EV grant comes under criticism, Citroen extends airbag recall, and Shifting Metal dealership to close – with Will Blackshaw, episode 219

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

You might have mentioned it, yeah.

Well, they're online six days a week. They're getting 20,000 fresh vehicles in every month.

It's actually one of my best sources of quality stock. Listings have got plenty of

photos, service history and background checks for peace of mind. And you can pay sellers

in a click with Carwell wallet. They even transport your car with built-in protection

of up to £25,000.

Well, that's more than you'll 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, it's only James Baggart.

James, it's new with you.

What's new with me, Jon?

Hello. Nice to see you.

Yeah, nice to see you.

What's new with me?

Lots of stuff been going on.

I've been spending most of my week, Jon, on the Car Dealer Podcast live preparation, which

is, I'm going to scale you now, just four weeks away.

It's a bit more than four weeks away, but yeah.

Next week is four weeks away, isn't it, so.

It's next month, yeah.

It's coming soon, which has been stressing me out a little bit.

But we always forget to talk about it, don't we?

So, which is meant I've forgotten to write about it a lot, but it's coming up on

September the 24th in Abendon, isn't it?

In Oxfordshire, tickets are available, but we've got some we've got some good people

there this year.

We're just trying to find the last remaining guest.

I'm looking for a good independent dealer.

But at the moment, we've got Matt Galvin, who is the head of Jon.

Polestar, thank you.

Yeah, so you have been paying attention.

And Vicky Hart, who's the marketing director for Waylands.

So we've got a manufacturer there of electric cars, which will be which will be

interesting and Vicky's going to be given an interesting opinion,

because Waylands have been on a bit of a bit of a charge over the last few years.

So interesting to hear what's what's going on there.

But yeah, it's a bit more of a social catch up, isn't it, the podcast live?

Yeah, I would say so.

Of course, it's all kind of you sit in a room and listen to us for,

I don't know, about an hour.

Oh, well, that's not that long.

It's not really.

And our interesting guests.

But then you're herded outside to be fed with delicious food from a barbecue,

hopefully outside, because that was the idea last year and it was nice and sunny.

His batch cook in there.

Hey, his batch cook in there on the barbecue.

Because he'll have his legs out.

Yes. And of course, there is a lovely bar conveniently located just behind our room.

So yeah, it's a great catch up event, isn't it?

And you get to see lots of people that you don't tend to see,

particularly after a long summer break.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

I am very much looking forward to it just around the corner.

But I actually I genuinely don't know this, even though I made some notes

because I need to remember some stuff to talk about.

But where do people get tickets from?

Well, James, I'm glad you asked that.

They get it's from the bit underneath this podcast.

So if you're listening on Spotify,

there's a link as there has been for the last few weeks.

There's also a link on the website.

There certainly will be one of those podcasters uploaded to do it from our home page as well.

And don't forget to use the discount code PIKENTO

not to get a small Korean car from James, although those are available,

but to get a percentage off the percentage of which I've gone.

But that's an exclusive for podcast listeners.

Excellent. Excellent.

Do you want a little bit of dealership news before we introduce our guest?

Nope. I'm going to give it to you anyway.

So do you remember our Troublesome Mazda CX-5 that bounced back last week

after we spent thousands and thousands of pounds trying to fix it?

The customer lost all confidence in it

and we had to buy it back for pretty much what we sold it for.

This was the just to remind everyone,

this was the 2.2 litre diesel Mazda CX-5 from whatever year it was.

It was 2014.

He told you I explicitly told you do not buy one of those.

And then I think it was Shea from Nichebo said do not buy one of those.

And then what did you do, James?

Well, I bought one of those, didn't I?

It's got a very high retail rating.

So it and it's sold within hours of us listed it at the first point

and has caused us no end of trouble ever since.

Very, very frustrating.

I mean, I think the engine might be made of chocolate

because it just keeps breaking.

So yeah, we got it back

because after we spent another few thousand pounds

putting new turbos on it or something, the DPF went.

So I decided to sell it for spares or repairs this week.

So we sold it for half the usual price, half retail price on

in the spares or repairs advert.

Honestly, the phone did not stop ringing.

We could have sold it 10 times for that price.

The man who came to pick it up was quite possibly the scariest man

I've ever seen in my life.

Now, I've, John, as you know, got quite big hands.

This guy.

Why would I know that?

Because I showed you.

But this guy had honestly had like dinner plate sized hands.

He was at least another foot taller than me.

He was of Eastern European descent, possibly mafia.

And he just and he just said to me when he turned up, he said,

he didn't ask any questions about the car.

He just said, will it get me home?

And I said, I really don't know if it's going to get you home.

But please just give me the money to leave.

And he did give me the money, but he didn't leave.

He just sat outside the dealership with the car running for 25 minutes,

which was possibly the scariest 25 minutes of my life.

He did eventually go and we haven't heard from him since.

But if I suddenly disappeared, John, you know why?

Look for a man in a CX-5 possibly broken down outside the road.

Maybe this is a new business model for you.

Just exclusively sell broken cars,

because if they go that quickly, I mean,

the spares or a pair of things is a little bit of a weird one

because it's a very gray area.

You know, you have to be very honest about what the condition of the car

that it's obviously a trade sale, which you can't do to a member of the public

unless you're like really open and honest about all of the problems it's got.

I mean, we've got this long agreement that we have.

We get them to sign, which basically says,

I'm not even a driver away from the dealership.

I mean, once we give them the keys sort of

and they've got ownership of it, it's sort of up to them.

Yeah. So really, James, when he said, will it get me home?

You actually said, no, it won't because you're going to trailer it away, aren't you?

Yeah, that's exactly what I said, John.

Just checking for anyone.

Yeah, he was a very scary man and hopefully I'll never see him again.

But yeah, that's about it really. It's been quite quiet.

He's obviously middle of August, which is sort of like I suspect

that's probably time of the year, but still

never means I don't question what I'm doing every time the phone doesn't ring.

But yes, anyway, enough of that boring story.

Let's move on to our guest.

Yes. So joining us this week is Will Blackshaw, boss of, of course,

dealer group Blackshaws. Nice to see you, Will.

Pleasure to be back.

It seems like it's been a long time since we last went through a podcast.

But obviously, I know you get plenty of guests coming through,

which is always a pleasure to listen to them as well every Friday

and see what we can learn each week.

But I don't think I'll learn much myself this week, because obviously it'll be myself.

You can teach me a thing or two.

You're a podcast veteran, aren't you, Will?

You've been on a few times, but thank you for coming back and chatting to us.

You're reaching a bit of a milestone on you at the moment.

Yes. So last month, excuse me, last month,

yeah, July, 25 years stroke in the family business, stroke the industry.

Literally don't know anything else, would never work anywhere else,

apart from being a part-time pizza boy when I was an apprentice,

straight at the top of my wage.

So, yeah, 25 years, which unfortunately, nobody sort of acknowledged it work.

I had to celebrate it myself.

We celebrate other members of staff.

But obviously, unfortunately, there was no balloons or cake on the desk

when I came in, so never mind.

Hopefully for 30 years, I might see something,

but scary how quickly it's went, to be honest.

And I'll be honest, I still enjoy it.

You know, sometimes you think after 25 years, do you fancy a change?

But I do go into work every day looking forward to it

and still love the industry as much as I did the first day.

Still not a fan of cars, if I'm honest, but still enjoying it.

The, you know, when new product comes out, you know,

the marketing element, the CSI element, and I do like a good graph

and how can we improve things, not from a financial point of view

as such in terms of greed, but just from a challenge point of view.

So that's what I enjoy the, say, the analytics side of it all.

What over those 25 years, Will, what would you say

has been the biggest change, do you think?

Oh, I think the industry has generally improved, you know,

I think it was last week's podcast, possibly, or the week before

where somebody had mentioned on the terms of, you know,

there is still sadly a few bad dealers out there

whom take the industry, but I think the industry

is a lot, lot more professional.

I do think everyone that is in the industry

wants to do a very, very good job.

You know, I think we've caught up in probably

taking digital much further than, obviously,

we've all went through the period of trying to purchase

or rent a property and you look at the photography of houses,

which are like, let's see, I don't know,

say an average £200,000 house, maybe, so it's an average.

And there's like 30 pictures and we're selling cars

with 50 pictures and very good video walk arounds.

I tried to buy a camper van a few years ago

and I was astonished at how poor the imagery was compared to the car.

Bear in mind, again, camper vans at the time,

probably average price, £40,000, £60,000 for a second hand camper van.

And I think we are a lot more professional.

I do think we use data very, very well now.

AI, I know you've touched on and I joked about

when you first started with your AI project,

I was expecting a clocks and form sort of element,

but I think we're using data very, very well now.

And I think people, the scale of people are very good.

You know, technicians as an example, you know,

having to learn the EV side of things versus the ICE side of things.

And, you know, I think most of them have adapted very well to that

and taken it on well.

Service advisors, again, used to be a handwritten diary.

There's your invoice, but now they're dealing with data

and multiple computer systems on a daily basis.

So I think the skill sets are a lot higher as well.

The fundamental selling of cars, I still think,

you know, it's a facilitating a deal.

I don't mean that in a rude way,

because customers now know what they want.

They've done the research, they know what the car's worth,

which, you know, everyone knows all this anyways,

but, you know, it is about not selling cars to people.

It's supporting them when buying a car.

So, you know, if you look at our reviews,

our culture very much is not a pushy sales environment,

because I don't think it works anymore.

So I think you've just got to, again, listen to people,

whether it's your customers or your staff,

and, you know, keep them happy.

And it really is as simple as that.

People keep saying, you know, what's your success?

If you can keep everyone happy, which is easier said than,

don't, don't get me wrong.

Because, you know, you give people what they all say,

and you give them an inch to take a mile at times,

you know, as long as you're nice to people,

they'll deal with you.

And I think that's, it's as simple as that.

Will remind those people listening,

just a little bit about your business,

who might not have listened to the podcast before.

Just explain, you know, who you're representing,

how it's set up.

Yeah, so we're based in North North Thumbland,

in the town of Annick,

which I'll say people I've never heard of,

but everyone seems to have visited there

for summer holidays,

and it's famous for the Annick Castle,

which is home of the first Harry Potter film.

Apparently, I've never watched Harry Potter,

but that's what I'm told.

John's a massive fan.

Yeah, so started in 1919,

so 106 years old now as a business.

Myself and my sister are 50-50 shareholders.

We inherited it from our dad.

So we're the fourth generation.

And obviously, over that time,

multiple franchises started with a little garage

in the town centre.

We're now on an enterprise park on the edge of town,

representing MG and Suzuki,

which we built a new showroom there 15 years ago,

sort of purpose-built.

And then we expanded into the town of Morpeth,

which is basically halfway between

the top of North Thumbland and the city of Newcastle,

where we started as a Mitsubishi dealership,

but obviously they left the UK several,

seems like a couple of years ago,

but I think it's getting on for four or five years now,

possibly, where we added on Sanyong,

which obviously rebranded as KGM.

So two sites, 12 staff at the Morpeth site,

approximately 40 staff at the annex site,

workshop, MOT, body shop, really big, big setup.

But I am very, very lucky with the staff that we've got

to the point where I've got 100% trust in all of them.

They've got sort of flexibility to do their deals

as a salesperson from start to finish.

There's no sort of business manager,

or they've got autonomy to handle deals.

And the salesman that we've got the least experience,

he's been with us almost 10 years.

So they've kind of built their own business

within a business almost, and the customers trust them.

The service manager is excellent,

general manager is excellent,

and the business more or less runs very well

without me sort of.

To be honest, when I get involved,

I usually just call it bother,

because I stopped going to look to change things,

and I am very lucky.

We've got a good reputation in the area,

or CSI is the highest it's ever been.

I'm really proud of what we've achieved, to be honest.

But from this, I've got to go looking for things to do,

just to keep myself occupied,

and probably getting the way, to be honest.

You and your sister took it over from your parents.

Do you want your kids to do the same?

Like my son, my lesson,

he's only just turned nine and my daughter's 14.

She's definitely got no interest today.

If they would like to, then obviously we will do,

but I think we're 10 years away from being at that period.

What does the industry look like in 10 years?

It does worry me a little bit with EV,

and will it become more of a,

everyone will be on contract hire, potentially.

I don't know.

I think there'll always be a market for second-hand cause.

But up until the age of 15,

and I know we've had this story over the years,

I had no interest in the family business when I was 15.

My vision was to go and work in IT,

which is probably why I like the analytical side

of the business more so than the cause element.

So I don't know what the future will hold.

I think it'd be nice for them to come into the business,

but I know for a fact I won't push them.

They've got to decide what their career path is.

Hopefully they're not,

and then I can sell out and buy my yacht and sail away.

Yeah, the dream, the dream.

You mentioned there about data

and how you use it in your business.

How does it help the franchise side?

I mean, obviously I focus it very much

on the use car business.

It's helped us hugely.

How do you use it?

I think obviously franchise,

we represent the three franchises from a new perspective.

There's probably not that one.

Well, I tell you why, there is data in terms of market share.

So if you take any of the three,

we can see what our sales are versus the other brands.

We know who our competition is,

which then helps dictate what use cars to buy.

So pre-COVID, we wouldn't sell a car that we didn't,

as a used one that we wouldn't represent.

We'd only sell used cars of the brands we represented.

Obviously after COVID,

and then we went into the semiconductor issue

and all the various issues when new cars supply.

So we had to start selling anything and everything.

So we can look at what cars are selling in our area.

Obviously North North Thumblint versus Central Lunding,

it's going to be totally different use car.

We can use the CSI data very well.

So regardless of what car they've bought,

was the site presentable, was parking easy.

You get the feedback from what the customers are saying

to improve the customer service.

And doing this wrong 99 times out of 100,

it's always just praise, praise, praise.

But there is that odd thing where,

like we took the newspapers out of the waiting area

because during COVID,

because people didn't obviously want to touch

what other people were touching.

And we forgot all about it

because it just kind of disappeared.

But then you do get the odd comment.

I do miss having the papers in the waiting area.

So it's little things like that,

which you can use staff as it sounds.

You can use the CSI data for reporting of used stocks.

Obviously the big one, overage new stock.

Sometimes it's too easy to forget about

which bits of a new stock are in the compound at the back

because you're just looking at showroom presentation.

So we're using data in all elements,

parts, department, overage stock,

what parts are now over six month old.

Cause again, sitting in a dusty wheel bearing on the shelf.

Get the reports from overage parts stock.

So can we get it on eBay?

What does it fit?

Can you get it into a Facebook forum page

for an enthusiast who thinks they're picking up a bargain?

So we use it all day every day.

And to be honest, I've probably got too much data coming in

where I'm not looking at enough of it

and make my day a bit boring, to be honest.

Well, I often see you on LinkedIn or social media

looking for new suppliers or new ideas.

Have you picked up any good tips?

Have you found anything that way

that you could share with us?

Like the yellow page is obviously gone now.

So I refer to that as my yellow pages.

But yeah, quick example, Christ,

I'm making my son so low, right geek here.

So we've got our management accounts

and I just thought it's not pretty enough.

I want it prettier.

And again, through Suzuki, they set this dashboard system

where it showed you your market share,

your customer satisfaction, mystery shops.

And this dashboard was so pretty.

And I was like, I want a dashboard like that for my data.

So I reached out and I was put in touch

with a gentleman called Pete Smith.

I think his business is BI navigation.

So we now then send our reports in Microsoft BI

and make the reports just really, really pretty,

which I didn't even know existed.

And I've got the same data,

but it's just in a prettier format now.

So that was a good win with Pete,

really, really good guy.

That was probably the most recent one.

I'm trying to think of other ones,

but just things like waste contacts,

stuff that sound unconscious

of trying to make us stand out in a digital forum,

selling used cars, where, where based,

you obviously got your honor clocks and your virtues,

whom, you know, they're hard to compete with

because they do a very good job.

But I was like, let's go to school.

Let's get a leaflet drop done.

I'm thinking, how do you do a leaflet drop?

Like, where do you start?

Are you allowed to?

Is it legal?

How many chimney pots?

So you reached out on LinkedIn

and then a message through,

there's a woman called Kath,

called Kath through your door,

who does leaflet dropping.

And there's another one, you know,

which if you Google leaflet dropping,

it's, you just find all these big national companies

and you're thinking, well,

will they actually do the job?

So that was another quick win the other day,

but I do think it's a great way of getting sort of

suppliers, but from trusted sources.

Did the leaflet drop work?

We're just waiting on the print being finished.

This is literally hot off the press.

So I'll keep you updated on that.

But my conscious concern, sorry,

is when you get home and there's five or six leaflets

through the door, you put them in the bin.

So I want to try and make it,

so it's just hours and hours only.

And just, I think, is there still a bit of an opportunity

with good old fashioned leaflet drop?

I reckon so.

I've been actually thinking about the same,

but I actually had some created,

but just never dropped them.

No, it's just been using them as coasters

for the last six months.

Yeah.

As far as I got, maybe I should just go and fly to them somewhere.

Anyway, when it comes to AI, Will,

are you using that at all?

Have you found anything useful there?

For me, AI is the,

I know there's more to AI than me to AI.

And I have to admit, I feel a little bit sort of

on the back foot with it with chat, GEP, et cetera.

I can't even pronounce it,

but I do love the live chats

and we work with one supplier

whom they changed the way

that we're getting their data in the background.

So it wasn't answering the questions quite how I wanted to.

And I think it's that thing.

If it's not 100% right, don't do it.

So I have had conversations with the supplier again

about, look, how can we fix my concerns?

So again, it's one that we will reimplement

from a live chat point of view.

I know a few other suppliers,

I did speak to another supplier

and he gave us a price and I just thought,

I thought it was too much money for what it was.

So I don't want to mention the supplier at the minute

because I feel it's a bit unfair

that I was working with them and not working with them.

But I think there's definitely an opportunity there.

We have been using it through the Auto Trader portal,

I tell a lie, with the vehicle descriptions,

which I think is pretty cool.

I'll be honest, I don't probably read them enough.

I'm hoping that what they put is good.

So to me, AI though, is just a live chat element.

So probably not using it enough to be honest.

So an opportunity there for us, I think.

And where are the biggest stresses

at the moment in the business?

Stress.

I don't get too stressed, if I'm honest.

I think I've matured a lot over the years.

I think I used to overthink everything.

Maybe it's an element of anxiety kicking in

where I was trying too hard to please everybody,

which I keep going back to my earlier point,

I think it's important to keep people happy,

but you've got to understand where the boundary is.

And I am very, very lucky with staff.

I think probably the most stress

is coming from having EV demos.

And then seeing, I think EVs are excellent,

but it's that sort of, oh no,

here's another demo coming, here's another demo.

Well, that's probably where we feel a bit of pain

is a manufacturer franchise dealership

having to let the EV demos drop off and they use stock.

But once they're a used vehicle

and the price point is correct, they sell very well,

it's just that initial bit of pain

in every six months of demo changes.

I do find a lot in this business

that there's so many different elements

that stress you out.

I mean, I think the one that I really,

I've really struggled with these customers,

which is obviously it's like the main part

of the business, isn't it?

But I just find that sometimes their expectations

and their demands are far greater than you can achieve.

And we try our absolute best to look after customers.

But I, and talking to other dealers in the game,

a lot of people find the same thing.

Do you find that element stressful?

I've got, as I said before,

and I have got very, very good stuff.

And you know, you go on courses

and you meet other people.

And you think, I feel my stuff

are very, very superior.

And I don't mean that in a big headed way.

I just mean in terms of you've got a benchmark

people against other people,

that's the only way you can do it.

And you know, I've got an excellent

after sales manager, excellent service lead,

excellent general manager.

So very little bit gets to my desk,

but when it does, I kind of just take a step back

and quick example at the minute,

I've got a customer whom has had nothing

but bother with one of his vehicles.

It's his second vehicle purchase from us.

He's had every service and MOT done with us.

And he's saying, look, I want,

I just don't want the car anymore.

And he came in, sat down, very polite.

We had a coffee, proper sort of chat about it, you know.

And he's saying, I want your help.

Can you help me?

So we're actively trying to find an alternative car for him.

Literally as of this morning,

this was with ongoing conversations.

So the point where we will not make any money

changing the car.

And the customer is seeing us as helping them.

And then on the flip side of that,

I've got a customer whom is trying to sue us

for thousands of pounds.

We didn't supply the car to have the sales issue.

And I just straight away,

just refer them to the MOT ombudsman

and let them deal, you know, put all my evidence across.

And I think the MOT ombudsman is very, very good.

I'll be honest,

because they take that burden away for you.

So if the customer's right,

in my opinion, correct, I'll work with the customer.

If they're going to be aggressive or rude or nasty,

I'll just push them to the ombudsman.

It's not fair on the staff.

And another quick example,

getting back to staff.

We had an issue with one of our suppliers

whom had let us down, sadly,

where the member of staff got the burden of it.

So I've actually changed that supplier.

It's going to cost me more money.

But my staff's going to be happy I using that supplier

because they're not going to get the burden.

Obviously, I can't dwell too much on that

because it would be unprofessional.

But I'm always about the people to me.

And I love working with nice people.

I like helping nice customers.

And if they're going to be awkward, just push them away.

And if it costs you a bit of money to get it gone,

just pay the money.

And go back to your question before stress, frustration.

I think I've learned over the years,

get rid of the problem as quickly as possible.

And if it costs a bit of money, it's money well spent

because you go home at night

and I used to take my problems home at night.

And it wasn't fair the way I used to handle myself

outside of work, especially at your loved ones.

And I've learned you don't do that now.

And I think, I mean, personally, I feel in a good place, you know.

It's all too easy to do that.

And I certainly did that

when I started Clever Car Collection.

And it's just, what we need to do is get to the stage

where the customers using AI to make their complaint.

We're using AI to deal with the complaint.

At the end, AI tells us how to resolve it.

That's what we need.

That's a good challenge.

The other question is, as an independent franchise dealer,

how do you cope when the manufacturers are up and says,

you need to spend X amount of money on new chairs

or you need to spend X amount of money on a new totem pole?

I just, looking from outside in as an independent,

I would find that incredibly hard to deal with

because it's quite hard to plan for, et cetera.

How do you deal with it?

Because as I say, we've had a few franchises over the years.

You kind of know it's expected at times.

Luckily, the brands we work with,

there's been nothing ridiculous.

We've just had to do some more work for one of our partners,

which, you know, it's costing me about £20,000

to do some internal works.

But you look at that over the number of cars

you're gonna sell,

number of years you plan to be with that franchise.

Obviously, it's a long-term investment.

And I think the realistic, it's expensive at the time,

but generally the stuff you're buying is very good quality.

Like, I go back to some desks,

we had to buy many, many, many years ago

and the day we threw them out,

we've got a silly video of the salesman

sitting on the desk on the back of a trailer,

taking it at the tip,

pretending we're doing mobile sales,

probably not the best for health and safety.

And when you look back,

you think that desk probably lasted 10, 12 years

versus a desk there, say, from IKEA.

It's probably not, you know,

you're buying good quality product.

It is expensive,

but it does last and, again,

you just kind of know it's part of the franchise cost

and the benefits of being a franchise.

Again, we had to spend some money with Suzuki recently.

They've provided me with some excellent trading

over the last two years.

So it's kind of, you know,

swings and roundabouts really.

So I don't get too hung up on it.

And at the end of the day,

it's tough, you're getting a type of thing.

So you just, you know,

you gotta look for the benefits

and the positives in all these situations.

Yeah, definitely.

Well, congratulations on 25 years in the industry.

I don't think I'd ever get to that in terms of car sales.

So a massive congratulations from us.

But I do think we should do some stories, John,

because most of the questions I've got left

are about the stories I've got.

We'll be right back.

Now, John, I'm really enjoying

how easy it is to pay sellers on carwall.

I mean, presumably you'd rather not pay them at all.

No, that is true.

But now I can do it with carwall 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.

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 carwall.co.uk

slash partners slash carwall dash wallet.

Now, back to the podcast.

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

So James and I are going to run through

our favorite stories of the week.

And at the end, we'll get to decide

which one of us chose the best ones

and who's the winner.

I won last week,

because I'm getting very bored of saying now,

Cheney.

One nil to you in the new series.

The new series.

About 30 nil to me before that.

I've forgotten, mate.

I've already forgotten.

Is it a new financial year on the 1st of August

that I wasn't aware of?

It is for the Cardinal podcast.

Okay.

Right, well, I'm going to start with

some news we talked about last week,

which is the electric car grant.

Which, of course, we had the date

came up this week.

Did it not?

The grand unveil of all the cars

that were going to be ready to go

with a rubber stamp of approval

from the government

that they were going to get

one of two tiers of grant.

And it's been more of a trickle

than a flood of vehicles, I would say.

So I'm not going to read out the full list.

There's 17 cars on it.

We had the Citroens announced last week,

which we covered.

But there's now some Nissan,

some Renault's and some Vauxhall's.

And that's it.

So it's not the most comprehensive list of cars.

When you think that Citroen, Vauxhall

and no, it's just Citroen and Vauxhall on this list.

There's no mention of any other

Stellantis products, strangely.

No Peugeot, fundamentally the same thing.

No Fiat, very similar as well.

Like, how is this?

Not quite sure how this has happened.

But anyway, either Citroen in their little head office

were much quicker at getting things across than anyone else,

or the government is going through this alphabetically,

or something, it's very peculiar.

So we're now in a strange situation

where supposedly they're all going to be announced,

they've not all been announced.

And dealers are not terribly happy about this,

particularly if you're not one of the manufacturers

I've just mentioned,

because of course it's still up in the air.

So customers are walking in saying,

I'd like to buy a Peugeot E 2008, please.

Can I have my three and a half grand off?

And the dealer's having to say,

oh, can't really do that right now,

because we don't know how much is going to come off.

We don't know if it's going to even be applicable.

We don't know when that's going to happen.

It's all very confusing.

So some manufacturers have stepped in and just said,

do you know what, take 1500 quid off,

that's what Volvo have done with the X30, for example.

But of course that's debatable as to whether,

depending on whether that's made in Europe or China

because they make it in both places,

whether that's going to even be applicable

for the 1500 pounds off or not from the government.

And of course all the Chinese car makers,

as we said last week,

have already come out with their offers.

So ridiculously, every Chinese car maker

is now ahead of all the European ones

when it comes to this grant,

because they've just locked the money off.

So it's not a great situation, is it, James?

No, it's not, John.

I've looked into this at length this week.

I've chatted to a number of people,

including the Department for Transport,

because I started looking at the number of cars

that were eligible for this grant.

Obviously there's two tiers, tier one, 3750 pounds,

full grant, one that got all the headlines,

tier two, 1500 pounds, so tier one, tier two.

Now all of the cars are now so far,

all 17 of them are in tier two.

Not one is available for the full grant.

Now we're nearly a month on after this was announced.

We know the Nissan Leaf will be eligible

for the full discount, but it's not even on sale yet.

So there was a few questions

that I wanted to ask the Department for Transport,

like why is this so chaotic?

You know, I mean, one of the dealers I spoke to,

Peter Smy from Swansway, you know,

good old Peter in his great quotes,

called it shambolic, the way that this has been announced.

Neil McHugh from Snow said the whole scheme

was ill fought out, and do you know what?

I agree with him.

I think there was, well firstly, great intent

with this scheme, you know, we needed one,

we'd been banging on about it for ages,

the industry's been talking about it for ages,

saying we need some incentive,

but why on earth has this been made so complicated?

And it's because these two different bands are not just,

there's a lot that goes into working out

which band these cars sit in.

There's very strict criteria,

those science-based targets,

that ridiculous term that they've trotted out,

it's all about the sustainability of the manufacturer.

So I looked into what this is,

and it's based on those environmental credentials

of the manufacturer as a whole, not the car.

So it looks at battery production emissions,

so it's weighted towards that,

it looks at vehicle assembly line emissions,

there's some weight in towards that,

and it looks at the carbon intensity

of the electric grids in the country

where that car was made.

So it might not be anything to do with the manufacturer,

it might just be the fact that China

or wherever these cars are made uses coal

to power their electric plants.

So it is massively overly complicated, this grant,

and it means that I don't actually think

many are gonna be in BAM on John,

I can't actually see many are gonna make that major discount.

We got a statement from the Department for Transport,

they did give me a lot of background information

which is basically them saying,

we don't wanna put this on the record.

But on the record quote was,

we expect dozens of models,

which is not very many is it, dozens of models,

to be eligible for the electric car grant

with 17 announced today and many more to come,

providing a substantial boost for the industry

and saving drivers thousands of pounds.

The list of eligible models is published online regularly.

We also have published comprehensive guidance

for manufacturers who will continue to work,

who they will continue to work with alongside dealers

to help more of their customers access the grant.

So speaking to the DFT,

they said that this grant was a commercial decision

for the car manufacturers, obviously,

most of them are gonna wanna apply for it.

And from what we understand,

a lot of them are just waiting

for their discounts to be signed off

because you've got the Department for Transport,

not only just looking at the cars,

working their way through all of those different emissions

regulations and finding out whether it is band one or band two.

I mean, horrendous red tape, horrendously complicated.

And actually, another dealer I spoke to this week said,

what they're basically saying is,

what they need to decide is, are EVs good or bad?

Because what they're saying at the moment is,

some EVs are good, but some EVs are bad.

And these ones are a little bit better than those ones.

What a ridiculous state of affairs.

I'm flabbergasted, if I'm honest, John,

that it has sort of come to this, not surprised,

but it just needs to be sorted quickly.

I mean, again, it was raised by another dealer.

Why on earth didn't they just say, cut VAT?

Even if it was just a 5% cut on VAT,

that would have been 1,850 pounds off every electric car,

lump them all in, including the Chinese,

and just be done with it.

Simple, easy to understand,

implementable immediately, importantly,

the day after announcing this scheme.

That's right.

I mean, I'm just, I'm shocked it's sort of

become this absolute mess.

I can't quite work out what cars,

obviously you said the leaf is gonna be eligible,

the new leaf that's made in Sunderland,

but isn't being made yet.

I cannot work out what other cars

are gonna be eligible for this,

because it's certainly not anything to do

with being made in Britain,

because there's a couple, I think, on this list.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, you might not know, James,

but I think the Combo Life Electric, Vauxhall, Van,

and the Citroen E-Bolingo, both made in the UK,

as far as I'm aware,

because they retooled the Luton extra plant

to make electric fans.

Yeah, L's report.

Yeah, so if they're not getting the full grant,

and you know, cars like Renault 5 and so on,

made in France, probably battery-ish plant in France,

obviously you don't know.

If it comes down to where the battery cells are made,

I mean, you're stuffed, aren't you?

Because we don't have plants to make

battery cells like that in Europe,

because it's just, it's uneconomical

for manufacturers to do that,

because the technology isn't here,

the human resource isn't here to know how to do that,

and so on and so forth.

It's all from the Far East, really.

I just don't know how many are gonna get this 3750.

I honestly don't think it's gonna be very many at all, John.

I think it's gonna be a handful,

because they'd be announced by now.

They would know.

The other thing is,

surely the government crunched some numbers.

What do they say?

650 million pounds this scheme was gonna be?

They had to get to that number somewhere.

They had to work it out somehow.

The other big problem this is causing,

and we've talked about this before,

is the very real problem in showrooms,

where you've got this sort of paralysis

of customers holding off on purchases,

because they don't know whether they're gonna

get the grant or not.

Neil McHugh said they saw customers

holding off buying electric cars in July,

and we're seeing it again in August.

They're all asking for their 3750 pound discount,

and we can't give it to them.

He said a lot of the brands are doing their own things.

He represents quite a few of these Chinese brands,

including BYD, but he said,

why is this electric car being so complicated?

And I just agree with him,

and many others that I'm talking to in the industry,

that's just saying the same thing.

It needs to be sorted quickly.

I mean, well, let's talk to someone live.

Will, what do you think?

I think I've got a headache, listen to all of that.

Sorry.

I honestly don't see what the issue is.

I think it's quite clear.

But no, I think obviously when the story stroke

government announced this, I can't remember when it was.

Now it feels like about a month ago, give or take.

Out of interest, we logged straight into the old

EV grant portal, and funny enough, it was still live.

It still had the same username and password.

And I was like, where's all the cars?

You mean the old one from like 10 years ago,

before they continued it?

And then obviously you read a bit more and it's like,

all right, it's gonna take a while

for these to filter through.

But I think there's two points to this.

So from my opinion, which is one,

what is the government actually trying to achieve?

Which is if the one EV cars on every driveway,

it's gonna be on every EV and it could have,

and it worked really well last time, in my opinion.

From memory, it was at 5,000 pound at the beginning,

all them years ago, to go into an EV

and then it slowly dropped and dropped and dropped.

Then you've got to look at all the money

that has actually been wasted in all these factories

are then gonna do these reports.

One would guess to show sustainability.

And these people that you're employing to do it

aren't gonna be cheap around the world in reports.

And then staff is getting it converted

from their language in English to get it approved.

There must be so much money being wasted.

And ultimately at the end, the end user,

who's the person gonna buy these cars,

as you rightly say, where's my 3,700 pound?

And I think some people aren't aware of it anyways

because some manufacturers can't qualify,

so probably aren't shouting about it.

But ultimately it comes down to

what's the price of the car at the end.

And whether it's money coming from the government

or as you see, we've got a couple of manufacturers

whom have put their own schemes on.

And the way we advertise the cars,

obviously we're gonna play on the message

and use it to our advantage

that you do get money towards an EV.

But ultimately, if the car is no cheaper or cheaper

than that one, the customer isn't gonna be too bothered

whether the money's coming from the manufacturer

or the government, they're gonna select the car

they like and the price obviously is an important factor.

So the whole thing's just so messy.

Obviously reading the report when it first came out.

And we've all said, just do it through the VAT.

That's gotta be the clearest way of that discount.

We've been saying that as an industry

for a good couple of years now

because ever since the ZEV mandate pressure started

gaining last year, that was always the one

that seemed the simplest way to achieve

what the government wants.

But without going off in a tangent as well,

why is there no pressure on a new housing estate

putting EV charges and getting the mindset ready for EV?

It just seems a bit of a square egg

being forced as hard as possible around hope

to try and fix a problem.

And I do feel some of this was kicked off

due to Chinese tariffs across the waters

thinking, oh, why don't we try and do something

in the UK to protect us, but.

Yeah, you're right.

And there's no the grant as correct me if I'm wrong

but I don't think the grant has returned

for charge points, whereas once upon a time

you've got a chunk off your charge point for your house

as I did that ended and I don't think that's returned.

So you're still having to go.

You know, okay, some companies, some car companies

have factored it into a finance deal, haven't they?

Or they're doing a cheap offer

but a lot of the time you're having to fork out

another grand or another 800 quid to fit that on your house.

It does feel to me though, like they've just changed

what was, like you say Will,

about getting electric cars on people's driveways

to bashing manufacturers for not hitting their eco targets.

It's a completely different thing.

And they've tried to combine two different things into one

and which have made it a huge mess.

Surely the whole point of this was to sell electric cars

not to get manufacturers to change the way

that they're producing them.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm just-

Can I mention one more thing which is

has this had a knock on impact on residuals

or is it just that residuals of nearly new EVs

are so terrible at the minute anyway

that another 1500 quid off hasn't really made much of an impact?

We don't know which ones, well, apart from the list of 17.

Yeah, like your cars are electrics and so on.

I mean, the residuals, those are appalling.

But I just wondered if it had a knock on impact.

I suppose we'll see soon, won't we?

Yeah, I suppose we will.

Let us move us on, shall I?

Yes, please do.

So, from one electric car story to another one, John.

And these are the warranty claims that are blighting EVs

as the most unreliable electric cars have been revealed.

The story has caused some feathers to be ruffled

and it's come from the warranty company WSG

that has looked across its data

at electric car warranty claims

compared to petrol and diesel ones.

And there was a number of stats in this

that really stood out to me

because John, you and I have talked about this a lot,

haven't we, like, about how electric cars

have got fewer moving parts

and that they'd be good things to buy, used.

And I've always asked the question,

yeah, I get that, but I wonder how big the warranty claims are

if and when they come and how often they do.

And the first stat that comes out of this one

is actually the warranty claims for EVs and petrols

are very similar, near enough identical.

For WSG they saw 13.2% of cars

claimed for petrols and diesels

and 13.7% for EVs.

So near enough identical amount of warranty claims

for both of those fuel types or all of those fuel types.

And then when it comes to these huge claims,

Vauxhall Corsa, one electric Vauxhall Corsa owner claims

6,219 pounds to fix an electric drive fault

a Mini Cooper SE, which I think is a hybrid,

had a new inverter and DC converter.

Do you know what those are, James?

Go on.

What is that?

I was asking, do you know what they are?

What are they?

What?

The car or the inverter and DC converter?

Either, either.

No idea.

Sorry.

How much was that?

4,658 pounds, John, of your British pounds.

And then there was a Vauxhall Grandland Electric

in third place, 4,658 pounds to repair.

So some huge figures there.

But then also they've revealed the most reliable

and the least reliable EVs.

Top in the list was the Nissan Leaf

with just 3% of the models on cover having a claim.

Good car.

But at the top of the unreliable list,

the Tesla Model S with an alarming claim rate

of 50%.

So half of all the cars on cover with WSG,

Tesla Model Ss, have had at least one claim.

I mean, I found this report absolutely fascinating.

It's one that I've been wanting to see

come out from a warranty company for quite some time

because it's sort of a little bit of a myth buster really

because we all think that electric cars

are more reliable than petrol and diesel.

And this one shows that actually they're pretty similar.

I would take it with a pinch of salt.

Well, so we're not.

But this is dated, Jon, rather than us just.

It is, but I would say the fault lies not with the...

I was still saying electric car is more reliable.

It should be more reliable, shouldn't it?

That's should.

You know, there is less to go wrong.

It's just...

What it is, 5.5%.

Yeah, there is a bit of an issue at the moment

with a bit like if anyone's ever owned a Mac

or an iPhone or whatever, and something goes wrong with it.

They go, oh, yeah, the problem is this chip here.

Unfortunately, it's glued to the entire rest of the computer.

So you need like the classic thing for a Mac is they say,

oh, it needs a new logic board,

which is basically 80% of the insides of the computer.

So of course it costs about the same

as replacing the computer.

And I think there's probably a bit of that going on with this.

So you're six grand to replace an electric drive fault.

Well, that could well be, I'm guessing that's the motor.

Could be some teeny tiny component in the motor,

but there's nobody to...

Actually, nobody exists

or there's no way of just replacing that small component

rather than replacing the entire unit.

It's a slightly daft situation that we're in at the minute

with lots of stuff like this.

And I will say from my Mercedes launch I was just on,

they are aware that things are not as reliable

as they could be in EV that.

So with their battery pack, for example,

they fact, I think it's the battery pack,

this big component anyway that's in the car,

it's either that or the drive unit.

They've realized that the thing that goes wrong,

80% of the time is this one other component.

And previously in electric cars,

the only way to change it is to take the whole car apart,

get the battery out and change this one small,

you know, three inch long component or whatever.

But they've re-engineered it in this Mercedes CLA

or whatever it is to be able to access it a lot quicker.

And then that reduces warranty claims and so on and so forth.

So it's just a little bit of lateral thinking.

Hopefully we'll start creeping in

and we'll start seeing these things get a bit cheaper.

That's my choice.

I will give EVs a little right of reply

because there was a EV specialist dealer

that will remain nameless

who took major issue with this service,

with this survey and this press release

and said it was nothing like

that they had experienced selling EVs only

and they thought it was all poppycock.

Not their words, mine, I've summarized.

But yeah, just a little bit of a right of reply

for electric cars.

Will, what do you think?

Do you see, you sell a lot of electric cars.

Do you see these all rates?

No, to be honest, when I saw the article,

one question that reading the story, I was a bit confused.

Is that when it says 50% Tesla claims, for example,

are we talking just EV related faults

or could that include a wheel bearing failure?

Well, I think that could be,

that would include any fault on the car.

Yeah, as I say, I think you've got to sort of

separate that out a little bit.

But to be fair, over the years,

like we started when we were in this,

our main dealer many years ago as well

and we were one of the first selling

what was the first leaf.

And to be honest, over the years,

we've seen very, very,

I can count on the hand,

in the last 10 years,

made one out of classes in major EV fault,

apart from those that have done

hundreds of thousands of miles,

e.g. taxi drivers,

where, you know, probably it's just general wear and tear.

We've done a few battery replacements

where as a Mitsubishi repairer,

but again, you know,

I've got to remember the manufacturers

did put an eight year warranty on,

with the majority of put eight year warranty

on batteries and these sort of things.

So again,

it's still relatively new technology

back to what John's saying there with,

you know, you take iPhone as an example,

if you want a new battery in your iPhone

versus a non-gen battery replacement,

as time goes on,

you know, people will start creating

aftermarket components to repair these.

So I think, you know,

fast forward another five years,

perhaps I think the cost to repair an EV

will be a lot, lot less.

So I'm not too concerned personally,

and I don't think, you know,

I think an EV is probably more reliable

than a nice vehicle.

I'm with you.

Well, John, over to you.

No more comments.

Lovely, I think I've won that one.

Speaking of repairs,

let's just briefly talk about Citroen again,

because of course their ongoing DS3

and C3 recall is still ongoing,

because it will take forever

to sort out nearly 100,000 cars,

but they've had some bad news this week,

which is that they've extended the recall

to some more models.

So it now includes certain era C4,

DS4 and DS5 models.

Luckily, Citroen didn't sell many of any of those.

So it's only another 10,000 more,

rather than hundreds of thousands more,

but it's exactly the same fault

and it's still under the stop drive thing.

So they've had to send out some red-headed letters

to owners of all those cars,

saying, by the way, you can't drive those either.

Please take them to a Citroen authorized repairer.

And Citroen are saying now

that they're getting through the backlog,

well, I quote,

the Citroen network is fully engaged

in maximizing the number of cars

that can be completed every day

and to include our repair capacity

even further and minimized as much possible

as we're all bored now,

but Peugeot are doing them as well.

So it is getting there.

They say, well, Citroen previously said,

all airbags were gonna be replaced

by the end of next month,

but I don't think that's gonna happen.

It doesn't seem to be the case at the moment,

judging by various reports from actual owners,

which have got very annoyed at them.

Consumer Champions Witch magazine

and the lawyers are circling as well.

So that's all very bad news.

And then on top of this,

there's a new recall for Stellantis cars unrelated.

It's not going well for Stellantis, is it?

No, it's not.

And in fairness, these are for different cars

of different ages and they...

What goes wrong with these ones, John?

They catch fire a little bit.

They catch fire a little bit, thanks.

Yeah, potentially, potentially catch fire a little bit.

But this is not a stop drive.

I mean, 11 of them have caught fire in France,

haven't they, so...

Yeah, but it's hard to tell in France

whether that was a former protest or spontaneous.

Flicking a cool whilst out the window and...

Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

So it's 28 models from Alfa Romeo,

Citroën DS, Fiat, Jeep, Peugeot and Vauxhall.

But the recall is voluntary in this one, apparently.

So it's not a stop drive.

So voluntary recall, just...

Yes, voluntary recall.

If you don't want your car to burst into flames, got ya.

That's right. A bit like if you break your leg,

it is voluntary to go to A&E.

You don't have to.

Recommended.

I mean, I do feel for the Stellantis dealers out there

who are probably working time and a half

on trying to get all of this stuff done.

All of these airbags, and they're told...

Actually, there's some more that you need to fix,

and then there's probably some fiery cars coming your way.

Can you fix them too?

Yeah, not ideal.

I just hope there's no more cars for the airbag things,

because I just...

I can't quite believe that they'd be the only ones

that they'd put these airbags in.

Well, you did say this, didn't you,

when the third one came out?

So you...

Well, like anyone who's got into a Stellantis,

or a particular Citroën or a Peugeot in the last decade,

will find that it's got all the same bits

as every other Citroën or Peugeot ever got in

in the last 20 years, you know,

like that weird radio stalk

and the electric window switches,

all exactly the same, going back to about 2006 or something.

So I can't quite believe these are the only ones

that have the naughty airbags, but we'll see.

Dear Odea, shall I try and wedge one more in?

Go on then.

OK, I've got one more story.

And I'm going to use news that the popular

used car dealership behind the YouTube channel

Shifting Metal, Mr. Joe Betty,

has decided to close down his dealership.

And I picked this one because I was very, very surprised

when I saw the news.

He published a couple of videos last week about this.

He's got 128,000 YouTube subscribers, John.

Basically, he's a far more successful

YouTuber than I ever will be.

But he's decided that selling cars as part of that

is just is is not really that much needed.

Anymore, he's decided to just go ahead and create content instead

and shut down his his dealership as a result.

He launched that business in 2020.

And you know, if you've seen any of his videos,

he's often done a weekly diary and talks about

some of the customers that come in, some of the problems he's has.

A huge number of people have been following that over the years

and he's decided to call it a day.

So I spoke to him about that and just asked him, you know,

why is he why does he come to that conclusion?

He basically said he just he'd lost a little bit of love for it.

He'd found that the customers, you know, going back to the customer

I was talking about are actually quite hard work.

And he just found it a little bit too stressful

and taken up far too much of his time for the returns that he was getting

and thinks it's far better to focus that time and effort on creating content.

But as part of that,

he said he's been contacted by a large number of other

used cardeers who basically said they're thinking about following suit

and doing the same. And I just it made me wonder,

you know, is there a bit of a problem out there in the industry?

Is there a bit of a problem with for used cardeers,

especially the smaller ones who have to deal with these these difficult

customers deal with the hard way is to get stock at the moment

and and all those other troubles.

And I wonder whether we see more people just deciding to call it a day.

Hmm. Possibly.

I mean, I'm not best to comment on this.

I'll hand it over to Will.

But I wonder if you don't feel like that, James, I'm guessing.

Well, I do.

I understand where he's coming from and a lot of these points.

But at the moment, I'm pretty fresh to it and and happy to keep battling it.

But I can see how after a few years it will get you down.

And I can see how people would think, actually,

is there any point in in still doing this for the returns that returns

on again? I don't know, particularly if you set your company up

before prices started to go up on everything and everything got really difficult.

You know, if you set up in the pandemic when things were very different,

that's a lot of change to adapt to, isn't it?

You know, before interest rates were insane,

before electricity was really expensive, just everything has gone up,

hasn't it? Whereas you've come into it almost with,

you know, your tiny coin purse going, OK, I have to budget for every single thing.

Also, it's not your only source of income, is it, James?

No, no, that's true.

And I mean, it's the same with it's the same with Joe, isn't it?

I mean, he's got obviously got his irons in other fires

and decided that the one selling cars is not worth carrying on.

Well, the deal is you're talking to you speak to loads of different ones.

I mean, is there do you think there's that sort of sentiment out there in the trade?

As an industry, obviously, the way the story is, obviously,

the gentlemen's are smaller, independent,

but the costs base of running the business.

Like I was talking to a friend who's in a total different industry

and we got on about the the N.I. changes from April

and we're comparing levels of cost from an employment point of view

and in their business, obviously twice the size of us in terms of volume,

but they're talking like 100,000 pound a year N.I. increase

based on their staff levels.

And ours was a 70,000 pound increase from the first of April.

But what I said to our guys as well is what we need to be mindful of

is is that filter through into suppliers

because they're costs are going to go up, our costs will go up.

And it is cost base of the industry

stroke business in general is so higher now from, you know,

your admin teams, your valid teams, the cost of valeting,

the cost of insurance, just every bill

during me in June, just about every email or letter that I received

was cost increase, cost increase, cost increase.

So again, customers expect more as you alluded to before, James,

if you're selling, you know, a small number of used cars only

a month and you get one bad one where you've got to do a buyback

and you've lost to a couple of grand potentially

and you've spent money trying to repair it.

You know, that's a big, big chunk of money.

Luckily, the volume we're doing, you know, we do get the bad ones,

but we can sort of absorb that and sort of move on.

So I do suspect we'll see that more the cost of advertising.

We're now all jumping on Google vehicle ads.

So at the minute, it's meant to be a fair cost cost.

But, you know, the cost of digital advertising,

that's went up more than ever.

And we probably feel we've got to do more of it to try and sell more.

It's it's a vicious circle.

And sadly, I think some will will just say, look, it's not worth it any more

and go and look at other avenues.

I know of a few friends whom have taken on vehicle hire

to add on to their independence as a as an additional income source.

So I think people will start diversifying to look further for other income.

Yeah, no, I agree with you.

I agree with you, sad, but I think unfortunately true.

John, that's it for me.

I've got no more and we're sort of out of time anyway.

We are out of time.

So, Will, before I ask your verdict, are there any stories

you think we should have talked about this week that we haven't?

And I think the very good stories, the one that did catch my eye,

actually, out of interest was the I've never seen this before

back to 25 years in the industry.

I'm sure it has happened enough.

Never was the story on the bumper finance

where they've getting manufactured investment of up to eight million

paid million. Yeah, that's a very good salesman at bumper.

And I was wondering if you'd be interesting.

I could get a million investment.

I'd be very, very happy.

But I thought I was quite interesting.

I had a supplier to the industry who's got manufacture investment,

which to see, I don't I don't recall ever hearing that story of similar concept.

So fair play a bumper on that one.

Yeah, that one piqued my interest as well when the press release came through.

And that's why I said to the team, I'd like to cover this one

because for exactly that reason, these these funds that these big car

manufacturers have got, Suzuki, Porsche, JLR have all pumped their money

into this into this supplier.

I thought it was fascinating, too.

So yeah, fair play to great salesman, as you say.

Just for anyone listening, bumper is like you're financing your car

services and your repairs, isn't it?

Is that that's it?

Yeah, because I think Nissan, well, I think there's a few companies,

a few manufacturers started using it, didn't they?

Nissan certainly did once upon a time you could

finance your Nissan service on it or whatever.

It didn't just come down to dealers.

Yeah, I think they've they work with a lot of manufacturers now.

Yeah, this podcast was not sponsored by Bumper.

Lovely. So I'm going to have to ask you, who chose the best stories?

Who's your winner?

And I'm going to go for EV cost of repairs, because I think it's one

that needs highlighting. Yes.

I think the story was was not fair, but I think it needs highlighting.

Thank you. That's one all in the series, John.

One all. Thank you, Will.

That's very, very kind of you.

No problem.

It was about time, about time, James.

Well, all that's left for me to say is thank you to Will for joining us today.

It's been lovely to have you on.

And I'm sure we'll see you again, hopefully a bit sooner than

whatever gap we left between the podcast live, Will.

Come to the podcast live.

It's penciled in.

I did listen to it live, live last year.

I couldn't make the actual event, but I did sit and listen to it live

during during the day.

So I am hoping to be there this year.

Oh, good, man. Good, man.

That will be delightful.

And thank you as well to James.

You are welcome.

I don't know what for.

Anyway, thank you for listening.

We will be back next week with another episode.

Make sure to subscribe to be notified when that goes live.

I don't need to talk about podcast live again, because you mentioned it

300 times, but the link is below to book your tickets

with a percentage off with the code PICCENTO.

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.

EV grant comes under criticism, Citroen extends airbag recall, and Shifting Metal dealership to close – with Will Blackshaw, episode 219

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