'Ghost car' finance fraud uncovered, Blue Motor Finance rumoured to be exiting, and Nissan to adjust Sunderland production – with Andrew Edmiston, episode 257
Car Dealer Podcast
'Ghost car' finance fraud uncovered, Blue Motor Finance rumoured to be exiting, and Nissan to adjust Sunderland production – with Andrew Edmiston, episode 257
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Car
Polestar 5
The Polestar 5 is Polestar’s top, more premium electric car. It’s designed to be a comfortable “big trip” kind of EV, not just a smaller sporty model.
Car
Mercedes S-Class
The Mercedes S-Class is a top-tier luxury car. The host is saying the back-seat experience feels similar to that kind of high-end comfort.
Term
100% traceable leather
“Traceable leather” means the leather’s sourcing is tracked through the supply chain so the brand can claim where it came from. In this segment, it’s paired with animal-welfare messaging, and the host jokes that the label is distracting when you’re trying to enjoy the car.
Term
animal welfare secured
It’s a claim that the leather is sourced using animal-welfare rules. The host is pointing out the message is printed on the seat.
Car
Subaru WRX
The Subaru WRX is a sporty Subaru with a turbo engine and all-wheel drive. That combination helps it grip the road better and feel more exciting than a normal family car. It’s often mentioned because people look forward to when new versions are available in certain markets.
Car
Great Wall Steed
Great Wall is a Chinese car maker, and the Steed is a pickup truck. They’re saying they imported a lot of these trucks a few years back.
Term
emissions legislation
Emissions legislation is the set of rules governments use to limit pollution from cars. The idea here is that stricter rules pushed European makers to improve petrol/diesel engines for a while.
Term
zero emissions
Zero emissions means the car doesn’t produce exhaust pollution while it’s running. They’re saying stricter pollution rules can make electric cars more attractive.
Term
battery technology
Battery technology is how electric-car batteries are designed and built. They’re saying China had a big lead in making these batteries in huge quantities.
Concept
ZEV mandate
A ZEV mandate is a rule from the government that requires car companies to sell more zero-emission cars. It’s meant to speed up the shift toward electric vehicles.
Concept
forcing supply above demand
This is the idea that if there are more cars available than people want to buy, prices usually drop. That can make it harder for sellers to make as much money.
Term
fuel duty
Fuel duty is a tax added to petrol and diesel prices. Higher or lower fuel duty can change what it costs to drive and can affect buying decisions.
Term
CO2
CO2 is a gas that comes out when you burn fuel. Car rules sometimes focus on reducing CO2 to cut pollution and climate impact.
Concept
2030 ban
The “2030 ban” is a planned cutoff date for selling certain types of cars. It would force the market to move toward cleaner vehicles before then.
Concept
ghost car
A “ghost car” is a scam where someone arranges car finance for a car that isn’t actually delivered (or doesn’t really exist). The problem usually comes to light when the customer notices money being taken and asks the lender what’s going on.
Concept
rogue dealers
“Rogue dealers” here means dishonest car sellers. They use the finance system to get money approved, then the lender later finds out something doesn’t match what was promised.
Concept
indemnify the lender
“Indemnify the lender” means the broker has to pay back the lender if the lender loses money. So if the scam collapses, the broker may be the one stuck paying.
Company
DSG
DSG is mentioned as one of the brokers affected by the fraud. The point is that brokers can get hit financially when scams break down.
Company
Motonovo
Motonovo is a company that helps people finance car purchases. The discussion suggests that when its funding source pulled back, Motonovo couldn’t keep operating in the UK.
Company
Shawbrook
Shawbrook is a financial company that provides funding to other lenders. If it cancels funding agreements, the car-finance companies that rely on that money may have to slow down or stop lending.
Term
forward flow funding agreement
It’s basically a pre-arranged deal where a bank promises money for future car loans. If that promise gets cancelled, the lender may run out of money to fund new car purchases.
Term
motor finance redress scheme
The motor finance redress scheme refers to a UK process for compensating customers affected by past issues in motor finance sales and lending practices. The host implies it may have increased costs or risk for lenders, contributing to funding being withdrawn.
Term
finance market
They’re talking about how the car-loan industry is doing overall. If lenders pull back, there are fewer companies competing to offer finance to buyers.
Concept
compensation scheme
A compensation scheme is a plan to pay back people who were treated unfairly. In this episode, they’re talking about a scheme meant to help car finance customers, but it might cause other problems too.
Company
Specialist Motor Finance
Specialist Motor Finance is the name of a finance business the speaker runs. It’s part of the car-buying process—helping arrange financing for vehicles. They mention it to give context for their opinion.
Term
PPI
PPI is an extra product that some car buyers were sold when arranging finance. The episode is saying that it ended up being expensive and later became a big consumer problem. They’re using it as an example of how these schemes can affect customers.
Concept
hindsight
Hindsight means looking back and judging what happened using facts you only know now. The point here is that the rules and business situation were different years ago, so it’s not always fair to judge the past by today’s knowledge.
Term
rate
Here, “rate” means the interest rate on the car loan. The speaker is saying that companies could lower the interest rate but still make money in other ways. That can matter when people later question whether add-ons were fairly priced.
Car
Land Rover Discovery
The Land Rover Discovery is a popular SUV. Here, the hosts are saying it ranks as one of the least reliable used cars.
Car
Land Rover Range Rover Velar
The Range Rover Velar is a luxury SUV/crossover. In this episode it’s mentioned as being among the less reliable used cars.
Car
Range Rover Sport
The Range Rover Sport is a luxury SUV. The hosts are saying it shows up on their list of unreliable used cars.
Car
Land Rover Discovery Sport
The Discovery Sport is a Land Rover SUV. The hosts mention it as one of the less reliable used cars.
Car
Land Rover Defender
The Land Rover Defender is a tough SUV made for driving on rough roads and off-road trails. It’s built to handle difficult conditions, but it can still be used like a normal car. The podcast mentions it because it’s on a list of cars being discussed.
Car
Land Rover Defender 110
The Defender 110 is the longer version of the Land Rover Defender. They’re saying the reliability ranking is for the 110 specifically, not the shorter 90.
Car
Toyota Yaris
The Toyota Yaris is a small car that’s meant for everyday driving. Here, they’re saying it’s a dependable choice when buying used.
Car
Kia Picanto
The Kia Picanto is a tiny city car. They’re saying it’s a reliable used-car pick and one of their favorites.
Car
Toyota RAV4
The Toyota RAV4 is a small SUV. In this discussion, it’s being mentioned as a reliable used-car choice.
Car
Peugeot 108
The Peugeot 108 is a small city car. They’re suggesting it’s closely related to a Toyota, meaning it may share the same basic engineering, which can affect how reliable it is.
Car
Citroen C1
The Citroën C1 is a small car made for city driving. Here it’s brought up because the hosts are talking about which cars dealers think are reliable enough to buy and stock.
Car
Range Rover
The Range Rover is a luxury SUV from Land Rover. In this episode, it’s referenced because the hosts are talking about whether dealers think certain models are reliable enough to buy.
Term
Ingenium engine
“Ingenium” is Jaguar Land Rover’s name for a set of engines used in their cars. The point here is that some dealers were hesitant to buy cars with that engine because they didn’t want the hassle or uncertainty.
Company
JLR
JLR stands for Jaguar Land Rover. Here it’s mentioned because the hosts are talking about an engine family used in JLR cars.
Term
electric car
An electric car runs on electricity stored in a battery. They’re wondering whether electric cars might be more reliable than gas engines, but they’re not sure.
Term
combustion engine
A combustion engine is the traditional type that burns fuel to make power. They’re comparing it to electric cars to guess whether one is generally more reliable.
Company
Nissan
Nissan is the car company making the decision here. They’re talking about changing where they build cars in Europe, including Sunderland in the UK.
Term
Europe-wide restructure
“Restructure” here means Nissan is reorganizing parts of its business across Europe. That can include closing or changing factories and adjusting what cars they sell where.
Term
rationalizing the product lineup
This means Nissan is trying to simplify its range of cars. Instead of making lots of different versions, they focus on fewer models that make more sense for sales and costs.
Term
underperforming factories
An underperforming factory is one that isn’t doing well financially or efficiently. If it keeps losing money, the company may reduce or stop production there.
Concept
under capacity
Under capacity means the factory isn’t running at full output. If they’re not making enough cars to use the plant fully, they may adjust shifts or production lines to make better use of it.
Concept
production line merge
Merging two production lines into one is a manufacturing efficiency move: instead of running separate lines, the plant consolidates work onto a single line. This can help when a factory is under capacity, because it reduces idle time and can simplify scheduling.
Concept
extend the shifts later into the evening
They’re planning to work later in the day. That increases how many hours the factory can produce cars, which can help if they’re not currently using the plant enough.
Concept
tariffs
Tariffs are taxes a government charges on imported goods. The segment suggests manufacturers may shift or add production to different partners or locations to reduce tariff exposure and make it cheaper to bring cars into the UK.
Concept
lead time
Lead time is how long it takes from starting the process to getting the product. Here, they’re saying the wait time for cars is currently long, so changing production could speed things up.
LIVE
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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, I think I'm right in saying it's the Kings Gardener.
James Maggart, James, how are you?
Did I get that right?
I mean, as usual, John, good morning to you. How are you? Nice to see you.
I'm good. How are his tulips? Just going over, or are they still, you know?
He had a very nice, very nice garden.
Shall we just get this out of the way?
Because I know you want to take the mickey out of me for this.
I was very lucky to go to the garden party this week.
Humble brag over.
It was an incredible day, yeah, and it was nothing to do with this business.
It was more to do with my voluntary services at the lifeboat, John, which you know all about.
So it was a very, very nice day and very enjoyable.
But back to reality and the podcast with you.
I don't know which is more important.
Well, it's difficult to say, but I will say I was very polite.
I mean, this will make no sense to anyone that lives outside of Hampshire.
But it's nice to see you appear on the legendary local Facebook page that is Gosport Aware,
which even if you're not a Gosport resident, I would urge every listener of this podcast
to go and join because it's just very entertaining.
It's normally reserved for shoplifters.
People are stealing parcels from front porches, etc.
Isn't it?
Or lost cats, etc.
And then you popped up on there in your finery, which I thought was hilarious.
But you've also made it into Ladd Bible this week.
I thought was quite bizarre, bizarre as well, wasn't it?
Yeah, we did a story, didn't we?
No, a video last week with the help of many YouTube in car dealers
about the cars that they would not buy, the cars they're scared of buying,
which has been reasonably popular for one of our videos, John, I must say.
And it ended up getting picked up by the Sun and Ladd Bible,
which I was shocked, still exists, still out there.
Did they describe you as an automotive industry expert?
I can't quite remember.
Probably not.
Factually inaccurate if they did.
Anyway, give us a quick state of the market in the very specific market that you're in.
Very quiet this week, mostly because we haven't been there.
But yeah, I think we've sold one car and one car trade.
And we had four appointments booked for the last two days and all of them cancelled.
Maybe they saw me a gospel wear, John.
Yeah, so it's been a little bit quiet, so I'm hoping for a good weekend.
Fingers crossed, fingers crossed.
I've been up to James, but that's...
Well, sorry, John, sorry, John, what have you been up to?
Oh, well, thank you, James, not much.
No, I've been on a, I went on a Polestar launch, which was quite exciting.
Which one?
It was the Polestar 5, which is their big...
I mean, it's quite hard to tell what size Polestar is based on the number,
because they just, it seems to be the order in which they introduced them.
So presumably in 50 years time, the Polestar 99 will be driving around like everything.
But it was like a strange road trip thing from Sweden to the Sahara,
but I only did a tiny leg a bit.
Was it through the Souther France?
It was through the Souther France.
How did you end up getting that leg, John?
They offered me James, to be honest.
But yeah, very impressive bit of care.
And I haven't really spent a lot of time in Polestar, I must admit.
And it's very...
Very nice materials in a Polestar, like they actually, you know,
they've got this thing about doing all the plastic,
so they just want to put fabric everywhere.
So it's fabric all up the windows and really comfortable Volvo-like seats.
Probably shouldn't say Volvo-like, they probably don't like that very much.
A little bit holier than now though, I have to say, in some ways.
So you're sat in the back of this, of like 100 grand GT four-door,
kind of, I don't know, Mercedes S-Class type car really.
And all you're staring at is this bit of text on the back of the leather seat that says,
in 100% traceable leather, animal welfare secured,
like written in Helvetica on the back of this seat.
I'm thinking if I've spent 100 grand on this,
I don't think I want to be looking at that necessarily.
I don't know, it's a little bit like,
if you've ordered some wine in a restaurant that arrived in the glass
and it said 100% organic, like grapes, totally traceable and whatever.
I just want to enjoy the grapes.
I don't want to read this information.
Anyway, apart from that, it was very interesting.
Excellent, excellent job.
Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Shall we put our guest out there, Misery?
Yes, yes, sorry about that.
So joining us this week, I'm thrilled to say,
is a man that I'm assured can tell us
when the Impressor WRX is coming back to the UK.
It's of course, managing director of IM Group, Andrew Edmiston.
Andrew, thanks for joining us.
No problem, good morning to you guys.
Sounds like you've had an interesting week.
Yeah, busy week, very interesting week.
I'm sure yours has been incredibly busy too.
And let's start with, give those people listening to this
and watching this a little bit of an introduction to yourself
before we get into the company.
How long have you been in the motor trade?
Kind of on my life really.
My father, when I was seven years of age,
he actually joined Jensen Motors
and pretty much as soon as he arrived realized he was the FD.
So probably maybe not the greatest FD at the time
because he arrived and realized straight away basically this business is broke.
So he was the guy who had to sort of take it into receivership
and close everything.
And the owner of the business, who was an American guy,
he actually married somebody in the car business.
He was an American car dealer, a guy called Shel Kivali.
He said to him, look, Bob, you know,
feel really badly about the customers.
Won't you keep making some spare parts, take a few people
and just sort of rescue a bit of a Phoenix out of the ashes really.
So my father said to him, well, two conditions.
He said, you know, I'd like to stake in the business
and I'd like to be able to grow the business.
And so he realized that, you know,
he's got a business with selling spare parts
to very exclusive car customers,
but it would be a dying business.
So he just needed a car to sell
and he sort of traveled the world basically.
And found himself in Japan at the time that Subaru
were looking to export cars into the UK.
And so, you know, that's kind of how it worked out.
All the stars aligned.
And I was about seven years of age when that happened.
And my dad was my hero really.
So I kind of always knew I wanted to be involved
in the car business and I wanted to follow in his footsteps.
So I first started actually working for Peugeot.
Then it was PTMC, Peugeot Albert Motor Company.
And they kind of gave me a real education.
I became an accountant with them.
Then I moved to Myra Motor Industry Research Association.
And about 1992, so I was kind of 23.
My father said, look, you know,
quit messing around basically
and come and work for the business.
So I've been in this business since then.
Incredible.
So, I mean, IAM Group has been massively involved
in the motor trade for quite some time
and changed quite a lot over that time.
Give us an idea of what the business looks like now.
So this kind of progression of our business
was first of all, we were Subaru UK.
Then we launched Hyundai in 1981.
So Subaru, we started in 77.
And Hyundai in 81.
And of course, you can't just be Subaru UK
if you're selling Hyundai.
So we became international motors.
Not very complicated the way we manage our business
to be absolutely honest with you.
And then my father owned the whole of the business.
He managed to buy out from Shell Cavali in 1988.
He decided that it would actually be quite good
to put a property business alongside a car business
as a few reasons for that.
Car businesses turn over their sort of high ticket,
high volume.
So you're turning over cash a lot.
But if you make profit,
then you pay quite a lot of that away in tax
and property is quite a good way to store the profit
that you make.
And actually we found over the years
that the car business and the property business,
they kind of move in and out with each other,
typically on interest rates.
So if we're an importer, if interest rates go up
like they have been over the last number of years,
that tends to help a little bit an importer
because your currency gets stronger.
So it's cheaper to buy the product that you're importing.
On the other hand, it's bad for the property business.
So in the period where we had between about 2010 and 2022,
we had low interest rates.
That was great for our property business,
but much harder for our car business.
So we're basically property and car group at the moment.
We build houses and we build offices,
like the one that we're in,
and we build warehouses and sheds.
And we're a land, strategic land bank as well.
In terms of in your time,
where do you spend most of yours in the business?
I came through the car business.
And so we have quite, I guess,
sophisticated structures to manage
all of the different businesses that we have.
Most of my knowledge is about the car business.
I guess I could consider myself a car business professional.
Sounds a little bit lofty,
but anyhow, that is my history.
But probably the last I've been running the group
for about the last 15 to 20 years.
And so I've learned quite a lot about property also.
So I'd say 60, 40, something like that
in favor of the car business.
Over those years, you've worked with many different brands,
haven't you?
I mean, I'm talking about the group as it were.
Where's the real success been?
Where was the moment where you kind of like,
that's the one that's really made us.
I think, my dad would say to you, it was Subaru, really,
because when Subaru was launched, that was a big deal for us.
Can you imagine coming out of gensomotors,
the whole thing's just collapsed.
It was based in West Bromwich,
and anybody who knows the black country knows that
these are just salt of the earth people.
By their own admission,
they might say we're not the most sophisticated,
but they got great values and real sort of family values.
So that was a blow.
It was a blow to these people.
And we managed to rescue some.
And these guys were like David against Goliath.
They had no business being in business, really.
There was about 40 of them down from about 1500.
And so when we got the Subaru business,
I've heard that many of them tell the story,
it was the first interviews in the company went,
my father came home from Japan and he sort of said,
well, look, we've got this business.
And we need someone to basically be in charge of sales.
And a guy put his hand up and said, well,
I've done purchasing, I don't know what that,
but I think I can sell.
Okay, you've got the job.
And it was basically like that.
So these guys had really no business being in business.
And so it was a remarkable moment.
And actually, we've launched many brands since.
Typically the pattern is you lose money for a while
before you begin to make money,
but it didn't happen that way with Subaru.
Yeah, Subaru's an incredible brand.
You're still partnering with them today?
Yeah, 50 years.
We're actually 50 years old this month.
We have a celebration and kind of a milestone moment
happening next week with all of our staff
where we're sort of reflecting on the last 50 years,
but also thinking forward about what has,
we've arrived here at 50 years old,
what about the next 50 years?
So that's coming up very shortly.
Incredible achievement.
Congratulations on that.
Thank you.
It really is something to be massively proud of.
And especially so when you're an importer.
I mean, when you're dealing with a brand
and you are the brand representative in the UK,
but don't have as much of a say as a wholly owned subsidiary,
it must be tougher times.
Yeah, of course.
You can't be in business 50 years and not have your moments.
That's definitely true.
You know, some brands have obviously Hyundai.
We launched Hyundai in 81.
We actually sold it to Lex in 93,
but we kind of realized the business had grown.
We could see what the future was going to be.
And we're a private distributor.
We know what we're good at.
We know what we're not good at.
So there's a certain, you know,
we're very, very good at niche brands.
We're good at larger brands in niche and smaller markets.
We have a number of markets where we represent Subaru
and the Suzu and other brands in Scandinavia.
And so that's a business we've had since the early 1990s.
And so, yeah, I mean, you just,
I guess the key is finding out what you're really good at,
trying to stay and stick into your lane.
It could be true.
I've often thought about this.
It could be true that maybe it's certainly in Europe,
maybe even in the world,
we might be the company that's launched
the most new brands into the most new markets.
More than anybody else.
It's something like 30 to 40.
So it's something we know extremely well,
but it brings its challenges.
That's certainly for sure.
Yeah, and I bet it does.
Give me an idea then of the brands
you've got in the portfolio now
for those people who don't know who you represent.
Yeah, so we are Subaru and the Suzu,
and Subaru has been, you know, since 1977.
We've been in Suzu since late 1986.
We had Hyundai and then that went from our portfolio.
We launched San Yong in 93.
That was an interesting story in itself
because it was, San Yong eventually was bought out by Daewoo
and maybe people who remember as a man called Chairman Kim.
I think he ended up in prison actually in Korea,
but he basically just said,
right, that's it.
We're Daewoo.
All the distributor contracts across Europe,
we just tear them up.
So then we had a court case there in Korea.
I don't think we got our just rewards,
but anyhow, so we lost that franchise.
We've had Dahatsu along the way,
took over Dahatsu in about year 2000 from Inchcape.
Then Toyota owned half of Dahatsu
and decided that Dahatsu should exit the European market.
And of course, more lastly, the Chinese.
We've had a business in China since about the mid-1990s.
So 30-odd years we've been working in China.
Got to know Chinese extremely well.
So currently we have Great Wall Motors.
We have X-Peng, which is the momentum behind X-Peng
is just really beginning to take off at the moment.
And there are a number of other brands that are due to arrive
over the next two or three years that we'll be handling.
I think it's been in the press already.
One of them is a brand called Photon,
which is an LCV manufacturer.
I think the biggest LCV manufacturer in China.
So yeah, we're very interested in LCVs.
We love them.
As soon as it's been fantastic for us,
it's a great product.
It's a great business.
They're great to work with.
And we're obviously hoping for more of the same from Photon.
I'll come on to the Chinese brands in a moment
because I'll be fascinated to get your take on that.
But the other one I'm really interested in is Mitsubishi.
I mean, that's obviously you pulled that one out of the ashes.
What was it that...
Well, firstly, how did that opportunity come about?
It's kind of an interesting story.
Obviously, we've known Mitsubishi for many, many years.
We're kind of like sparring partners.
In fact, right back to the beginning of our business.
I think Colt Car Company, so they had Mitsubishi at that time.
I think they'd also applied for the Subaru business.
And obviously, they didn't get it.
Now, why they appointed us?
Because Subaru is a very cautious company.
So I don't actually know why they appointed my father, really.
And he asked them many years later,
and they sort of said,
well, there's something about you that we liked.
If you look at the infrastructure that Mitsubishi had in those days,
perhaps that business should have gone to them,
but then we would have never existed.
So, and then we launched the trooper with the Suzu,
and they had the Shogun.
And we kind of became friendly enemies, really,
because we like country sports.
They like country sports.
I suppose the product that we were selling leads you into that.
And so we got to know people like Peter Beaumont
really well over the years, and many others.
And so at the point that they announced
that Mitsubishi was coming out of the market,
probably about a month later,
I was kicking myself, really,
because there was another distributor who had sort of got in there
and thought, well, actually, we'll buy the parts business.
I thought, you idiot, what did you think about that?
I was kind of irritated with myself, frankly,
because we have a quite large parts warehouse,
and we had the capacity to kind of do it straight away, really.
And I thought we'd be the perfect people
to run off the Mitsubishi parts business.
We'd done that with Daihatsu,
that had exited the market in about 2005, 2006.
So we knew what that looked like.
We knew how to cost that properly.
And so we were really, I felt we were an absolute ideal partner for them.
Anyhow, what happened was, the other distributor,
it just didn't somehow work out.
So we heard, as soon as I saw the news article that said
those talks had finished, we were straight in there and said,
hey, I think we could be a great partner for you.
And once we'd taken over the business,
we still have some of their,
we sort of rent some of their space
that they were previously in in Sirencesta,
kept the team together in Sirencesta for continuity.
Because what we were always really interested in
was the possibility that Mitsubishi would come back into the market.
And we always believed that would be the case.
So we've been working in the background with Mitsubishi,
constantly talking to them, looking for opportunities
and looking for ways to bring their products back to the UK.
Yeah, it's a fascinating one, because I'm a big fan of Mitsubishi.
I think it's a great brand.
They've got some great, they've had some great products over the years.
So it's just, I find it amazing that they decided to call it a day
and then had to wind down that whole dealer network.
And then five years later, here we are, winding it all back up again.
And I see you very rapidly signed up dealers off the back of it.
They didn't go very far, did they?
No, well, happily we were still selling them parts.
You know, the parts business was something like 400,000 units in operation.
So that gives you a pretty big parts business.
In fact, it was quite surprising to Mitsubishi,
because you often go and report how it's going.
And we talk about how many dealers we've got.
We actually appointed more dealers than we were handed,
basically, when the business finished.
So they were quite surprised by that.
So we had a ready-made dealer network with the Mitsubishi dealer network.
But also there were a number of our own,
Subaru, Isuzu, and other of our brands.
So we're kind of like a house of brands, really.
And I think from a dealer's perspective,
that's something we've really begun to leverage,
because I think everyone knows the difficulty that the car business is in,
the industry's in at the moment.
This move to EVs is proving very problematic, I think.
And so I think through turmoil,
we don't get to control so many things that affect us.
Can't control government legislation.
I wish I could, but I definitely can't.
Can't control our competitors and our customers and the economic environment.
So the things that we can control, we should control that extremely well.
And so I think for dealers dealing with us,
we're able to offer them product,
because that's something we really focus on.
We see them as partners.
We know that our dealers are our strength.
Without our dealers, we don't sell anything.
We do nothing direct to customer.
It must be a bit of a challenge, though, having all of those brands.
I mean, it must be hard to keep all those plates spinning.
Yeah, it's kind of quite a current issue that we've got,
because essentially, if you go back sort of five years or so,
we've been Subaru and Asuzu for many, many years.
We've been working with these Chinese brands
and knew that they were coming or would have their day.
And all of a sudden, it just happened quickly.
So imagine we've been doing this for 30 years,
but probably within about two or three years,
you had the entrance of about five to 10 new brands into the market
after a really quiet period for the previous 20 years.
So getting your head around that, it's not easy to do.
And of course, each of the manufacturers that deals with us,
they have a right to expect that they've got our focus.
So we need to make sure that without letting costs get out of control,
we're able to give the necessary focus to each of the brands
that allows them to grow and develop.
It's been fascinating to watch the surge of these Chinese brands.
I mean, it is the story of 2026, without doubt,
just the way that they're carving up the market
and taking so much share.
What's your take on it?
Are you surprised at how quickly they've managed to do what they've done?
I guess yes and no.
I mean, I think surprised in the sense that,
you know, if you've been in the industry
as long as I've been in the industry, it sets a pace, doesn't it?
You know, the pace of new entrants has been not that fast.
And then all of a sudden...
So even though I knew China has the capacity to do this,
when it actually happens,
you don't exactly know how it's going to feel, do you?
So the changes that it's brought everybody,
I think those are the things that, you know, the speed of that,
that's probably been quite surprising.
But you've got to go back to understand the Chinese,
to understand, you know, this part, I guess we did know.
So from working in China for so many years,
the Chinese...
You know, I would have said probably very naively years ago
that if you look at the Japanese, the Koreans and the Chinese,
I could have...
What it might have said that the Japanese most sophisticated,
closely followed by the Koreans,
and then, you know, the Chinese a long way behind.
But that's actually not how they see themselves as nations.
So I think all of these people would acknowledge this.
China is 5,000 years old.
You know, they talk about, you know, we invented wisdom.
This kind of thing.
Maybe that's a bit of a lofty claim,
but you can understand that their own self-identity
is like the world superpower.
500 years ago, they were the world superpower.
America wasn't even invented really at that point.
So their self-identity is of a major superpower.
And what happened through the communist period?
They always used to come across this expression
that China is a sleeping giant.
So their mentality as people is bred into them is,
we are sleeping giant and now we're waking up.
So in their mind, their feeling is we're taking our rightful place.
And I kind of always have this feeling with our staff in China
that, you know, we have a lot of loyalty within our business
from our staff, including our staff in China.
But I think their loyalty is to us,
but they probably have a first loyalty to their country.
Which I don't object to.
Sorry to interrupt you.
But what would you say that those people in China,
what are they saying about the UK market?
I mean, why has it, why now?
Why are they suddenly all tugged at us now?
Well, I think the American market is not as easy to get into
as the European market.
And I think that China has had a strong relationship
with European manufacturers over many years.
You've had, there's been a Volkswagen joint venture
for many years, Peugeot joint venture, Mercedes have been over there.
Americans too.
But I mean, I would say that the predominance has been the Europeans.
So they feel quite comfortable with the Europeans
or more comfortable, let's say, with the European market.
And I think that obviously when the tariffs, the Europeans,
the European Union has been much quicker to think about,
well, actually we should probably defend ourselves
against the onslaught of these Chinese companies.
And so those tariffs have had some impact.
And I guess in some ways naively, the Chinese just basically look
at the UK and say, well, it's quite a big market.
There are no barriers and tariffs for us.
And EV sales are growing and effectively being incentivised to grow.
We're going to go there and make a load of money.
That's actually not how it always turns out.
And so it's been very difficult for us.
But also, we know BYD very well, we've known them for years.
We actually helped them effectively start their business here
and we were stocking vehicles and things for them, providing some services.
But I remember talking to one of the guys from BYD,
they were sending us cars into our compound
and we were saying, look, you haven't even got any dealers.
We've got 2,000 cars.
And we're worried about your kind of thing.
You're spending money with us here and you don't have dealers.
And they sort of said, look, we're making so much money in China.
We have decided that we'll be here in the UK.
So don't worry about it.
And it was a very different, I mean, I'm used to balance sheets
and P&Ls.
But you run a business from the P&L in terms of on a calendarised basis.
I think they're running the business from the balance sheet.
What do you think it is about the time we're in at the minute
that's meant all these Chinese brands, or most of them,
are succeeding very well in the UK?
Because I'm guessing you all have been looking as an importer
at Chinese brands for the last 20 years,
thinking it's now the time, time.
What's changed at the moment that's making people go through them?
Just to add to that, because I remember, early on,
driving a car from the IM Group, I'm pretty sure it was a Great Wall, wasn't it?
Oh, a Steed.
Steed.
Yeah, you did do that, yeah.
You were sort of first, weren't you, really?
We were, correct.
Yeah, it was around about 2012, 2013.
Yes.
It was about 3,000 Steeds that we imported.
I guess the two points are part of the same answer, really,
because what happened, we could see that the Chinese were developing.
But the way the Europeans and the European manufacturers
were defending against that was through emissions legislation.
So the Europeans had the best combustion engine engineers,
much better than the Chinese at that time.
But we could see what was coming.
What was coming was that the emissions legislation
was getting ever more stringent, that in the end,
there would be this temptation to go for zero emissions with battery technology.
And we knew, probably as much as 10 to 15 years ago,
that the Chinese had a fantastic battery industry,
like the best in the world, these things.
They all come from China.
And the batteries are all made in China,
and we're buying them by the millions.
So Europe didn't have a battery industry.
So you can't build a battery industry in five minutes
or five years or probably even 10 years.
It takes 20 to 30 years to do that.
And we realized that there would come a moment when
this barrier to entry, the fact that emissions legislation was increasing,
would suddenly become a threat to the European industry.
And it's exactly how it turned out.
I can't really understand why they couldn't see that.
Why did they not see that?
Because the whole European industry, in my view,
is threatened by the Chinese.
And the fact is, the amount of products
that we've launched over the years, when we launched Hyundai,
these cars were the old original 1981 pony
was designed by people who couldn't drive.
I mean, that was the fact of it.
So your kind of message to the customer is,
look, this is actually a good car.
We'll keep it on the road,
but you're going to get a whole lot more for your money.
You know, it's a cheaper car.
Launching the Chinese, the product was ahead.
You know, many of these battery Chinese cars,
the product is ahead of the Europeans.
So it makes for a very compelling purchase.
It's crowded though, isn't it out there?
Can everyone survive this?
Good question.
I mean, I don't know, I can't remember exactly
what the current Chinese volume is,
but it will be 1200000
It'll be 25% in the market very quickly.
So where's those 500000 units
going to come from out of 2000000
You know, there's not going to be more cars sold, really.
So who's going to make way?
I think, you know, you can see already
that Japanese are being affected,
but the Europeans also and Americans,
it's everybody really.
You would worry for some, yeah, some manufacturers.
Do you think it's going to end up being good
for the consumer though?
Because I mean, the Chinese have certainly
brought the price of monthly payments down,
haven't they?
And the entry into new cars has been,
is now more affordable, thanks to them.
Yeah, I wonder if that's temporary though.
I mean, I know that it's much more expensive
to build an electric car.
That still is the case.
As I said, some of these brands are selling
from the balance sheet.
In other words, they're not making profit.
They just decided, okay, it's a strategic decision.
We want to take some of this territory.
Once, you know, the fight is over
and they've got what they want,
prices will start to go up.
That's my belief.
Where do you think the big challenges
are for the industry at the moment then?
Yeah, for the UK, I think, I mean,
there's been quite a lot of government intervention.
The ZEV mandate has been, again,
the moment we saw it, we knew straight away
that it was going to be difficult.
We spoke to government quite a lot about it.
We're in a unique position.
I don't say that we're smarter or clever
than other people.
We definitely are not.
But we are probably the largest private distributor.
So we are not a manufacturer.
We're focused on what we buy, what we sell,
and the selling.
If you're a manufacturer,
you've got a whole world of other problems to consider.
In other words, what am I going to build?
How am I going to manage my supply chain?
All of those things become really quite difficult.
So I think the initial response
from manufacturers with the ZEV mandate
was, oh, no, we need this,
because they wanted to make sure
that the government wasn't going to say,
well, okay, we're going to help.
We want everyone or force everyone, really,
to go to electric vehicles.
I think manufacturers were saying,
well, we're investing in this, so don't quit.
The bit that we could see is just really simple.
First thing you learn in an economics class
when you're about 12,
it's that if you're forcing supply above demand,
price goes down.
And the bit that we were worried about
was that just the moment that you're wanting
an industry to become healthy
in selling a new kind of product,
what you're doing is you're tanking the price.
So the government thinks, well, that's great.
We're happy we want the price to be lower.
And the industry then says, well, look,
this is killing us.
And so the government says, well, look,
you've had it great for 100 years.
So, okay, we now need to change
for the sake of the planet and the environment.
So you've got a bit of pain, just get over it.
So I don't really think, these are only my beliefs.
I don't really believe the government
actually cares that much about the industry.
They care about jobs, they certainly do,
because that means votes.
But I think that the government think very clearly
that we're doing a great job, EV volume is increasing,
prices are coming down, big tick in the box.
But I think there's a whole world of pain
that the industry is experiencing,
which they will not be able to avoid the effects of that.
What would you change if you're in the top job?
First, well, probably I've got controversial views.
Certainly I'd get rid of the ZEV mandate.
And actually, I think, and we spoke to a number of the parties,
particularly conservatives and reform,
and I know that that's their plan.
The problem with the ZEV mandate is this.
It's trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
So if you start from something like 2023, 2024,
and you think, right, by 2030,
we want 80% of the volume to be EV,
and then you look at the sort of trajectory
and you sort of extrapolate the sales up to that point,
what they, where they arrived at was saying,
well, okay, it's only going to be 40%
by the time we get to 2030.
But that's a nonsense.
I can tell you, if it's illegal for me to sell
an combustion engine car in 2030,
have a guess how many I'll have in stock
on 30th of January, 2029.
Absolutely none, because I don't like wasting cars.
They're big things and they cost a lot of money.
So I'll manage that.
We'll find a way to manage it.
So the ZEV mandate was trying to do something
that was, in my view, completely unnecessary.
So that's the first thing I'd do.
In general, I guess I'm in favor of,
I just don't believe government trying to get involved
to achieve things that they want to achieve
and sort of meddling in the market.
I basically don't believe it works.
And I'm not just talking about red or on blue.
It's both of them or all politicians.
They tend to overestimate the ability
to which they can influence what consumers do,
what the industry does,
and they think it'll just all be all right in the end,
but it just never works.
It produces the opposite, usually, of what they want.
So for me, I'd just simplify everything.
If you don't like CO2, stick fuel duty on
and get rid of every other tax, basically.
Yeah, I mean, the ZEV mandate is obviously
a hot topic that we talk about all the time.
Do you think it will happen?
Do you think the 2030 ban will happen?
It's difficult, because if you look at,
obviously, yesterday there was local elections
and I think the expectation is
that reform are going to do extremely well.
The Green Party will have some success.
I think what you're seeing is a rejection
of probably the last 25 years of centrist policy.
And so I think they call reform far right.
I can't really see that that is true,
but it's definitely a move to the right.
It's trying to resolve things like immigration
and problems that have developed and built
within the country over that period of time.
And so you then get a response from the other side,
so people have differing beliefs.
And now I think we are seeing a polarization.
So it's very difficult to predict the next election.
So to answer the question, I guess if you end up
with some kind of more right-leaning coalition,
maybe conservatives and reform,
or even an outright reform government,
then I think you can expect that they will just
straight away turn around and say,
basically, buy what you like.
If it goes the other way, which it could well do,
then I think they will, because if you have,
I can't think that the Labour Party
will win an outright majority next time.
And they would probably end up having to rely
on the Greens or some of the other parties.
And I think probably what they would...
We've seen this in Ireland.
We have the business in Ireland.
And they had a coalition.
The Greens held basically the casting vote,
and they destroyed the car industry.
It went from 300,000 units down to 80.
It's recovered to about 120.
Yeah, I'll be fascinating to see what happens
in the next few years.
Andrew, I could talk all day to you.
You've got an amazing take on the industry,
and it's a huge, huge experience,
but we'll draw on that when we get to our stories.
And so, John, we should probably do some of those.
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Now, back to the podcast.
So, James and I are going to run through
our favourite stories of the week
and at the end, Andrew gets to decide
which one of us chose the best ones
and who is the winner.
Awkwardly, we had a tie break last week
because we had two people on.
So, I'm going to hand it to James
because he won the week before,
so just carry on, pretend that didn't happen.
Thank you, John.
Well, I would like to talk a little bit
about a podcast that we published earlier this week.
So, there will be people who possibly listen to this.
So, we've already listened to it,
but I just want to…
For those people who haven't listened to it,
I'd like to just give it a little bit of a promo
because I put a lot of work into this one
and it was a very interesting case.
It's a huge fraud that has hit
the car broker community in particular.
Quite a complicated one.
It involves ghost cars, some dealers who have gone rogue
and criminal gangs targeting those dealers.
So, in a nutshell, John, what's happened
is criminal gangs have approached dealers
who have perhaps fallen on bad times.
They have pretended to be dealers themselves
and said, we've got a customer who wants to buy this car.
We're not FCA regulated.
Do you mind putting this car through on your finance system,
getting them approved, sending us the balance
and you can keep the commission?
Well, these dealers have fallen on hard times.
That's great news.
I'm not going to do any work.
All I'm going to do is prop up this customer,
get the money, send it to somebody and keep the commission.
What's happened is these criminals have found
what are probably complicit consumers.
So, these consumers, when they've had to do the ID checks
with the broker or the lender, they've passed those.
You know, often it's a selfie you have to do on a phone
and submit your driving license or passport.
They've passed those.
Some of them possibly could have been conned into doing that
via the scammers pretending to be from their banks, etc.
So, there are some question marks over
whether all of the consumers were complicit.
But what's happened is once these criminals
have got one through these rogue dealers,
they hit them with many more.
So, the brokers don't find out that there is a problem
until the consumer calls the lender
and says, you've been taking money out of my bank account.
Why have you been doing that?
And they'll say, well, it's for the car that you bought
and they say, what car?
And it's at that point that the house of cards
comes tumbling down.
The lender goes to the broker.
The broker goes to the dealer.
The dealer says, well, I never saw the car.
I sent the money to somebody else.
That money's disappeared.
The dealer goes pop and the broker
is unfortunately the one left holding the can
because they indemnify the lender for that money they've lent.
Now, one of those brokers that I spoke to, DSG,
Rob Woolen told me that they had been hit for a million pounds
as part of the scam at the end of last year.
The broker community in total has suffered
a 10 million pound loss as a result of this.
It's been investigated by the National
Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service
who's spoken to all of brokers across the UK who've been hit.
And a case file has now been transferred to the Met Police.
They told me that they can confirm that an investigation
is active and inquiries are ongoing, they said.
But it was fascinating in some respects, John,
how this was so layered.
It was a multi-layered down here, very, very complicated.
And the broker, as I spoke to, said,
you know, this isn't some kid in a bedroom with a laptop.
This is a serious organized crime gang
targeting these dealers and in turn,
targeting the finance industry.
Unfortunately, sometimes it gets seen as a victimless crime.
Well, it's not.
You know, these brokers are smaller businesses than the lenders
and they can't sustain those sorts of losses.
But you know what it's like when it's a business targeted
rather than an individual.
I'm not sure whether the authorities treat it
with quite the same importance.
But they are investigating this and it is still going on
in some parts.
So the brokers were warning that they've had to put in place
more stringent checks.
But there are the opportunities out there
that this may still be continuing in parts.
But yeah, fascinating story to investigate.
An interesting podcast put together.
It's available on all the channels
that people are listening to this on so they can go and find it.
But yeah, interesting, John.
We seem to be talking about lots of scams
hitting the industry, don't we, at the moment?
I mean, what's that third one that we've reported on
so far this year?
Yeah, I mean, I suppose you close one hole
and criminals find a way to make another.
I don't know, that's the thing.
But I was surprised by this because it's not something
I'd been aware of, naturally.
It's probably not something you've been aware of, James.
No.
As you say, incredibly complicated.
I'm still struggling to get my head around
quite the nuances of it to use your favourite word.
That's bad.
Yeah, it's terrifying, really.
And the fact that it's, I mean, 10 million,
I grant you is when you think about the kind of cars
that were probably going through not a huge number
of these scams, probably in the wider scheme of things
going on, but you know how these things go,
it will only grow if it's not stamped down on.
Well, and especially when it's the broker community
getting here, they are big losses to sustain.
And they were saying the average payout
was about £30,000 for the cars that are going through,
just under the threshold where they would have done
more stringent checks.
So the scammers knew what they were doing.
They absolutely knew what they were doing,
but only takes, you know, 10 cars that's 300 grand,
isn't it, that's very rapidly disappeared.
And once these criminals started slipping them
through the net, they really started hitting these dealers
and these brokers.
Andrew, I don't know if you saw this,
but I mean, it's incredibly worrying,
isn't it, how scammers target our industry?
It is, yeah.
And actually, the whole financing thing
is under massive question.
Something that's really affected our business.
So, yeah, I mean, anything that undermines confidence,
undermines the ability for, you know, business to flow.
I think that's not a great thing.
And it actually, on top of that, just winds you up.
It really, no, it's just annoying.
All the time you look through emails
and so many emails now are scams.
And some of them are really, really sophisticated.
And, you know, just do the wrong thing
or catch you at the wrong moment.
It's very easy to make a mistake.
So far, I haven't, so.
Yeah, no, it is very, very easy.
Yeah, especially when you're in big business.
I mean, it's kind of, they're targeting them
all the time, aren't they?
Right, John, that's my first one.
I will hand it to you.
Thank you.
I will keep it on finance and talk about Blue Motor Finance,
which reports suggest he's very sadly
teetering on the brink of collapse
of the words we've got in our headline here.
I think they were Sky News' words.
That we, yeah, it was borrowed.
There you go.
So, yeah, it comes on good authority.
Sky scooped this one.
But, yeah, and it's all to do with, well,
so the report suggests a £50 million redress bill
as part of the car finance redress scheme, of course.
I should say that Blue Motor Finance
has yet to officially respond either to our sort of sky,
as I understand it.
But we've seen quite a few reports and, you know,
I suspect James heard from some people in the industry
that suggest this is happening.
Which, if I may, go on.
People in the industry, John, I just, sorry,
just on that front, the dealers who,
well, obviously, I know lots of dealers who use Blue
as a motor finance company.
So, they spoke to their representatives
who kind of poo pooed this story, really,
said it was the information that Sky News has got
is incorrect.
However, you know, these are reps
that are probably going to say that.
But, yeah, they denied it.
They denied it.
I mean, this is not dissimilar to Motonovo,
although Motonovo feels like,
so Motonovo, of course, pulled out of the UK.
Because the bank behind Motonovo, their funding
pulled funding out of the UK,
and it looks like a similar sort of thing here,
supposedly, as a bank called Shawbrook,
which cancelled a forward flow funding agreement
earlier in the year,
probably as a result of the motor finance
redress scheme, I would imagine,
unless it's a big coincidence.
So, yeah, it's sad if that is the case.
Obviously, we will see soon what's going on there.
But it wouldn't entirely surprise me,
just given the finance market at the moment.
They said, didn't they, when they put this scheme together,
a lot of the banks and lenders were saying,
it's going to really hurt the finance market.
Not everybody's going to be able to weather this storm.
It's going to reduce competition.
And when you lose people like Motonovo have said they're going,
and we don't know what's going to happen to Blue,
but if another one goes, it does reduce competition.
That's not good for the consumer.
So, this is a compensation scheme
that's supposed to be helping consumers out,
but might absolutely do the opposite.
Andrew, what was your take on this whole FCA thing?
I mean, it's been a long-running saga, hasn't it?
Well, we have actually,
I talked earlier about having a car and property business.
We do have a third business based at a different location
called Specialist Motor Finance.
So, we are doing, we're in the very same business, really.
It's been extremely difficult and very, very tough.
There's no question about it.
What's been challenging about this particular thing
is obviously hot on the heels of PPI,
which was expensive for everybody.
The problem with all this is you're looking with hindsight.
You're looking through today's lenses
about business that was conducted five or 10 years ago,
and things were different then.
So, for example, with PPI, what was hard,
and obviously we complied with absolutely everything,
but in those days, you would sacrifice rate
because you could make some profit on the PPI.
So, you've got to make profit.
You wouldn't be in business to provide that service
if it wasn't rewarding for you.
So, to then go back and say,
well, PPI doesn't seem that fair.
That felt very difficult.
Of course, I understand it's complex area.
You then move on and then talk about the current issue,
the redress scheme that we have to all put in place currently.
It comes from a judicial ruling.
So, the fact is we were all doing business
the way that the FCA told us we were supposed to be doing business.
And it was a judiciary that said,
well, actually, it's the FCA that's wrong.
So, what on earth is the business supposed to do
or the industry supposed to do?
With that, when the way we are governed and being told,
this is how you must do business,
that is the thing that comes under question.
I think it's really, really difficult.
And then on top of that, the redress scheme is very,
it's really unwieldy.
And then, of course, you've got the claims management companies
that get heavily involved.
And I know they are regulated.
What many of them are doing,
because the regulation, if you are a legal firm,
rather than the claims management company,
is slightly different.
So, many of them have now established separate companies
that are regulated differently.
And so, I think, I feel like their involvement
in the industry is not particularly helpful.
And actually, it's not great for customers either,
because there's been cases of customers taking
two and three claims management companies on.
And of course, what's the point of that?
Because whatever you would be awarded
if you'd been unfairly treated, whatever you'd be awarded,
it's going to go back to the claims management company.
So, I think this is a really, really difficult area.
And I'm coming to who made the point,
but this point about the middle part of the market,
it will leave.
I think that is a very, very real issue.
You've got three parts to the finance market.
You've got the banks who are using depositor funding,
which is cheaper.
So, they've got low cost of money and they've got scale.
What they don't want to do is get involved,
people like Blue and Motonovo and others like that.
They don't want to get involved in that business.
It's difficult and it's a bit more gnarly to deal with.
And then you've got the mid part of the market
who is doing that.
So, they don't have depositor funding.
And they're relying on their systems
and the way that they operate.
So, they're listening to the FCA
because obviously we have to do that.
And then they're providing a really, in general, a good service.
Then you've got the very bottom end of the market,
which is pretty much baseball bats.
So, if you then take away the middle part of the market,
what are you left with?
You're left with big banks with big overheads
who aren't really interested in the small man
and you're left with the baseball bats.
So, I think the industry, the economy, the government,
whoever needs to be really mindful and careful
about what actually they're doing here.
Yeah, off the back of that compensation scheme,
I did quite a few interviews with BBC local radio stations
and I really laboured the point that actually,
you've got to remember, the industry was playing
by the rules that were set at the time.
You know, they said, I think you make a very good point there.
It's like a lot of people have forgotten this.
This has come about because the FCA got it wrong.
The FCA, not the industry.
The industry was doing what they should be doing.
Just quickly, just before we wrap this one up,
the compensation scheme, would you just like to see it,
just like the payouts made and the whole industry to move on?
Or do you think it should be challenged?
Do you think it is something that we should be as an industry
or the lenders fighting?
Probably the first.
I mean, it's, you know, where are we going to get to?
So, I think challenging it is probably not right.
Sometimes you just need to say, look, it's happened.
We need to kind of get it behind us.
And I guess I'd be in that camp really.
The thing about the redress scheme, though,
is I just want it as simple and straightforward as possible.
And I think because the FCA, this has just been my reading of it,
because the FCA probably feel a little embarrassed
about what's happened.
I think they've almost done, you know,
more than belt and braces on the redress scheme.
We have to comply.
There's, I have no hesitation.
I would not want to resist doing that in any way.
But, you know, it's pretty difficult to do it.
It's pretty expensive.
I think we should just get it behind us.
Move on.
Like this story.
So I'm going to move us on.
Thank you.
John, I would like to pick a story about the Land Rover Discovery
being named Britain's most unreliable used car,
as the brand dominates.
I had this on my list as well now.
I was reminded of something our colleague,
Jack Williams, said to us today,
which said to us the other day,
which was exclusive.
Hope's religion confirmed.
And it reminded me of that.
Outrage.
Yeah, this is news from Warranty Wise.
They've come up with their annual reliability index,
which ranks the used cars in several key areas.
So they've come up with their list of the best and worst.
So the most reliable and the least reliable used cars.
Quickly scanning this to make sure none of Andrew's on the list.
I don't look all ready.
You could say it if it's there, but I doubt it will be.
But you could say it if it is.
Don't worry, you are safe.
You are safe.
Most unreliable used cars
You've got Land Rover Discovery at number one.
So it's got a score.
These are scores out of 100.
Set a score 17.2.
Also on the list, Range Rover Velar and 5th.
Range Rover Sport in 6th.
Land Rover Discovery Sport in 8th.
And the Land Rover Defender in 10th.
I mean, that's five.
I do have some good news, James.
Actually, the 10th one is the Defender 110.
There's no mention of the 90.
So maybe the 90 is very reliable.
Maybe it is.
I mean, that does not make good reading, does it?
And then the rest of them on the list
are either BMW, Mercedes or Audi's.
What has gone wrong here?
I mean, that does not look good, does it?
I mean, some of these and some of the claims
that they've paid out for are astronomical.
There was one of the discoveries.
The most expensive repair cost 25 and a half thousand pounds.
I mean, that is just...
I'm going to leave the wars with that then.
Just have a new car.
Yeah, I think it must have been.
I mean, that is scary.
That is a scary amount of money.
But the other end of the list,
most reliable used cars, John.
Mostly in stock at the Clever Car Collection.
Number one, Toyota Yaris, brilliant car.
Number two, our favourite, the Kia Picanto.
Now, I am completely vindicated, aren't I?
Aren't I on all of the car choices I make?
Kia Picanto in two.
Toyota Igoe in three.
Toyota RAV4 in four.
And the Peugeot 108.
Not sure I believe that in fifth.
The Peugeot 108, James, is basically a Toyota.
So that explains that.
Yes, of course.
Yeah, that explains why the Citroen C1 is on the list.
Exactly.
As well.
Yes, so if dealers out there are looking to find out
what to stock and what not to stock,
probably worth having a look at this list.
But yeah, it's a good job you mentioned it, James,
because I think if you quiz dealers across the land,
none of them before now would have said the Discovery
or the Range Rover was unreliable.
And none of them would have said the Yaris was reliable either.
So I think it's good you're providing this service
of brand new information to people.
Well, I mean, just off the back of this,
on Friday I did publish a video, the one I was talking about,
the cars that the dealers are too scared of buying.
And on that list, one of them was the Ingenium engine
from JLR.
Most dealers said they wouldn't actually touch it.
So we published that story, published that video
and that story with those dealer comments.
The Sun basically stole the story.
They went to all of the manufacturers
and asked them for comment.
Jaguar Land Rover came back and said,
no, our cars are really reliable if you service them.
And I think that's kind of the problem, isn't it?
Most people out there don't actually service their cars.
Yeah, that is very true.
Yes, on a completely unrelated note as well.
When does your Range Rover turn up from Japan?
Oh, yeah, there is one on the way.
There's one on a boat at the moment.
But it's not one of those ones on the list, John.
So, and you called me in to buy it.
I did, yeah.
I just thought it'd be funny.
Oh, dear, oh dear.
Any comments on that one?
For me, well, from Andrew, I'd hand it over to.
I mean, I'm feeling very confident in your mainly Japanese...
Yeah, actually, even the Chinese are proven to be reliable.
The ones we're dealing with, we don't really have issues with them.
I don't know if it's the electric car versus combustion engine thing.
Who knows?
I mean, it's always been that way, hasn't it?
With Land Rover and Range Rover.
It doesn't stop us buying the products.
I don't know.
There's something very British about that, I guess.
There definitely isn't.
There's a blitz spirit there that, yeah, when it comes to car buying.
Right, John, move us on.
I don't want to end on a sour note,
but I'm going to briefly talk about the Nissan news that's been going on this week,
which is that Nissan is too...
Well, I'm going to word this very carefully,
because I think some of the headlines around this have been a little bit extreme,
but Nissan is to close a production line at Sunderland
as part of their Europe-wide restructure.
So Nissan, of course, are going through what you might call a reimagine at the moment.
They've got a new boss who has a bit like Carlos Goen,
when he first arrived, has come in and gone.
These things are very expensive.
We need to get ourselves back to making decent profit.
The world has changed since this was all set up,
and he's done lots of things like closed design studios,
where they're not particularly necessary sometimes,
closed some factories that were underperforming,
rationalizing the product lineup,
because it's a big car company, lots of products across the globe,
a lot of which are not actually shared across all markets.
So you can do a bit of rationalization there, that sort of thing.
I think in the UK, we felt we were relatively safe from these cuts,
because Sunderland is sort of like the pearl of Nissan's
production facilities in some way, certainly in Europe.
But it is under capacity, much as most car plants are, to be honest,
probably not the ones in China.
But they've decided they've got two lines running at the minute,
and they've decided to merge them into one,
and extend the shifts later into the evening instead,
with a view that, not that Nissan is necessarily saying this, I suspect,
but with a view that perhaps, well,
either more products are going to come into fill that other line,
or perhaps they will start manufacturing things for another partner.
Could be that Renault decided to start manufacturing there,
could be that a Chinese brand decides to take up some of that production line,
in order to skirt any tariffs that we might have in the UK,
not that we particularly do,
or just to get the cars here a bit quicker than the enormous lead time they currently have.
But of course, this has gone out,
and all the newspapers have run with Nissan to close production line at Sunderland,
sounds like they're closing the whole plan.
I just like to say they're not,
there are currently no job losses in the UK,
but there are going to be 900 in Europe in general,
but as I say, Nissan in Europe, quite a big beast.
So I don't know whether to be worried by this or not,
I think there's some logical rationalization going on.
It's not a nice headline,
but I don't know, what did you think, James?
Yeah, no, I agree with everything you say there.
I think you've summed it up very, very well,
and I think unfortunately people pick up on the negativity, don't they?
But actually, there's some positivity in there as well,
I think you just need to read behind the headlines.
And of course, the other thing is,
there's a new car coming at some point,
the electric Duke and the electric cash car
will be rolling down lines at some stage,
so maybe it's reversible, maybe.
We won't make Andrew comment on that one,
because I'd like to ask him opinion on just one last thing,
which is not a story, but John, this week I have...
Not a story.
Not a story.
Hang on, no, sorry, no.
I mean, what I'm about to talk about now.
This week, I've been doing something that will scare you.
I've been doing some coding.
I knew you'd say that.
So, but I've been playing around with...
I've been playing around with Claude,
and I have had some success, actually,
building some things for my very small car dealership
that I wanted to automate when it comes to car buying,
and actually very interesting.
I've been really enjoying playing about with that.
I'd say to people who haven't tried Claude,
get out there and give it a go.
But I'm interested in Andrew's take on AI,
because it's something that's rapidly changing our industry.
And I'm just wondering how, if at all,
you use it in your business and what you think about it?
Yeah, we definitely use it in the business.
We're a Microsoft business, so we use co-pilot.
We've got an enterprise thing.
It's a bit freaky, I've got to say,
because you sort of ask it questions.
And actually, you then start to have this conversation,
for example, oh, well, we're selling ex-pangs,
and you can ask it, take a look at our quarter one performance
and what we've spent in terms of marketing,
and what do you recommend we do?
And it will come back with all the stuff
that the competitors are doing.
It's got access to our own internal computers as well,
because it's our enterprise system.
And it basically did my job for me.
That's a bit frightening, isn't it?
Yeah.
Even more frightening is if it's more accurate than me,
then I'm obviously very concerned at that point.
At the moment, I heard somebody talk about AI like this,
and I think it's probably the right way to think about it,
which is AI is not always right.
So previously, the internet,
it was at least trying to give you
the right and accurate information,
because you sort of say, well,
what's the price of a Land Rover Discovery,
or how reliable is a Land Rover Discovery?
And it will try and find actual reports.
What AI is doing is it's got access to much, much more information,
but it's got some kind of brain that's sort of working
on the basis of balance of probabilities.
So the best way to think of it is like your big brother,
who knows everything, but he's not always right.
And a good case in point is that I was watching a football match
the other day, and I quite like football.
And up came, I was watching Spurs, I'm not a Spurs fan,
and so up came a photograph,
a sort of picture of their captain on the bench
for an important match.
And it was obviously some kind of Brazilian guy,
and I was thinking, I was like,
oh, I've got a name of this player.
Who is this player?
So I typed into chat GPT, and I said,
who is the Spurs captain?
And it came back, and it said Hyunmin Son.
So I thought, that guy is not a Korean,
but I'm looking at, his definitely name is not Son.
And so I said, no, that's not correct.
It looks Brazilian.
And then it came back and said, ah, yes, you're right.
It was Son last year, but during the course of this year,
it's changed to a guy called Romero.
So I could have just accepted the first answer,
although that wasn't the case.
But just as an example, I think you can't resist AI.
It's important.
And we're in a competitive industry.
All your competitors are going to be using it in some way.
My best advice would be, use it.
Use it as a tool.
Try to understand it.
Don't allow yourself to lean on it completely,
because that would be quite easy to do.
I think you'll probably find that there's some sort of error
in doing that.
Yeah, I quite agree with that.
Well, John, that's about it from me.
Lovely, until we replace you with chat GPT next week,
which will agree with everything I say.
Obviously, what I'm building, John, isn't it?
So, Andrew, before I ask your verdict,
so are there any stories you think
we should have covered this week, but we haven't,
and we've missed?
Obviously, we don't really do local elections,
but we sort of covered that anyway.
I suppose local elections is actually very significant,
and the forthcoming election is more significant
than normal for the car industry.
So that is definitely something that I think bears
a lot of thinking about,
just because we are in such a unique position
with our politics, and it's on a knife edge
which way it goes, but the impact of the industry is huge.
So you could almost say the industry is hanging
on a knife edge right at the moment
in terms of its future direction.
Yeah, I'd agree with that.
I would agree with that.
Well, politics aside, I'm going to have to ask you
who chose the best story, or which story was your favourite?
Sorry, James, but honorable mention
goes to the finance
just because of our own personal involvement
with that industry, and that's something
that we're fitting a lot of pain from currently.
But I think on a more positive note,
the winning story for me is the Nissan story,
because my reason for that is
we're dealing with Chinese and Japanese businesses.
We can see the threat like everybody can of the Chinese,
and I want to see some fight from the Japanese,
and so I think the fact that you...
And I actually do think that is what's going to happen.
The Japanese industry is going to fight,
because if they don't, they are existentially threatened,
aren't they?
And so the Japanese are a great fighting nation.
They're very smart people.
I love the way that they process things,
they think through things.
There's a great culture for building great cars
as evidenced by the list of who's building
the most reliable cars, basically.
It's Japanese.
And so I think that indicates to me
that there is some fight going on,
and I think it will be a big fight,
but yeah, happy to hear that.
I like that positive to come out of that,
otherwise possibly negative story.
Yeah, and I cannot disagree with that
in any way, shape or form.
So well done, John.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
And to you, I think probably we should draw a line
under this series,
and we'll say you're the winner of this series,
and next week we'll start again at 0-0.
How long did that series last exactly in your head?
Well, 18 weeks.
Right, okay.
Anyway, all that's left for me to say
is thank you Andrew for joining us today.
It's been great to chat to you and chat about the business
and get all your many, many insights
on the world of cars.
No problem.
Thanks.
Thanks for having me.
Well, thank you very much.
Yeah, nice to see you.
Thanks for giving up so much of your time.
Massively appreciated.
Very much so.
And thank you as well to James
for doing such a lovely job on King's Dailies.
And thank you for listening.
We'll be back next week with another episode,
so make sure you're subscribed.
I think we notified when that goes live.
Again, I'm reminded to remind everyone
to please like or whatever the name is on this podcast.
Give us a vote.
I don't know what the words are.
You're not regularly at this.
No, I'm not really good at this.
You can tell I don't really do this on podcasts,
but apparently it's very important.
And subscribe, of course, so you can be notified
when other podcasts go live,
including ones that James likes to do about investigations.
If you want to check out the stories you mentioned today,
take a look in the show notes below
or head to cardinemagazine.co.uk.
Thanks for listening and goodbye.
About this episode
Dealers and brokers get a detailed look at “ghost car” finance fraud—how it’s uncovered only after consumers complain, why brokers can be left holding the losses, and how investigators have escalated it to the Met. The conversation then shifts to industry pressure: reports that Blue Motor Finance is “teetering on the brink of collapse,” plus the rumoured knock-on effects of redress on lender funding. Nissan’s Sunderland output is also in focus, with plans to close a line and merge production.
Original notes
Land Rover Discovery named Britain’s most unreliable used car as brand dominates list
Revealed: The used vehicles that even car dealers avoid buying at all costs
Blue Motor Finance ‘teetering on the brink of collapse’ with £50m redress bill – reports
Exclusive: Police investigating huge £10m ‘Ghost Car’ finance fraud after dealers ‘go rogue’
Nissan to close production line at Sunderland plant as part of Europe-wide restructure
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