Dieselgate is back, BCA's Aston Barclay purchase under more scrutiny, and why Rebecca is angry about crisp packets – with Joe Wallington, episode 227

The Cardiola podcast is sponsored by Auto Trader. John, do you know why I, like nearly 14,000 other dealers, work with Auto Trader?

No, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me.

Well, with around 84 million consumer visits each month, it connects us with more engaged car buyers than anyone else in the UK.

And there's the ability to reserve cars when the dealership is closed.

Ah, so you can stick to your strict 8pm bedtime.

Exactly. And the Auto Trader team are always on hand to offer their insights, ensure we get the very best from our package and ultimately sell more cars.

Well, that's good, because you are going to need all the help you can get.

Oi, less of that.

Dealers, if you want to find out more, log on to trade.autotrader.co.uk

Welcome back to the Cardiola 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 this week is not James Baggart, because he's riding his motorcycle to Benidorm.

Instead, please welcome founder of the Cardiola podcast, Rebecca Chaplin.

Hello, Rebecca.

Hello, Jonathan. How are you?

I'm very well. Very nice to see you.

How are you? It's been a long time.

Yes, I'm fine. Yes, I'm not seeing you for about a week.

Yeah, that's true. I haven't been anywhere near Gosport for a week, because I've been, where have I been?

I've been to Nice.

Yes.

And also, crucially, James hasn't said, can you come down to hold this camera for me for approximately five minutes and spend two and a half hours driving there to do it?

So I've not been down.

Yes.

So I feel very disconnected from the world of clever car collection at the moment.

What have you been up to, apart from planning his mini break that you'll know?

Yes, planned his mini break.

So I'm not going to tell all these stories about what's happened, because I'm sure you'll want to save them for next week.

But there's been some fun and games trying to fix some things for him that have not, where things haven't worked out quite as they should have.

So yeah, that's been a bit of fun. And just generally, I don't know, I don't really know where the week's gone.

I can't believe it's Friday. It's gone very fast.

Good feeling. I am going to spoil his, I mean, to be fair, he's put it on LinkedIn, so it's fair game.

Basically, his motorbike fell over.

Oh, did he put it on LinkedIn?

He's put it on LinkedIn, yeah.

Oh, he hadn't put it on Instagram, because he stopped using that, and I thought he's probably just not.

Exactly. He's given up Instagram and just moved all of his activities to LinkedIn.

Yeah, it's only worth it if you can make money out of it.

Yes, precisely.

Is it attracting new business? Not interested.

It could be, but he was very complimentary about the BMW bike dealer in...

Oh, that's one.

I don't know where it was.

Anyway, I don't have anything interesting to say about it.

I can't even speak, but I don't have anything interesting to say about it.

Or you're not allowed to make anything interesting about it.

I was driving another Chinese car.

Oh, yes. Nice and natural home of a car manufacturer.

Yeah, I did sort of think the French might throw things at it, but it was a Leap motor.

So it was a sort of honorary Citroen sort of.

But I don't know, I'm becoming a bit sort of jaded with them all, because I think,

like, you know, when Chinese cars started appearing, it was all quite exciting because

all they're really cheap and all they're doing things really well,

and oh, wow, you get a lot of clever battery tech for your money and all sort of stuff like that.

And then you drive about five of them

and you realise these are all broadly the same.

There's not much different.

I mean, they're all completely different companies, but you sit in it.

It's got a very squishy seat.

The handling is a bit rubbish.

It's cheap.

It's got a big touchscreen like someone's just gone to curries and put an Android tablet in the middle

and haven't really thought about anything beyond that.

Like they're all kind of the same.

Yes, I just like them.

Yeah, I'm starting to feel a little bit like the people at which must feel

when they review kettles.

Yes.

I do think just because electric cars are different doesn't mean they have to be boring.

Doesn't mean they have to all be exactly the same, but we're moving towards this world

where we're all going to have really boring autonomous cars that all do the same thing

apart from crashing to each other because the autonomous doesn't work.

Yes.

I was actually a little bit, I had to sort of drink through the press conference

because it was very kind of like really.

So because it's part of Stellantis, like Stellantis own 20% of it.

They will say they own 51% of it.

They own 51% of the distribution company is a different thing, but they own 20% of it.

So they'll say all this good game about, oh yes, it was all the French PR and marketing guys doing it.

And they're like, oh yeah, we've used Chinese technology, but we've injected it with our European DNA.

They have done nothing of the sort.

There is nothing European about that car at all.

So it was just, it was the press conference after you've driven the car as well.

So you sort of, you've made your mind up about it and then they tell you how wonderful it is.

And didn't quite work anyway.

That's enough about Lean Motor.

I am going to introduce our guest now, which will hopefully be a nice surprise for James

because I haven't told him he's coming on.

So our guest this week is Joe Wellington from, of course, the Clever Car Collection.

Hello, Joe.

Hello, John.

How are you?

Very well.

Lovely to see you in what appears to be the shared office facility attached to your dealership.

That's exactly where I am.

I could, I could recognize that beige wall anywhere.

Opening question, I happen to know you've been at the Auto Trader Awards.

We have.

Me and Luke went in James's absence yesterday.

And how did you do?

Did you win anything?

We did.

We came, well, they call them finalists in the Auto Trader Awards.

So we were self-nominated for the Innovation Award, lost out to the winning spot to Acklam

Cars because of some very fancy dual AI video features that they are now doing, which

I'm yet to investigate, but they slightly pipped us to the post with that one,

but still came away with the finalist award, which is pretty incredible really

because it's the now the top 1% attempt, the Auto Trader Awards of all the dealers

in the UK.

So still quite an astounding setup, I think, for a corner unit in Basepoint with Luke

currently watching us as Luke, he carry outside.

Yes, he said, come on.

Am I allowed to say that Luke is slightly like the Cooper Caleb or Caleb Cooper

of...

Yeah, exactly.

That is exactly what he is in this.

I just remember live and he was just like, what is this?

Yeah, exactly that.

And he's very well in physical cars, like it's nice, but...

Taking him up to the 42nd floor of one of the tallest buildings in London yesterday

through the fastest glass lift in Europe was quite the eye-opener for him.

Aw.

But he's back doing what he knows, washing cars in the corner.

Bless him.

So, I mean, you mentioned the Suzuki Carry there.

That, of course, is the one of the batch that you've secured from the lovely dealer

in Norfolk, who you bought some intervals from.

So am I right in thinking that's now your new car, that Suzuki Carry?

Yeah, I might actually take it home this weekend.

It's particularly rubbish, but also very cool at the same time.

I mean, I don't think it's really destined for this country.

I don't think you'd get many miles out of it.

But it's still quite fun.

Yeah, I would imagine the fuel tank is not enormous, actually.

No, and the gearbox, when our mechanic looks at it, is about six inches off the floor.

So one speed bump, and you're probably going to leave that section a bit behind.

Oh, God.

OK, all right.

We'll do that very soon for your local campsite or holiday park or whatever you can find for it.

Well, I'm looking forward to having a drive around the, well, Gosport in it, to be honest.

Doubling its mileage.

So how are you getting on with the other stuff?

Because I know you've bought lots more ups.

You did.

That all didn't go very well either because they were all due to arrive on Wednesday.

So I arranged for Luke to work a slightly different shift to be here late,

because obviously they come down from Norfolk, so the driver will be quite late.

He phoned me at about four with me thinking he's going to tell me he's around the corner

to actually tell me he had just departed Norfolk.

And he needed to go come down but via his house to have dinner with his wife

because of his taco restrictions.

So long story short, before going to London yesterday,

me and our lovely mechanic, Darwin, turned up here shortly after 5 a.m.

to unload 10 Japanese imports from a transporter before then driving to London,

whilst James is still doing full broke back mountain round.

It's been a busy week.

Never a dull moment.

To be fair, I haven't had much chance yet.

We sort of packed them into the car park here like before

and tried to hide ups in amongst ambulances and anything else large enough

to discreetly tuck them away so we don't get in trouble for parking anymore.

Some have suffered some what appears to be tree damage on the way down on the transporter

that I need to look at and hope that Luke can polish out.

But yeah, apart from that, I think they're okay.

So speaking of the units, am I right in thinking it's about a year ago you guys moved in there?

It is exactly a year ago, almost to the doubt.

I can tell you that because I got a parking ticket here yesterday

which says that we've been here a year and my car is now not on the system.

Oh, right.

First of October, so just over a year.

So I mean you alluded slightly to the parking situation there.

Yes.

Have you found you've outgrown the unit yet?

Well, we haven't outgrown it but I think the management team here

are trying to tell us gently that we have outgrown it

because every time they speak to us about parking they do say

oh we knew you were going to outgrow it here at some stage

so I feel like we are being gently pushed out of this particular establishment.

I see.

And is it that actually you've outgrown it?

Have you got more stock than you had a year ago?

Well, I mean the whole tent at a time on the transporter I don't think goes down too well.

It's not the biggest of car parks.

I mean that was one good thing of them arriving at like a half past five was no one saw

but last time they literally the transporter without us telling him

just pulled into the car park in front of everybody in the middle of the day

and dumped 10 cars off so I think there's been a few questions raised

from the other people here about parking and lack of

and we've definitely stopped but then this site has also got busier.

We took it over when their capacity wasn't full

and I think they pretty much have rented every unit in office now so.

So it's also been a year.

I'm guessing you joined roughly about the time of the unit didn't you?

Literally that was give or take was the first job was moving into the unit.

So what have you learned in your year of being a car dealer?

I shouldn't have bothered.

No, I should have said no.

What is crazy really I was thinking yesterday and talking to Luke on the way up

just how mad it's been from just before the first of October

before we took the unit on I was involved from sort of September

and I remember vividly washing Vauxhall courses on James's driveway.

For many an hour whilst he's trying to show me how to use the auto glim polish

which I don't think he knows how to use himself but somehow kind of vaguely showed me

but yeah it's mad when you think back to sort of those days

and where we used to do our prep and such like and how it's kind of all cycling now.

And you'd had no kind of car sales experience before presumably?

No lots of yachty stuff but nothing in the car side at all.

Is it something you're still enjoying a year on and I'm hoping you say yes

because it'd be a very awkward podcast?

Well yeah it might get but no absolutely I think we're obviously going to have to work out

where it goes going forward it's obviously a sideline for me and James

but it's definitely now we keep saying it's a sideline as if that makes it okay

when we're both here 10 hours a day and five days a week.

So yeah but no it's definitely very interesting and it's been an incredible journey

learning about all the different aspects of it and obviously the import stuff

has had its highs and lows but yeah it's been weird.

I mean where do you see it scaling? You personally I'm sure James has always said

he'd like to have a new car franchise and he's spoken to various people

since then who've said don't do it do not do that but and of course that is a way

you know way in the future thing and you know we're talking about you need to

not be in the site you're in you're not going to have a JQ franchise

in an industrial unit in Gospel are you but is that something you could see happening

do you want to scale it to that size?

I don't know whether the new car I mean we've always said the nice thing about

how we do at the moment is whilst there is stress neither of us are fully

relying upon it and whilst we need to sell a certain number of vehicles a month

you know that we don't have the same pressures that you would in the new

car world. We've spoken about a site with a service and MOT centre and obviously

then the additions and the benefits that that can bring

but everyone you speak to including people you have said at the awards

if you ask them what they've learned or what they should do

they all say stay at a fairly small level and actually

incrementally you've got to grow a lot I think to make the kind of big

big changes in there and whether the stress is worth it who knows.

I talked to a lot of people where they

because you guys working what up to 15 grand normally

sort of cars and like people who are up to 50 or whatever and they say

oh I couldn't do what you guys do because of this like the headaches

when things go wrong but in a lot of ways I look at what people are doing

with more expensive cars and think like at least you know where you are with your cars

and when something goes wrong it's not like a 10 grand engine or something

I don't think that's happened yet.

So it's funny isn't it like the nuances of different

parts of the market and the jump that you would

I don't know if it would be a jump. When James talks about having a franchise

I just think he's mad because he doesn't like being told what to do

and fundamentally you can start being told what to do by people.

To be told you've got to spend X 100,000 pounds and changing the colour you show them now

or designing it differently I don't think it's for me and I certainly don't think it's for him

whether we go I think eventually we're going to have to go

to another site and that's obviously going to bring opportunity

to the corporate service MOT centres whether the stress

is worth it but then hopefully that reduces it with some of the prep and the warranty work

and all of those lovely things that at the moment were obviously outsourcing.

I just want to talk a little bit about the used car sector

as a whole. Like in the last year

have you seen any changes to either

quality of stock or the price of stock or

well let's start with that but I mean even customers changing in what they're looking for

or how they're behaving have you noticed anything in the last

year really? I think and as was kind of it again explained

yesterday when Auto Show did the thing getting stock is just getting harder and harder

and they were talking about the obviously the lack of car so

Covid and now they're very soon going to be the ones

that we would be buying the kind of sub 10 grand 5

6 year old car so I think getting stock is definitely harder that

you know we used to do very well on car while motorway we're really struggling at the moment

to find anything that kind of suits our profile or anything decent on there

and I think as always customers want you know they come and buy a 5,000 pound car

but they expect it like a new car so I think the expectations of what people

think they're coming to get and what they're actually getting need kind of carefully

managing. It's fine we kind of jest between ourselves about it

but it is important that they understand you know what what they're purchasing

and managing those expectations is sometimes quite difficult

Yes I mean one of the things I've noticed popping down having a wander around

as I often do on video in fact is

like the stuff that James set out to

start buying a year and a half ago whatever it was

he was always very like very specific about and it needs to have

full service history needs to have been not really damaged at all all this sort of stuff

and it's gradually got reasonably far away from that

isn't it? Is that like as you know if you made that conscious decision

or is it just something that you've gone there is no stock that's nice

I think James sits on car well over an evening and on the third evening

of not being able to win anything just goes a little bit wild and buys a

Nissan Leaf with a completely dented side for example

without a frustration more than anything because yes occasionally I turn up and think

where has that come from and why have we bought it

and then why have we even accepted to buy it when we've gone to see it I mean it's a minimum

of a two-stage process yet somehow it still ended up in our

possession which is crazy weird really. I do think there's an element of him just not

reading it as well because with that Nissan Leaf when he was like

they didn't say it about any of this and John was like well it was on the list

of all these pictures and mentioned here yeah no it's

definitely interesting sometimes seeing what's turned up

I mean I do wonder if you know we went off to an

auction didn't we we went well I've been to one with James and one with both of you

and I think those are the only physical auctions that you guys have been to

and I think we had a bit of a shock as to what the quality of the stock was like

but maybe I don't know

I keep banging this drum occasionally saying it will be much more efficient

to just go and buy 10 cars in one go have you been tempted to wander back

to the auctions. I have more tempted because of the way we're

doing the imports and just the you know not being here all

the time having now to manage Luke's workload and making sure the kind of

flow is maintained it's very nice to unload 10

put them in the car park and sort of not worry about it and know that

we're going to be advertising at least one if not two vehicles every day

he's then self-sufficient and it kind of takes the stress off of knowing

that our slots are going to be filled on auto trader we're going to be you know

fully advertised across it and I think definitely looking at the lack of

cars that suit us on car while motorway I do

think we are going to have to encroach back towards the auctions

it's interesting isn't it because so many dealers just refuse to go

and buy anything from well not so many but a lot of dealers refuse to go and buy anything from

BCA, Mannheim etc but it is

successful for a reason that's the thing aren't they it's the amount

of stock you can buy in a short amount of time just going back

to the imports because of course James and I went off to

Japan in February which seems like a very long time ago and

got very excited about all these cars and then they took quite a long time to

arrive did they not you've now just about got rid of

all of them haven't you or have you yeah the last one

which was the new green Jimny left us on

Monday you went in February

yeah early for I think we bought he said he bought on something

like the 14th of February and we shipped it out

yeah 14th of October so what were the challenges

with that then was it pretty much came down where you had a lot of challenges didn't you

had things with the dials etc etc I mean there's been some learnings

on that front but I'm sort of leading you towards saying

the DVSA or the DVLA they were a big part of it so absolutely

for us it was obviously some learning so we had to get the vehicle here

before we could understand what we needed to do to it our mechanic had to do

a fair bit of learning to understand what modifications it needed to have

this is all the problems that come with importing anything that is less than

10 years old because for reasons I still don't understand anything less

than 10 years old has to be more scrutinized by the

than anything more than 10 years old through the IBA test

which does seem very backwards and then yeah the amount of

form filling waiting around for IBA

test slots being told that one of the tires has failed so then

you could take it away and amend that and take it back

just goes on and on and on and has literally taken that long and then you can

once you've done that side of the process you can then obviously apply

to the DVLA for registration and then you have to wait to be issued that

and then you obviously have to physically order the plates for it and it takes a while for it to go through

onto the insurance databases so even though you might think it's ready the customer

can't insure it and yeah the story goes on really

yeah so I mean the IBA bit was a real nightmare

as you say wasn't it because I mean like it wasn't just

the grey jimmy that you imported which had a few modifications to look really kind of off-roading

cool I remember that came back into the showroom with like

lots of bits missing from it but weird stuff like it had a little table

in the back for the back seat and that wasn't allowed

that had to be removed for the IBA test because

that had to come off something like that yeah the tyres I don't think had

an EU stamp on them because it had sort of off-road tyres on it

so we had to take those off and yeah as I say it goes on and on

the modifications that either need unmodifying

or just the paperwork side as well my favourite one was that it had

too many indicators yes yeah it was showing

it was turning a corner too much yeah

yeah it was basically because it had the it had like

indicators in the wings and then it also had indicators on the

mirrors and that's not right was yeah that's too much for the IBA

apparently they don't like it they don't know where it's

too much indicating can't be doing it but of course coming down

the track at the minute is this IBA privatisation

I don't think we've talked much about on the podcast or on the website

but so when you've been dealing with the IBAs at the minute they've gone to what

one of five government centres yeah so they have to go to a

designated government run centre by government

employees where even to the point where somebody was telling me that if

you've got a slot for a vehicle and for some reason as a dealer

that vehicle you haven't quite finished the modifications on you can't still use

your slot for another car you can't say well I've got an MOT or

slot so I'll just take it and put this car through because the system doesn't allow

for that so if you miss your slot with that vehicle that's it at the moment

and then you have to you can't well I like the the tester just sits there going

well I could test that but the system doesn't allow me to do

that so I just wait another 12 weeks for the next slot

then because what the guys at Nitschabur have been saying is this it's

moving over to privatisation so they'll be allowing companies

to open up their own IVA centres but there's going to be this gap in the middle

isn't there where nothing will happen and there will be well not nothing but there'll be

a backlog of IVA testing presumably. Does that put you off

the idea of more Jimneys for example for in Japan

or is that a separate thing all together

of maybe you know we've talked before about

you've done quite well out of the Jimneys that you have without going into the exact details of how much money you made

is reasonably profitable and worth bringing in I presume but yes I think

for us we've discussed at length you know what

proportion of our stock should be important I think whilst the numbers are

amazing comparatively on something like the Jimneys we've brought in

we mustn't forget we tied that money up in February. Yeah

we constantly debate well okay we've bought that in February and

absolutely it's paid dividends in October but if we reinvested that same money

in our normal stock profile from Carl how many units would we have turned

with a profit of X that may or may not have out shone the

Jimneys and I think there's now a lot of people on the kind of

Jimney bandwagon bringing them over

will the market eventually become saturated with the supply

or what is the actual demand you know they're fantastic cars they're great fun

but they're not most practical things in the world and it's not like it's going to be the new family

car that everyone's going to buy as it's I think there's definitely a ceiling for the kind of

riding the Jimney wave yes we've just had another one delivered

so let's hope for that

but in terms of more more general impulse less expensive

less niche stuff you are kind of keeping that you've got

back on that bandwagon now haven't you because there was nothing you hadn't ordered any from Japan since

James and I were there basically in February no now we've got a bit mental and I think we've got

eleven ups that we've bought in like a week which we haven't really thought about

and then I think it's like a Christmas present they're all going to turn up at once

around Christmas but yeah I mean trying to get into

the kind of system with it because I definitely think they work and I think that

you know the ups are a great example of the small autos that you just can't get

the same availability of in the UK market with the driving test changes

with more people doing automatic licenses you know I think that kind of thing

they work fantastically well they come over in great condition with an improved

you know enhanced spec and they sort of do fly out

but it is trying to find that rhythm of how many do we buy and when do we buy them

to make sure we've got a nice kind of cycle and supply of them

dripping through each month rather than none for ages and now

ten on their way. Yeah it's a difficult balance

I mean just before I move on to our stories how more generally

is October going we're halfway through now what sort of things are you seeing is it busy

quiet? It's steady I would say September was

manic I think September was our best ever month since starting

October is good it's still happening there's still sales

there's lots of appointments over this weekend but I do think we'll start seeing that steady

decline for Christmas now as we edge ever closer.

Yes so it's about stocking up for January of course isn't it?

There's lots of ups John it's going to be up January.

Well you need one more and then you can do the 12 ups of Christmas.

Perfect. Problem solved.

Right I'm going to start talking about our stories now.

Everyone's alright with that? Good. Yes lovely.

Lovely. We'll be right back. Now a quick word from one of our sponsors

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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.

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to send them. Dealers can find out more at dealerway.co.uk

Now back to the podcast.

So Rebecca and I are going to run through our favourite stories of the week and at the end

Joe gets to decide which one of us chose the best ones and who is the winner.

Apparently I won last week. So I'm going to start

with news from Aston Barclay

and Constellation because of course there's the Aston Barclay

takeover by BCA Constellation whatever you want to call them

it's fundamentally the same thing which has been going on for a little while

I think they announced this a few months ago that they were

planning on doing this and since then the competitions and markets authority have

waded in and said well they're screwed out. We don't really want

you to own another auction house without doing a reasonable

investigation of this. So they

I think it's been at least a month since they started investigating this

and we've heard largely nothing apart from the fact that they've told

Aston Barclay and BCA you cannot merge your two operations

or start jumping staff between the two or

merge any of your systems. It all has to be separate as though you are two separate companies for the moment

even though I think they are actually now

conjoined in some way. But there's been a slight update on this

this week and it's not great news for BCA because

the CMA have referred the case for phase two investigations

they've called it which in effect means

they're going to do more in-depth investigations and more in-depth checks

of how a merger between these two or a purchase

would affect the market or markets

they say because the CMA can investigate something not just on the

strength of how it will affect the whole UK but they can even look individually at

let's say the town of well the city of Leeds

if Leeds has an Aston Barclay and a BCA they can

look at that and say right well that's the central hub for

car auctions in this area is there going to be a problem if all the car auctions

are provided by the same company so

it's all going to get a bit more complicated than we imagined it was going to

already and I think probably BCA was

I would imagine they were hoping this would be wrapped up a bit sooner than this

did you see this Rebecca? Yeah well I was going to ask you some questions because I was trying to

remind myself about exactly the situation but

what are Aston Barclay doing at the moment are they still operating normally

I'm glad you asked me that question because I'm going to type it into Google

Yeah I was thinking that when I was reading the story because I mean they

weren't sorted out isn't it? As I understand it yeah they are still going auctions are still happening

and they've not I assume changed how they do things

they've still got physical auctions unlike BCA so

I guess they've just sort of carried on but of course it's difficult

because my understanding of this was that Aston Barclay

had struggled a little bit more financially than BCA

shall we say and of course all the time that this is on port

like BCA won't have bought them to do nothing with them or they'll have bought them so that they can

do the usual... That was the rumour that I don't know if I've just imagined this but I thought that

Well I think there's some noises were made about because they closed one of

their sites I used Leeds as an example but I think I used Leeds

but it was quite a small auction site just for vans I think

I can't really remember Leeds was a big one wasn't it? Or was it a

second Leeds one? I think it might have been a second one

but anyway I think you know BCA will want to come in and cost cut

and that doesn't necessarily mean removing jobs but it does mean

streamlining of systems and all that sort of stuff is a big behemoth

I want to say well I don't know for example stop

using this particular provider we've got a much better deal with this provider and

whatever that may be for hosting or for

security all kinds of you know day to day boring things that you have to pay

money for and they can't do that. The tech at Aston Barkley is obviously really good

so I'm sure we talk about this at the time I can see a lot

of opportunities putting those two together

but also I do think you sort of look at it

look at the scale of BCA versus the scale of Aston

Barkley and go like is that really going to make that much difference to their

their domination of the market but

yeah I don't really kind of

can't quite fathom why they'd want to have them know Aston Barkley

I know it's not like they're a bad business

it's just they are going to be a small cog in what is a massive machine that BCA

have already got but I suppose when you're

a big company with shareholders as well you need to keep looking at ways to improve your

technology, grow your footprint and all this sort of stuff

it probably is the gross thing isn't it? Yeah even just have more space

for more cars isn't it? I mean the question that is still answered about

all this because it's all on pause is what will happen to turning up to a

physical auction which is not a thing with BCA is a thing of Aston Barkley

oh maybe that's what the thing was in my head about what they were

going to do with them but yeah because what

the truth of it is it's expensive to run a physical auction house isn't it

because you have to put on the teas and coffees and you have to keep the place warm

and etc etc you don't have to do that when it's all

online so I would imagine they'll be keen to make that bit go away

yeah it's funny isn't it when you think about

car dealers who like to go along and smell the fumes and all this sort of stuff to

actually get to grips with the cars but then on the flip side

they want to sell cars almost completely online and want customers to turn up

knowing everything about that car and not needing to know anything else about it

but then go I need to go see it

Exactly Joe what do you reckon?

Yeah I mean just thinking like you were saying to us about you know would we go back to

the huge aren't there and I think as they absorb more and more you hear very

let's say mixed reviews on in particular the BCA auction

and their way of doing things but I think they say it is the way that

it's got to go it's no different to how we buy from some of the other outlets

albeit it's in obviously a much much larger scale

but yeah it's soon going to come to the point that we will not be able to avoid

not using somebody like BCA when they've got that much of the market

but you know perfectly pointed out minimal interactions with our customers

is what we want so why is that different from the buying side

we are definitely hell bent on going and seeing everything

but that's only scalable for us to a certain point so I think it's inevitable

really that we're going to have to join in

Very true sad but true over to Rebecca for another story please

Oh God what am I going to choose first

I was going to choose a story which was

the biggest story or was very popular this week I should say

about could there be more job losses coming Evans Hallshore

because they've closed another pair of Ford dealerships I

can see why this is popular because people get very worried

about this sort of thing but it's a sort of

slightly normal thing we've been seeing with Ford dealerships isn't it too

losing a lot of them but yeah some concerns that

they've closed their sites I'm not even going to try and say where they are

can you say where they are John? I can say the second one which is Batley

Batley I suppose

but yeah so they've got risk of redundancy at these sites and

there's obviously been some contraction hasn't there at

Evans Hallshore since Lydia took over and some people have lost their job so

you could be seeing some more job losses but I don't know if you have any

thoughts on this John. Well like you said I don't know if you can pin this

one on Evans Hallshore itself or on Ford

because I've started to I think I bang

on about this quite a lot how Ford might as well have disappeared from the UK at this point

like it's just contracting contracting contracting

and contracting its products as well like there's less choice

now than there was five years ago certainly

so I don't know I think probably it's more of a Ford thing

this but it doesn't make it any less sad unfortunately.

I saw Capri on the road this week and I thought that's it.

Well do you know what I was looking at the Puma Gen E not in person but on the

internet and because of the lovely grant

not in person I didn't get it.

No more interactions John. Yeah no no more electric cars I'm fine

but like on price it actually undercuts a lot of Chinese stuff because of

this government grant which is now so chunky that I think it's

quite well priced to begin with. That's the one that's got the full grant isn't it?

Correct yeah so they might have a bit of a

shot with that but of course that's still an electric car

I just find it so sad all the Ford stuff because you just think about how many

people were just like I will buy a Ford like didn't even need

convincing they were just going to at the end of their contract

they were going to be buying another Ford. They liked their local dealer

and I suppose you can't hang on to customers forever because people don't last forever but

you have like very strong you look shocked at that statement

No I agree with you I absolutely agree with you.

But yeah I just think it's really sad that you see that and

the same vein like not that I love Vauxhall's but I think the same thing with Vauxhall's

like there are a lot of people who just love their local dealer and

they trusted the product and now we're seeing less of them

Yeah and that all impacts the whole cycle

And I know as you say it's almost an old fashioned way of looking at it which is that

probably from the 70s to the 90s or the 90s everyone just kept

buying the same make that their parents bought etc etc

but also I think there was a consistency and I think that's just gone out the window now

Yeah you know I think the same like Vauxhall are making probably

well it's certainly a better range of cars than Ford are

but they've changed quite a lot I would say a Vauxhall now doesn't

really feel like a Vauxhall. Well no because really it's a Peugeot isn't it

most of them and maybe it's not but

yeah whereas Ford I sort of feel like they've completely lost the plot

I don't well actually to be fair the new ones I do like the look of but the sort of

previous gen Puma and stuff I just

they all just look horrible to me so they just went lost their way with it but yeah

Fiesta and Focus were good looking cars even Mondeo I think was

a good looking car

and now we're moving towards more boring electric cars

I actually don't think the new Ford's look that boring but I just don't

feel like a Capri not being a Capri. No I know and it's

fundamental VW isn't it I'm sorry to say. Yes. Joe what do

you make of the contraction well this story but the

contraction of Ford and Vauxhall and someone in the UK

Yeah I think like Beck was saying you know that we've spoken many a time

weren't we with the kind of brand loyalty thing for people is definitely disappearing now

and the kind of age old of like you say buying a Ford because your parents had a Ford

it from the local dealer called Adam down the road who's looked after you for years that you know I just

think even from our side you know trying to have that brand loyalty either

to a brand or vehicle or to a dealership just isn't the way of the world

anymore and you know you never want to hear about job losses and anything but

people are less likely to actually go to these big sites and

buy things you know everything's trying to be done online and running dealerships and stuff

as expensive isn't it so I think as you know as horrible as it is

for the people losing their roles you can kind of see how the world is going that

people don't want to go and look at a car and be spoken to by a human they want to look at it

on a screen and watch a YouTube video and turn up to have minimal interaction with

other humans which is sad really and ultimately does

end in less humans being needed in certain elements of the process

I guess you guys don't really buy Fords as well do you

or at least certain Fords and I wonder if that is partly

paid into in particularly like owner's minds where they would have

had some issues like you I thought you were blaming us for the reason they were closing then

no what I mean is that they don't have I mean I'm not that

Fords like had a long history of being known as a reliable

brand it's like fix the repair daily isn't it but

I don't I do think when I just like say that was satire

if any of Fords lawyers are

I think that's fair comments

yeah slightly rusty but yeah but anyway I just mean that

I can't even remember which particular engine it is that James is scared of

he's very anti the eco boost engines

which I'm less anti because they are very popular and I get that there is

problems with them but sometimes I drive around and see

hundreds of fiestas stuck on the side of the road because they've all gone bang

same about Land Rover but I still wouldn't buy one of them

you do see a lot of them on low levels though going back to dealerships

just being delivered Joe just being delivered

that's a delivery transporter

I'm gonna move us on before the lawyers get involved so

I'm gonna move us on to a story about Kevin Mackie who is back in the news

slightly this week so this is gonna be a difficult one for me to try

to go through with not much caffeine in my brain but

he's taking the ways continuing his legal fight against

Renault, Nissan and RCI which is there it's the Renault

finance company which also Nissan use

because I mean we've covered this before but very brief bit of background

he was a long standing Renault and Nissan dealer

and he alleges that one day Renault pulled

funding from his site and locked him out of all his

well not locked him out of all the systems but stops him being able to order any cars

etc etc which is quite difficult if you're a Renault dealer to suddenly

not be able to order any Renaults or offer any Renault finance for example

so that's quite tricky so he's been through various legal

steps with this I think this is on like court case number 4

now but we're starting to see some of the statements

coming out from both him and Renault and Nissan

and RCI in terms of

what's been going on and I mean the story we've got here is that

Renault and Nissan have said as part of their defence that they are not obligated

to supply cars to dealers which

is interesting because I suppose that may

strictly be true you know somewhere in the contract I'm sure that is the case

but that will come as you know reading that sort of statement

comes as a bit of a blow to all the dealers

you would think it'd be a bit like if you had a KFC franchise and KFC said to you

well we're not obligated to actually sell you any chicken you know you could

just have a shop that says KFC over the top and not

actually be able to sell anything so I can understand

the frustration here I mean this has had some

reception but I'll just I'll read out the actual legal

statement so the defence from Renault and Nissan RCI etc

it says it depends on an assumption that the dealer

agreements entitle Macky Motors to receive certain minimum

of cars or parts from Renault and Nissan absent

such entitlement Renault could simply refuse to supply any cars or parts ordered

by Macky Motors by the platform services

but in other words yeah you don't have any rights to order anything

what do you think of this Rebecca? Well I was going to tie this back into

a few things we've talked about but this is the going back to

why would you want a franchise to have someone take it away from you

in the same way we've seen in the previous story I mean you don't know the whole situation

with the four dealerships where they might have gone actually we don't want this anymore

but still to when you have a deal like that

it's not like the KFC example you're the person

in the shop and you have to buy the stuff from them to be able to sell them you're not the customer coming in and going

oh no actually I don't want this I'm gonna go buy a burrito or something

stay instead so to turn someone's

business off fundamentally because you are the only supply

to their business with like no notice I don't

think that's right you would have like at least a wind down period

for them to be able to operate normally whilst there's an investigation

but on the flip side I understand that they had concerns

that it was money laundering or whatever and they have to do

what they have to do to protect themselves in that situation I don't think it was done right

and they're obviously not going to turn around now and go we hold our hands up have

5 million pounds compensation for the fact we

trade our business into the ground but that's right so I just

don't think I'm on that so Renault or RCI or Nissan I can't remember

allege that they were investigating Mackie motors for

potential money laundering so that's how this is all come about

but I'm just going to read the statement from RCI which is the bank which said that it

values its relationships with its dealers very highly and pointed to previous

court decisions they said we're not able to comment

further on ongoing litigation however it's not worth noting that

the courts including the High Court and the Court of Appeal found in favour of our actions

regarding Mackie motors

Renault has also said that it's seeking to dismiss the latest proceedings at the earliest opportunity

etc etc and Nissan has said

three separate courts including the Court of Appeal have dismissed Mackie motors claim

etc etc etc we intend to see the dismissal so they're all singing from the same

hymn sheet on this but I suppose you've got a difference between

what is legal and what is moral haven't you yeah and I do think

I mean I don't I'm not speaking on behalf of Kevin Mackie but

I do think a lot of the reason he keeps fighting is because he just wants to clear his name

yeah I'm sure it's obviously not a not a nice position

that he's been put into that his family business was sold off and

lost in a matter of months or whatever

but yeah to keep fighting it in court I don't think I'd be it's a better man than me

I think I would have given up a long time ago trying to go up against those big businesses

Joe not to make you comment on a very complicated story

but would you like to put yourself in legal hot water buying out

absolutely just on James's behalf but no I mean it's yeah it's back to like

you were saying earlier isn't it that whole kind of new car dealership and quite rightly

you know if there's no smoke without fire maybe but whatever's gone on there to

have the ability to strip someone's livelihood and business so instantly

left with a empty showroom that's being dressed in the way that these manufacturers

dictate and such like is seems pretty unfair as you say

whether there's some some wrong doings down there or not but again never nice

to hear of having your whole business ripped away by by one supplier or

one manufacturer overnight basically

yes not ideal over to Rebecca

I am going to talk about another court case

but of course dieselgate has gone to high court this week

dieselgate I know

it's back in court I feel like Joe has employees that are younger

than dieselgate I look back and I remember

it's happening and I think like how are we still talking about this

but I guess people just keep bringing

this is over a million motorists

major global car makers accused of using technology to manipulate emission

test results and we've done a couple of stories on

this this week because obviously it's been ongoing and

they accused them of

basically saying that car makers would rather do bend the law

to sell cars than

do what's right which I think was a bit cutting

but yeah I mean they obviously want to win lots of money off them

but yeah it's just

I just can't believe we're still talking about this like I know it's awful to say

because obviously people were lied to and that's why they're upset

but you didn't know what was happening and your car was more efficient and saved you money

because of it can you just take that as a win for now

well my thing with this is so this is being

the day

which represents some of the motorists actually in this case

but this is all the sort of stuff you see on google ads on

I just don't want to see them anymore

if so you might be entitled to compensation

there's a lot of well I think

there's five manufacturers in this but it

there's a lot of a lot of manufacturers could be affected by this

I mean the list we've actually I don't know

it's Mercedes, Renault, Nissan, Ford, Peugeot and Citroën who are particularly in this case

but other manufacturers

of course are likely to be bound by whatever the ruling in that particular case is

so the funny thing

but the strange thing about this is how actually

all of these manufacturers are in there how it all got centered around VW

well yeah it obviously all got

centered around VW because they I don't know if you remember the thing that

kicked it off was the that German car magazine come in which one but they

took it apart to like properly test it to find out what was happening so they were the one that it was

like they are definitely doing it and

but I guess also a lot of people buy what I mean when you look at like

Nissan with Renault on the list as well

Renault is on the list and Mercedes they obviously share technology with oh no they don't share

they share technology they don't share technology

do they with VW in any way no

but yeah you can see how a lot of manufacturers

do share technology so you might have used something

how do you prove exactly what was

doing yeah anyway I just think this is the

you may remember when I saw you last John I had a rant about Chris Packers

you need to rant about Chris Packers

Chris Packers but I just

it annoys me so much that car makers are

the like held responsible for

pollution in this world when there are so many

companies in other areas of the market or like mainly

packaging is the one that annoys me

airplanes are sort of affected big like shipping containers they don't seem to

really factor into how polluting they are so many things

that like farming obviously they come under it they people

say farming you're not doing that well enough but these businesses where it's like

sucking the life out of them but Chris Packers which cannot be recycled for some reason

and can be very easily replaced with paper which can break

down for some reason that's too much effort to make them change

same thing with paper straws you've got to paper straws

have to be done but leave the little plastic there on top

that's very true that is very true it's just like it's the hypocrisy

that gets to me and this is the reason I just think it all boils down to diesel gate

and the fact that you can see the fumes coming out as a back of cars

it's very easy to go oh yeah I see that that's the pollution over there

not the big factories making plastic where it goes in the

ground and doesn't break down I suppose if I'm just going to be contrarian for a minute

yeah I suppose all the other stuff is much

slower in terms of effects because we just send all our

Chris Packers off to landfill we don't see

that's a problem for the next few decades that's not for us right

now whereas if you're driving around in

diesel set Alhambra in London and it's pumping out more

knocks than it should be then you can point to well all these

children playing outside in the playgrounds are going to be getting asthma etc

which I think is a thing

yeah so

I do agree I just don't think I don't understand why I do understand

I also don't think it's fair that car manufacturers are demonised in such a way

and forced to change the way they do things when other people are

I think it's fine if everybody's forced to change that's fine

but if you're going to force car makers to change and re-read all of their factories

and their production and change everything over and tell them what they have to sell

then why can't it be done for other people

what I would level at this is that my frustration

is that maybe some people and you know when this all kicked off

I remember watching like ITV and the Tonight program came on

with or without Trevor McDonald and it was you know somebody had bought

a Alhambra or a you know big MPV thing from VW Group

and was saying oh it's an eco motive on the back and I was

I'm really shocked and upset to hear that it's actually quite polluting

and da da da da da da and I sort of think I

don't think you genuinely thought that at the time and I

just wonder how many people in this lawsuit are not there for

ecological reasons I think they're there because they've seen a Google ad saying

they can have 700 hbs is the bottom line of it and I would

tally that with the amount of cars that you see driving around with no DPF

because there's clouds and clouds of diesel

smoke coming out the back that wouldn't have been there from the factory

so yeah I just

I think on also that

I just find it ridiculous that car makers now put so much stress on being eco

friendly when it could all come around again

and they'll be like well those kind of electric cars you were selling they weren't really eco friendly were they

because you're building them in big factories and they're made of all these things aren't very good

well it's like I said it's emissions somewhere else in the world

made by slaves somewhere

allegations

diesel gates

I don't want to say too strongly because I drive personally around in a

prime example of a diesel get car and like Beck I find it crazy that

in the world we live I can now go on Facebook and put a claim in against a car manufacturer

that I bought and have benefited from the low road

I really haven't paid as much tax from my vehicle and now I want some more

money back and tell me I should have paid more like

what a world we live in we yeah there was obviously some stuff done

and bits and pieces when they manufactured them and the ones that did

manage to kind of get around the emissions testing but again with the I just

don't think it's the biggest fight we need to be fighting at the moment there's some much bigger players

out there that need to be dealt with before we're wired about my

Audi A3 and what emissions it's kicked out

why people worrying when they could be going after car dealers you didn't

pay too much commission there's so many places

that people give you money these days

I see mad as I say fill in a form in Facebook to get paid to be

reconciled for less money that you've spent on a car that was less tax

it's madness

and of our stories I think so

sorry thank god

they were so difficult

you know it's just time

so Joe before I ask your verdict are there any stories you think we've missed this week

I mean I didn't see a headline about you winning your lovely award at Auto Trader

obviously it's yet to go that actually hasn't brought this will be the press release

for that news John so if you want to be the first to write that news story

I can send you the names on that immediately

with the award very shortly if that will help

I think you've picked out the good ones from this week there's nothing that

became glaring when I had a look through this morning

so I'm going to have to ask you who chose the best stories or

who is your winner or what's your favorite story any of those three is fine

Rebecca was definitely one this week for me with the dieselgate story

I'm a strong believer in most of her views that she echoed there

and also about the crisp packets weirdly and also it was the last

story so easiest to remember yeah I can't that's the one that's really

stuck in my mind thank you I was really hoping you'd

strongly agree with most of your views and then just open a packet of waters

if I had some to hand I definitely would

I am part of the problem but I get very angry every time I eat them

well on that very strange note

all that's left for me to say is thank you to Joe for joining

us today and taking an hour out of your day from washing

tiny Japanese cars and putting them on auto

it's been lovely to see you as ever thanks for coming on

thank you very much good to see you as always lovely staff and thank you

well to Rebecca nice to see you to see you nice

and thank you for listening we'll be back next week with another episode

so make sure you're subscribed so you can be notified when that goes live

if you want to check out the stories you mentioned today take a look in the show notes below

or head to cardiomagazine.co.uk thanks for listening and goodbye

Dieselgate is back, BCA's Aston Barclay purchase under more scrutiny, and why Rebecca is angry about crisp packets – with Joe Wallington, episode 227

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