a way of

getting your employees

into a sort of discounted

brand new car as

part of an

overall employee package of

benefits, shall we say.

So it's a great way of giving

your employees something a little

bit extra.

But as announced in the

budget, whenever the budget was,

this is now sort of

going to come to an end because

basically they're not taxed at

the minute as a company car

because of it's a bit complicated,

isn't it? But it's sort of the

employee sort of owns the car.

So it's not a company car in the

traditional sense. You don't get

hit with the same benefit in

kind.

Rachel Reeves wants to clamp

down on that and close that

loophole, as she says,

which means that all of these

cars from October next

year will be hit

with a traditional company

car tax.

And this is proving to be a bit

of a problem. I mean, I had a

phone call from a dealer,

James Wally, were off floating

around in Spain, which I

duly wrote lots of notes on

and forgot to tell you about.

But I assume this dealer might

have spoken to you since then

as well.

Hence, you've written this

story.

But I've also, you know, this

dealer was very worried about it,

but I've also spoken to

strangely, like a luxury car

manufacturer and they

were worried about it from the

point of view of not actually

selling their cars to their

employees like this because

they're way out of their budget.

But as a sort of benefits

package, it's something that,

you know, from their point of

view, they said, you know, we

employ lots of people in this

in this car company across

a whole manner of different

roles. A lot of them are

not car people necessarily.

And we have to say to them,

well, you know, let's say you

want to employ an events team

or an events manager or

whatever, what's bringing them

in versus working for a luxury

brand like Rolex or

working for a luxury hotel

chain, you know, they will all

have benefits of some

description. And this is the

way that we get the best

candidates to come to our

company. And this is

going to be a bit of a problem.

And then when we talk about

dealers, of course, I mean,

there's a huge number of cars

are registered in this way

because, as we know, there

needs to be, as you were

talking about Nigel, you know,

there's the valves that need to

be opened in order to get

stuff into the market. This is

one of them. And this is one

that's going to actually be

hit quite dramatically from this

tax change. I mean, the

numbers that I was being told

for this one, this dealer

that spoke to me, one

particular car company,

shall we say, probably gets

5,000 used cars going into

network stock every year from

this. So if this is hit, that

is quite a large chunk of

cars. I mean, James, you

wrote the story.

Yeah, I think the only thing

I'd add to your very

comprehensive roundup, John,

that story would be the fact

that these most of these

cars are the sort of ones

that I mean, I would

describe them as rather

spicy. You know, they are

the RS6, RS3, the RS

models from Audi, they are

the nicer cars that probably

would never end up on a on

a employee company car

scheme. But it's a way for

dealers to register these

cars for a short period of

time and then put them on as

demos and let their

customers have the experience

of them. I think there are

a large number of these

cars as well in the in the

network. I mean, I think

Robert Forrester has written

a piece about this. There

was something that he wrote

that led to the treasury.

And I think that's why that

what sparked me into writing

this story. The Sunday

Times covered it. He said

something like 200,000 cars

a year, this accounts for.

So it takes that all out of

the network, takes out new

cars, takes out of used cars.

So it is, it's going to be

a little bit of a problem.

Nigel, you've probably got a

lot of experience of these

schemes.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean,

every dealer has. I agree

with Robert. I think the

impact will be somewhere

between sort of five and

10% of the new car market

at a time where everybody's

under pressure to sell

enough new cars as it is.

So and of course, my memory

of this is that if the car

actually lost value, the

loss in value was a taxable

benefit is a taxable benefit.

So, you know, we're only

talking about the cars that

held their value. I can't

see technically how that is a

benefit. If if technically

the employee is buying the

car and then it doesn't lose

any value and the company's

happy to enter into a

transaction to buy it back

again, I just don't see

where the taxable benefit

in that. The biggest flaw

and so many of things that

Rachel Reeves seems to do

seem entirely flawed to me

because of course, yes,

you might take some tax

revenue from these vehicles,

but they won't, they won't

exist. So there's 100,000

vehicles there that won't have

VAT or road fund license

or any of the other taxes

that are associated with the

vehicles. And and where's the

logic that says, well, I'm

going to gain revenue from

this. When in fact, isn't

it obvious that those vehicles

therefore won't exist and and

you know, they'll just they'll

be lost out of the market.

That hits the whole economy

of the motor industry. And

you don't get the VAT

receipts off it. So I think

it's just flawed thinking.

Can I ask you from the point

of view of recruitment as

well, you know, how do you

how do you get people in to the

motor trade if there's not these

benefits associated when

other other industries have

their own benefits in some way?

You know, how do you how do

you sell someone on the

position of working in a

dealership or an OEM

without this kind of thing?

Well, I think it's a great

question, John, and it is one

of the key benefits over

and above any other industry.

I mean, I don't think we

should lose sight of the fact

that it is a great industry

to work in and we do attract

people from hospitality and

retail and and other sectors.

So, you know, I don't think it

will fundamentally cause a

problem. But but what it may

well do is is yet further

increase wage rates.

You know, it might mean that

you've got to compensate in

some other way for the loss

of that benefit.

So, you know, it's another

cost to businesses that

they really don't need to bear.

So if you if you dampening

the new car market and

increasing potentially

increasing costs, you know,

this is a government that's

supposed to be all about growth.

Yeah, does it sound like a win

win? This doesn't

difficult one.

Difficult, right.

Shall I move this on?

Yeah, go for it.

I'm going to pick a story

about Admiral the insurer

setting aside 50 million pounds

to compensate customers who

received insufficient

settlements.

This is a favorite one of yours,

James, isn't it?

It is a favorite one of mine

because this has really

frustrated me over the last

few years. I've helped many

people who have had accidents

get accurate valuations

for their cars at the time.

There was a there was a flood

in Gospel last year

while I was off after

having an operation.

And that flood totaled a

large number of cars.

And actually from from

with friends and family.

So what they all did is they

contacted me with their regs

and their mileage is of those

vehicles. And I gave them accurate

valuations, looking at trade

portals like cap and auto

trader, because obviously these

people need to go back in a

like for like vehicle.

So they need to be able to go

out and buy a retail car.

So it's not a trade price

they need. It's a retail price.

That's what the insurers should

do. Some of the prices

these people were given

from their insurers in the

first instance were terrible.

I mean, there was one guy

his value was four and a half

thousand pounds less than it

should be, which is frankly

ridiculous, really, isn't it?

He went back with the I gave

him the auto trader screenshot

from the trade portal of what

the retail price of that vehicle

was. He went back to his

insurer and immediately

they went they put his valuation

up four and a half thousand

pounds. Now he had the

benefit of being able to speak

to somebody in the trade to

help him.

There's many, many millions

more people out there who

trust their insurer and have

trusted their insurers over the

last few years to help them out

at a time of need, help them

out when their car has been

totaled in an accident with

an accurate valuation and they

have been given far less

than they should be.

So we all knew this was

happening. This happened as a

result of the fact that Covid

had that bump and then used

car prices rose and

the insurance the insurance

companies didn't keep pace

with that change in the

industry. Admiral has now

admitted that they didn't do

that that their systems

were out of date and they've

put 50 million pounds aside to

compensate customers who were

paid less.

So the FCA has been looking

into 12 insurers apparently

who are responsible for some

70 percent of the motor

insurance market and

a number of those have made

these insufficient payments to

customers when when they've

had those problems over the

last few years.

They're looking at a period of

between 2019 and 2025.

So this is very current.

And I suspect a lot of people

are going to be getting some

decent checks in the post

because if you actually go back

I don't know how they're going

to do it. But you can actually

go back and look at the prices

they've paid out and what that

price should have been at the

time. I don't know whether

that can be done retrospectively

by some of the trade price

companies or or auto trader.

But they should have been

given more they should have been

given more money.

So it'll be interesting to see

what what that does for the

economy because that's a lot

of extra money that people are

going to have in their pockets

and we remember with the PPI

scandal that ended up in

deposits for new cars.

Didn't it? But shocking that

this has happened.

And I think this the fact

that Admiral put aside 50

million means that there are

many more millions to come

for for lots more people.

Don't know what did you think?

I remember when you were

doing these things and I think

it was a bit of a surprise to

us that this was the case.

And I think I remember thinking

at the time, well, I didn't

realise you could. This is

me. I didn't realise you

could actually go back and

negotiate with your insurance

company and say, no, I mean,

it's something I probably would

have done in fairness if they'd

offered me a stupid amount of

my car if it had been written

off. But thankfully that's not

actually happened. So I haven't

had to do that.

But just go back to those

people that I helped that

time. I had I think it was

12 15 people that I gave

valuations to every single one

of them was less than it

should have been. And the

average was about a thousand

pounds less. Well, that's a

lot of money, you know, we're

talking cars that were five,

£6,000 retail. And if they're

offering a thousand pounds less

on those, imagine what they've

done on expensive BMWs or more

prestige cars. I think there's

a huge problem out there for

this. And there's going to be a

lot of money being paid out.

Yeah, Matt, all right, agreed

with you because he came in

sat on your outdoor sofa

recording some TV things.

Did you see the story? I

mean, what were your thoughts

on it? Do you know, I

haven't seen that story, James.

So I was listening with great

interest. But, you know, I think

that's a great example of where

the FCA is actually intervening

in a meaningful way that protects

consumers. And so they should

because that's willful, isn't

it? Yeah, I mean, you can't

you can't use any other word in

a world where we are so data

rich, you know, AI could

probably give you a really good

valuation at the drop of a

hat. Yeah, to have

consistently undervalued

payouts, you know, you can only

say it's willful. So yeah, I

completely agree with you. And I

think people trust their

insurers, they sort of trust

their insurers to look after

them at that point in time. And

that's, you know, John's

point that very few people knew

that you go back and negotiate

every single person I was

talking to at the time was

like, really, I can do that. I

can question what they've

offered. Yeah, I said,

absolutely, you need to. And

as soon as they put forward

some evidence that their

valuation was wrong, they

got the right payout, which

says that these companies knew

what they were doing. Yeah, I

think it's absolutely

shocking. The other point I'd

add is that, of course, it's not

like we've lived in a world where

premiums have been coming down

and they're all under

pressure. You know, premiums

have been astronomical. So

they've taken the premiums in

good faith, you know, the

people have paid the premiums

in good faith. So they should

expect to get a decent

payout. Yeah, definitely.

John, you've probably got

time to wedge one more in.

I am going to wedge one

Big Motoring World vs Trustpilot, employee car ownership scheme under spotlight, and IMDA calls out service history GDPR excuses – with Nigel McMinn, episode 220

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Suzuki Jimny

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