John, reckon you could beat Carwell's Matt Watson in a drag race?
Probably not with any of your stock, James, but I'll give it a go.
Well, John, it's funny you should say that.
Right now, Carwell is offering dealers the chance to win one of 20 spaces for a day on the track with Matt.
All you need to do is source stock in Carwell's daily online auctions in September.
So you're saying just by buying a couple of picantos, you could win a day on the track with Matt Watson?
That's right, John. Every vehicle bought and collected via Carwell's auctions in September counts as one entry.
So the more you buy, the more chances you get to race against Matt Watson himself.
You can sign up today, John, at carwell.co.uk slash partners slash win.
Terms and conditions apply.
Welcome back to the Car Dealer Podcast, where we pick our favourite stories of the week
and ask an industry guest to choose which were the best.
I'm John Ray, and joining me this week, as usual, it's, well, actually, how can I introduce you this week?
Last week, I introduced you as a Premier Automotive electrician.
Well, you could say, I've got one for you, electric car owner.
I can say that, can't I?
It depends. Have the funds cleared from one bank account to another?
No, they haven't actually, but they will be. The finance will clear, I'm sure.
I should probably explain that, shouldn't I?
Last week, we talked about that ridiculous part exchange that I took in, which was, well, I say ridiculous.
It was for a ridiculous price. I bought that Renault Zoe for £500.
And you've been down this week, John. We've had some fun and games with it.
I introduced you to the world of very cheap electric cars, and were you quite impressed?
I was very impressed, actually, for the sake of, I mean, what else can you get for £500 a week nowadays?
It's crazy.
A £500 electric car.
I spent £100 in weight shows last night.
I mean, it's a fifth of the price of the electric car.
Oh, God.
I thought it was very impressive.
I think it was rarity that you managed to get one with the battery actually owned in the car, not owned by Renault.
So if it wasn't owned by you, I think it would be worth a lot less.
Well, I was impressed by James.
It was a 10, 11-year-old electric car.
Sorry, an 11-year-old Renault.
And it all felt tight and brand new.
It's done 80,000 miles, hasn't it?
Yeah.
So I don't think an 80,000 mile, I don't know, 0.9 litre Cleo would feel quite so tight.
Definitely not.
I've been really impressed with it so much so that I've bought it off the company because I needed a sort of third car, which would be quite useful.
It means that Rebecca can use it and I don't have to ride my bike all the time.
So yeah, perfect opportunity.
But yes, yeah, a bit of a bargain there.
Had a bit of a weird one this morning, though.
I plugged it in to charge it up for the first time at home.
And I sat here in front of my computer and my computer started making the weirdest buzzing noise.
And I'm thinking, what on earth is that?
Is the screen's gone wrong or something?
And did a little bit of Googling.
I say I did, you did.
So you know, what about this, John?
You did a little bit of Googling for me.
And it turns out that one of the things that can set off your computer screen's buzzing is an electric car charging.
And I thought that cannot be connected.
So I went downstairs, unplugged the Renault Zoe from the house.
Everything fixed.
Nothing buzzed anymore.
I mean, very, very strange.
I mean, it's quite, I just, yeah, couldn't really, couldn't really imagine that was going to be the case.
So yeah, that's been, that's been quite fun, John.
Isn't it this week?
We've got a video coming out all about that tonight.
Yes, not about your screen.
No, not about screen, about the car.
But I've had a little bit of success car sales wise.
Sold two of those new Jimneys.
They've gone out the door, literally left us.
Both of them, both of the chaps, very, very happy with them.
So yeah, the imports seem to be doing quite well for us.
I'm quite impressed.
Well, I'm trying to encourage you to buy some more.
Yes, some, yeah.
The ones you're encouraging me to buy that are quite strange, aren't they?
Normally.
Yes.
Maybe.
Yeah.
Anyway, what have you been up to?
You've been driving any weird Chinese cars or?
No, not this week.
Although I might be in two weeks time.
That seems to be my life.
Excellent.
You are now a Chinese correspondent, aren't you?
I am.
Yeah.
I don't know how I've managed to wrangle that particular title, but it's just,
there's, you know, like of the percentage of new car launches at the minute,
I think it just so happens about 75% of the Chinese.
So yes, I think that's why.
No, no, I do have a new Chinese car arriving in a few weeks though.
Do you?
Yeah.
Well, it's evolved though.
But does that count?
It may or may not be made in China.
I'd need to check them in.
But yeah, I've got an EX 30 arriving at some point.
So I will.
That is the sort of thing you do, isn't it?
Check them in.
Check them in.
Yeah.
It's a kind of owners group thing.
Anyway, should we stop boring our listeners and introduce our fantastic guests?
I think so.
So our guest this week is Stephen Douglas, director of really easy car credit
and co-founder of Dealerway.
Stephen, thanks for joining us.
Great.
Great to be on.
Thanks, John.
How are you, James?
You okay?
Yeah, very good.
Thanks.
Nice to see you.
I know there's lots to talk to you about, but I think we should probably just sort of
set the scene for those people listening.
I mean, tell us a little bit about the car dealership side of your business first.
I mean, give us an idea of how it's all set up.
Yeah.
So we're a little bit different from your traditional car dealer, I suppose.
And that we don't advertise on Auto Trailer, which is maybe a shock for some.
Because I know Auto Trailer is obviously the leading driver of most Motor Trade businesses.
And it's not something that, you know, would do out of spite or we don't have anything
against Auto Trailer.
It's just sort of how it's sort of come to be.
I did, I set up the business maybe 13, 14 years ago under a different guys.
I'll be honest with you.
You're a traditional Auto Trailer dealer.
And I was selling a lot cheaper cars back then.
I didn't have the money behind where that we've got now.
And I was just getting a little bit delusioned with, you know, what I found was sort of like
the race to the bottom on Auto Trailer.
And I just felt like I was competing on price and everyone was doing the same thing.
And it was just regurgitating all the time.
And I just, I wanted to just be a little bit different.
Look would have it.
One day a finance rep came in into the dealership.
And it was just me running the whole thing, balloting cars, picking cars up, you know,
selling the cars, doing everything really, which I'm sure you're aware about recently
James with the old dealership that you've just recently started.
So I was in a bit of a rush and I was like, I nearly sort of shushed him out the door.
And he says, no, no, give it, give us two seconds of your time.
And he says, we're a new finance company and we're finance people with really bad credit.
So anyways, I heard him out and we had a little go of it.
It's not someone I'd thought about before.
And we sort of done really well out of it straight away.
And the company at the time was called Credit for Cause C4C.
They're not here anymore.
That business model wasn't exactly great if I'm honest with you.
Oh, you've got a pulse. All right. You're approved.
So let's just leave it at that.
So anyway, around about that time, I must admit, I've always been a little bit techie and a bit geeky.
And I started learning Facebook and Facebook ads.
And this was well, well before anyone, obviously it's massive now.
It was well before anyone in the motor trade that I knew certainly was doing that.
And I got really into it and taught myself how to do it.
And we quickly using this one finance company, this Credit for Cause,
and using the new platform Facebook were promoting with the advertising.
We're just skyrocketed.
And I took on a salesperson.
We took on a couple of validers in fast forward two or three years down the line.
We've got a couple of more companies, finance companies involved.
But we went from doing me one man band on my own.
I was probably doing 20 to 25 calls a month.
And we're doing like 90 to 100 deals a month at a start of 17.
And the way we worked it was really dropped over through that.
And what typically you would say is like a finance led dealer.
So we didn't for a long time, we do now, but we didn't advertise cause first.
We didn't advertise cause we're advertised finance.
And it was all done through the Facebook platform, the advertising platform.
And would have like landing pages built with a special form on how long made and,
you know, direct people through the through the advertising flow to put the details
into apply for credit.
And, you know, the hook was, you know, do you have bad credit?
We can help.
And luckily for me at that time, like I say, we had this funder who was
literally just willing to sign the life away on it on any customer.
You know, so the great thing about it was it at the time, this,
this particular funder was, was lending massive, massive amounts on cause.
So we were achieving like 120 to 125% of glasses or cap retail,
whichever was the greater.
So it enabled me to pay a lot more for cause than, you know, your typical dealer.
So obviously back in those days, it was, you know, all traditional auctions.
This was pre COVID.
So there was no online auctions at the time.
And I used to go at the auctions, you know, every other day, I suppose.
And I would literally make a point of standing in the middle of the auction
ring with me, my catalogue rolled up and I would call me bid and stick.
And I would make a point of everyone because I'm quite well known locally,
you know, I've been the motor for me whole life.
And I would make sure everyone knew that I was bidding for these cars.
And eventually they'd say that I would give more money for anyone,
anyone else in the cause because I wasn't on auto trader.
I wasn't competing with everyone else on price.
And I was able to give more money for these cars.
So eventually people got sick of bidding against this because I just
was to keep going and going and winning cause.
So eventually people used to, to come into the auction.
I'd sit and be having a cup of tea or a sausage sandwich or something.
It's easy.
Oh, Steve, you see that, that course are out there.
And I would be like, yeah, God see, can you leave us that one?
And enable this really to sort of have car planche locally anyway,
until this started.
I started having to bid against the telly where it would be seen in Manning.
What have you bought the screens out so you could, you could bid online.
But I was having me cake and internet.
I was getting the cause eventually cheaper because no one was bidding
against us because it was, you know, to them it was pointless.
I was able to, to get this, you know, massive retail valuation back
for the cause.
So when you pair that with the influx of the leads that were getting
at the time, which were buying them for a pound, you know,
for a finance application at the time, it would just grew
exponentially and we had a really good go at it.
And I suppose the company's bank balance grew exponentially.
And then then COVID hit and some of the companies that were
using hit the wall and everything changed and sort of chasing
that fight dream back down to reality now with everyone else.
But we're still working the same way.
We don't use our trailer.
We're not on car gurus.
We're not on motors.
And again, it's not that I've got anything against those platforms.
It's just my business isn't the traditional motor dealership.
We're more like a hybrid of an in-house broker slash dealer.
And fast forward to today, we're sort of down to eight staff
will move premises.
And I'm actually looking to move premises again to be honest.
We haven't really got the facilities that I want, but we're doing
around 45 to 50 deals a month spread across eight or nine
different, different funders who have got direct relationships
in place with all.
But like my team that I've got, they're all literally
the snow car financing side and out, you know, Steven,
what sort of value are you getting above what these cars
would be advertised in order to trade it?
Because are you sort of setting your own price for these vehicles?
Well, we were.
We were.
It's not it's not so much like that now.
I'm honest with you.
The car model is your well aware has changed dramatically
since COVID in the last five years.
And obviously, as we know that the price of cars
have just gone up and up and up.
And the problem that I've had, the funders that we did have
pre COVID are now not there anymore.
Or the funders that were doing large volumes of business
have tightened up the belts, so to say.
And where is and everything's all on affordability
for a customer now.
So where is the funders used to see our rate?
Well, this customer can have seven grand for a car.
I would have a pitch full of cars for seven grand
because their affordability would only allow them
to have seven grand.
But now because the way the car market shifted,
that those, let's say a seven grand focus back then.
Isn't the seven grand focus now that focus is like a nine grand
or a nine and a half grand car.
So these customers that we're still getting approvals
for, we can't find cars for them.
I physically can't make enough margin in the vehicles
and finance commission as well to buy, prepare,
if a vehicle to a good standard to sell someone a car
for that seven grand, seven and a half grand, eight grand.
When we saw what cars have sort of shifted up in value,
what average margins now is more,
sorry, not what average margin,
where average retail value of vehicle now is more like
10 to 12 grand.
And because of that,
the prices sort of level out at that price point
and what, I mean, are we achieving a little bit more
than what you would on all three days?
Yes, but it's nowhere near what we were previously,
what caused a price a lot more competitively now,
but there's still enough margin at that price point
that we're happy with, you know.
Where do you get the cars from?
I mean, it's very competitive out there, isn't it?
I mean, you must spend a lot of your time bidding
and trying to buy stuff.
Yeah, so basically that's my role
inside the business now, that and the market inside.
I'm a full-time car buyer
and I'm sort of chained to this desk,
you know, all the usual suspects.
I was buying a lot of cars out of BCA for a long time,
but I just found I was getting bogged down
with issues on those vehicles
and obviously with the advent of motorway and car wow,
I've dipped me into that a lot.
And we're probably buying 45, 50 cars a month
for motorway car wow
and now obviously dealer way as well,
because, you know, since starting that off,
I've built up a lot of contacts
and doing the dealer podcast that we've done.
I've got a lot of contacts that way,
so we'll buy a few that way.
So that's been good and that's been a good help.
But yeah, basically everything's online,
you know, and we've now got drivers
that were sent up and down the country
picking cars up on the road every day, you know.
The motorway's changed.
It's totally not what it once was, you know,
even five, six years ago.
It's a totally different animal now
and, you know, my days are spent totally different
from what they were back then.
I mean, I still enjoy it, don't get me wrong,
but I do sort of pine for a time when, you know,
I know there is still physical auctions,
but they're just not the same, you know.
I pine for a time going to the auction,
meeting the lads, you know,
getting the gist of what's been going on with everyone.
And I find myself sort of sat here on my own
and not really having anyone to interact with a lot, you know.
It's difficult.
Yeah, no, but it is.
What do you think of those platforms, most of the way,
in Kawa?
I mean, a lot of people buy cars that way.
We buy a lot of our cars that way too,
but it is incredibly competitive, isn't it?
And actually the margins have been squeezed all the time.
I think the great platforms, I really do,
you know, which is why myself and Scott,
which I'm sure we'll get on to,
start a deal away to sort of fill like a gap
that we've seen in that sort of market.
I don't think they're without faults though,
but the problem that they've got,
I think the faults that they've got,
I don't think they can ever overcome them.
The problem that you've got with motorway,
or anything of that like,
is you're relying on a private person, a customer,
who doesn't really know the way around a vehicle
to describe a vehicle to you.
Now, I'm sending drivers up and down the country daily
to 300 mile journeys,
you know, we're based in Newcastle, you know,
from the accent,
and we're sending drivers sometimes to London,
you know, Birmingham, in the Highlands,
in Scotland, they're going all over there,
and we're sending them off the back of what,
all I can see is eight or nine pictures
on one of these platforms,
and whatever's come out that customer's mouth,
and the problem that we run into,
and it's getting more prevalent now,
I don't know why,
the problem that we're running into is we're turning up the car,
and the car's nothing as described,
and then in a situation where
you're paying a driver a day's wage,
you might have paid him a train fare
to go up there, or the fuel to go up there,
and you've got to make a decision
because, yes, you can haggle with the customer,
but not all customers won't haggle
over the price of the car,
but it's like, do I waste
the 300 pound that it's cost
is to send someone on that journey,
and just bring them back,
or do I try and get money knocked off
for X, Y, or Z, for whatever
we've found on the vehicle,
and then, but doing that,
you know, you're always taking a risk,
and then you get the car back,
and you then sort of
you're making your in-house prep,
or, I mean, we haven't gone to in-house prep,
we've got so much work out now,
but you're putting yourself under strain
because the more and more work that you buy
and the horror it is to get the cars up by sale,
we haven't got an endless pot of money
that will just keep accumulating cars
and leaving them there for weeks on end,
we need to turn these cars, you know,
so it's hard, it's a difficult juggling act,
you know, that there's been times
where we've sent drivers all over,
and like I say, we've had to walk away,
and it's cost, I mean, there's been times,
there was a day, three or four weeks ago,
we had three collections,
and every one of the collections was no good,
the cars were totally mis-described,
one turned up and there was no water
in the head of tank,
you know, straight away,
no good, one, the car
was just scratched,
dented, damaged beyond belief,
and very cleverly photographed
by the private person
to not show those issues,
I can't remember what the other one was now,
but it's a big cost of the business
when that happens,
and I know a lot of dealers have fallen off
these platforms because of,
you know, issues like this,
but I don't know
how much we all call wow,
can put that right,
because the more stringent
they are with customers,
the less customers they'll get put their cars on,
so it's a tough one,
and I have recently actually
started buying the odd one from
BCA again, but like you see,
the margins aren't there,
the margins aren't there at all,
that we need, you know, so...
It was going to be my question,
like how do you think they could improve it,
but the one thing that sort of springs to my mind
is perhaps a video walk around
of the cars, I mean,
the Motorway app in particular
asked for these specific pictures
I mean, surely a video walk around
where we can start, pause, zoom in,
would solve some of these issues,
because I'm, you know,
I get cheesed off with turn up at cars
and they're not described, and a lot of the time
it's Joe or I going personally
to pick them up, it is incredibly
frustrated when you send a driver,
because having that negotiation
remotely is really difficult, isn't it?
Yeah, it is, yeah.
Funny you should see that about the video
about three or four months ago,
we started a system where
when we bought a car from one of the platforms
we actually made our own video now
showing a customer how to
make a video, how to send a video
and ask every single customer
to do a walk around of the car
showing all the wheels,
showing the car starting from idle
showing the radio working,
all the windows working, you know,
showing the engine bay
and we're trying to mitigate everything
before we go.
In other instances where customers say,
oh no, well I've already put me pictures on,
you've agreed to buy the car, I'm not doing a video
and we'll just cancel it then, we'll just cancel it
because at the end of the day,
if they're not willing to do a two minute video
and we're willing to send someone 200 miles
then there's a rabbit off somewhere, isn't there?
Yeah.
So we'll just cancel them there and then
and, you know,
it probably does save a few trips
but again it doesn't,
you can get a
video from a customer, you can't keep
going back to that person and say, oh, can you do this?
Can you do this? They just get sick
so you've just got to go with what they send you
and you don't always get it right,
you know, unfortunately.
Yeah, it's definitely tough.
I mean, let's talk about Dealerway
because I was perfect timing
because I sold my first car on it this week.
We had a
little Ford Ka
that for some reason was just
performing incredibly poorly
on AutoTrader.
They were like that from New James.
But
how day John, it was a very nice car this
but just for some reason didn't sell.
I thought perfect first time driver's car
when we bought it in as a park exchange, couldn't sell it.
It was getting towards the top
end of our days to sell.
I wanted to move it on
and I thought I'd try Dealerway.
Uploading it was really simple. The team
are incredibly helpful. You set up this WhatsApp group
and you can share details of the car.
They actually listed it all for me.
Which saved me a huge amount of time
and very, very quick
and easy to do. Sold within
three days for what we paid for it.
We got our money back. I mean, couldn't ask for more.
The guy picks it up yesterday, lovely chap
drove up from Devon and
drove it away.
It was...
I haven't done the review yet.
That's my next step.
I do like the fact that you can review him
and he can review me and you can build up
that trust and rapport.
Give me an idea then.
You're one of the co-founders, you and Scott Sibley.
We've got Scott on the podcast and they're not too distant.
Future's talked about his business.
Give me an idea of where that business came from
and how it's going.
Yeah, so obviously Dealerway
was sort of born out
of the frustrations
of moving
your park exchanges on, I suppose.
And mainly
Scott started
the original Facebook group
that was called Port X Gold
and it was
him moving on
his swappers
and he'd added
local people in the area
that watch radars and dealers and what have you
and he started selling them very quickly
and he was doing that because he was describing them
within an inch of the life
and he'd set up this template
sort of thing.
And that sort of started working very well
and me and Scott are friends.
We've stood in Auckland houses together
for years and years and years and always sort of
talk between me about starting something.
We've got together and because I mentioned before
I'm a little bit techie
I've got an interest in the internet and computers
and software and what have you
we thought we'll come
on off to sort of turn this into a business
because we thought there was a gap there.
We've seen motorway and car wow
and the stuff they're doing with the customer
route reduce stuff and we just thought
there's never really been a trustworthy
platform
that's allowed dealers
to talk to each other
and negotiate with each other and buy and sell
cars amongst one another.
Not one that we feel has been done
properly anyway
and I think a big part of that
is the trust of transparency
in the review system.
So we've
got together and started
set about building the Facebook community
even large and we're allowed other
dealers to post their cars in there
and we changed the name
from Port X school to dealer way
and we grew the Facebook group
over I think it was 13,500 dealers
and
opened down the company and there was lots and lots of cars
getting sold on there and in the background
we sort of developed this
application which has obviously
led to what it is now
it took had I known now
sorry had I known then
what I know now I may not have started it
because
it was a lot more
difficult than I had ever anticipated
just
you know
I had said you know I've got an interest
in tech and things like that
I sort of bit off a bit more
like a chew and you know I'm a car dealer
first and foremost in tackling
you know this
massive platform that we've
come to build it's took a long time
it's took a lot of stress
a lot of money
a lot more money than what would have anticipated as well
a lot of sleepless nights
we've eventually got there
and today dealer way
we've got nearly 3,000 dealers on the platform
buying and selling cars amongst each other
it's free to join
for everyone
the only fees that were charged now
are to the buyer
in the buying fees
only £99 plus fat
is phenomenally cheap compared
when you compare it to any other platform
whether it be a car or a BCM
or anywhere where the fees are
you know yourself
£400, £600 sometimes
so we're trying to keep it
because we are dealers
me and Scott are dealers
we understand the frustrations of dealers
and we're trying to keep it
for what dealers want
I suppose I'll build it for me
really for what I would want
if I wanted
everyone else who was like me
would want the same
luckily it seems to be paying off
we're slowly
we're not at the size of a motor
we're a car now
we certainly haven't had the investment that they have had
but I think slowly surely
it's starting to get there
and we're excited by it
I'm not surprised
what I like about it
is the community feel
it's the trust
dealers inherently do not trust other dealers
take my Ford as an example
I was moving it on because it simply
had been with me too long
nobody ever believes that
nobody ever believes you're moving a car on
because it just doesn't meet
you just haven't been able to sell it
so what I like about the platform
is you can rate each other
and then you know who you're buying from
there's that trust element to it as well
the other thing I found with it
it's like you've put a lot of thought
into how it works
how the bidding process works
how you can make offers and counter offers
that sort of stuff must have been
incredibly complicated to build
yeah
a little bit James
like I said some sleepless nights
we didn't get it right at the start
at the start when we launched it
we sort of soft launched it
it wasn't really where we needed to be
we refined it over time
I'm not a software developer
I don't claim to be I know a little bit about it
but we've had this development team
that have been helping me build it
and I've sort of been the person
because as great as Scott is
dealing in business
and corridors he's not
technically gifted so I've been the one
sort of driving forward with it
and Martin who brought on
is by BDM
he's helped massively
with the project
and it's just even things that you don't think about
you know you see like a page of an app
or a desktop version
and you think right oh yeah that looks fantastic
yeah build it like that do that
and move that here and have this here
and then you get it in your hands
and you scroll down a page and you're like
well how do I do this
and it's like I never thought of that
it's like oh no
and then you get on the phone to develop us
you see this button here can we just put that
like up here and turn it yellow
and do this or whatever and it's like
yeah that's like three months worth of work
it's like oh shit
so it's difficult
really really difficult
I don't think I would get into it again
what sort of dealers are using the platform
and
is it
about selling or is it about buying
it's both
I would say we've got a good mixture
there's a lot of independent dealers on there
there's a lot of
you know
what I would call doorstep us on there
you know people who do two or three cars a week
from home there's a lot of main dealers
on there now which is what we're really
sort of pushing for because that's where we think
a lot of the cars
are going to come from on the platform
especially with the overage stocks
stuff there's car supermarkets
on there there's a good
good mixture now
the problem that we've found with it launching it
is it's like the chicken and egg scenario
isn't it because it's a two sided platform
in order
for the platform to work
both sides have got to be in parallel
so you've got to have the cars on there
because if there's no cars
then you know no one's bidding on them
and you've also got to have the buyers
and sometimes when
at the very start when we start to get it off
off the ground
would get dealers signing up and it would be like
right yeah get yourself on there
and they'd be like oh well there's no cars
we're like yeah I know we're trying
we're just starting and then
what would happen is we'd get other dealers on
oh yeah list your cars yeah yeah
and we'd get loads of cars on the platform
and they'd say well there's no buyers
and it was for a long time
for the first I would say the first
six, seven, eight months it was very difficult
but now we're at a point where
we're snowballing, snowballing, snowballing
and there's a strong stream
of buyers going on there now
strong stream of buyers logging in every single day
and it's in a good place you know
and Scott was telling us
this week how he's made
a real profit centre for his business
I mean his part
exchanges he's making good money out of
yeah he is yeah but the
reason he's doing that is because
he's describing them correctly
you know the thing is
that when you said before
the trust element on dealer way
we've got what we call a forced
review system so when you buy
buy a car of anyone
after you've collected
the vehicle you've got 14 days
in that time
to leave a review
if you don't leave a review for
the seller or the seller doesn't leave you
a review it sort of
it doesn't lock you out of your account
but the next time you log in
it forces you to leave that review
of what happened during that transaction
before you can progress to having a look
around the platform
so over time
your bank of reviews for the cause that you're
buying for the cause that you're selling
grows and grows and grows and so obviously
Scott's been using it
for all of his part exchanges
Scott's a very busy dealer and he generates
a lot of part exchange stock
and he's been getting 5 star reviews
I think he's on 98 so far
so if you're a dealer
you don't know who Scott is
you don't know who really is he car creditor
you don't know who I am
and then you are
down the country you're 300 miles away
and you've seen a car
and let's say it's one of Scott's
and it's like oh yeah I fancy that car
if you look at the exact same car
and dealer X has got that car
and he's got no reviews
or he's got one or two and he's got a one star review
or a three star review
you look at Scott's car which is the identical car
and he's got 98 five star reviews
and his reviews you can read them all
you can see who he's dealt with
who's left on review
you might even know some of the dealers
that have left on review and dealt with
and it just builds that trust
to know that when you do send your driver up
or when you do go yourself
if you're a small dealer you jump on the train
in Newcastle that you know
that car's going to be described correctly
and I think that's what's paying off for him
because we've noticed him
we've got a few other dealers
Simpson's Scorer as well
who are a main dealer that they've really embraced
the platform I think they've sold over a hundred cars
on it so far
and they haven't been on that great deal of time
they're describing the cars correctly
really putting the photographs on
properly
and there because they've built up
this good bank of five star reviews
not only are they selling more cars
but they're attaining more money
for the cars because people trust that
you know what they're seeing on the screen
in black and white is
is correct
and if you compare that to a motorway or a car wow
you can't get that from motorway or car wow
because you're buying
of one time purchase from a customer
who you don't know
whereas you go on the dealer way
and you're dealing with trusted dealers
open down the country who've got
reputations and we're showing those reputations
in the reel
and you know eventually
we'll foresee the platform
everyone having that
you know we've had some rogue
people on the platform who haven't
played ball
had a few one star reviews and we'll just kick them off
we don't want that
we want to build this trust worthy
transparent platform
and it's touch wood
it's working
wish you the best of luck with it
just before we move on to our stories
a couple of questions I'd like to ask all dealers
firstly any cars you avoid
buying
yes
one leader ego boosts
any
1.2 pure techs
a firm favourite
don't buy any GLR products
do you not
definitely not
I'm trying to think if there's anything else
no I think that's about it really
the problem is when you go on
these motorway and car wow platforms
just those vehicles
going out of them
I would say they're the main
power shift gearbox
is the automatic
horrendous
give me the story of the worst ever warranty claim
now you're putting us on the spot
the one that really sticks in your mind
I mean I've had several
going back to the GLR
this wasn't a car
that I'd purchased for sale
it was actually wife's personal car
a range of our sport
about a year ago
she upgraded the car anyway
she's got a new Tesla now
I sold the car
and the car was fine
driven it for a couple of years
got a phone call one day
engine's gone 5 grand later
that's probably the worst one
I've had
so we'll stay away from
GLR product
I'm going to call myself
which is crazy
for punishment
well just before we move on
if anybody wants any information
on dealer way where can they get it
literally just
www.dealerway.co.uk
for the details
you can sign up there
and then on the platform you do need to
provide trade insurance to prove
that you're in the motor trade
so if you have that the harm when you do that
then one of the guys
be straight in touch and get yourself up
you can be on the platform the same afternoon
nice well thank you very much
good to see you thanks for hanging around for the stories
but John we should probably do some
we interrupt this broadcast
for some breaking news
John I don't want to panic you
but the Cardio podcast live
is coming round really rather fast
yes I know that James
because I own a calendar
but clearly you've been not paying attention
how dare you John
if I hadn't been paying attention how would I know
that it's on the September the 24th
in Abandon that we've got the poll star boss
Matt Galvin, Vicky Hart from Waylands
and Alex Bradley
from Small Cars Direct on with us
hmm
well technically it's closer to Didcot
but I'll let that one go anyway
I bet you've forgotten how people can book tickets
no John because on my script right here
it says head to cardinamagazine.co.uk
slash podcast
and people listening to this
can book tickets with the special discount code
PICCANTO
for 10% off
there's a social barbecue after the recording
and plenty of time for a social catch up
with other like minded dealers
we look forward to seeing you there
this is a paid partnership
in association with Dealerway
John guess what
oh god you've bought more ducks haven't you
no ducks John wrong there
I've actually got a new habit
I've signed up for Dealerway
alongside more than two and a half thousand
other rated and vetted car dealers
to sell my trade part exchanges
the site is designed
for dealers to sell their part exchanges
for more money quickly and easily
there's no sellers fees
and buying a car costs just £99
one of the cheapest around
and when I haven't got the time
to list the car myself I can even
watch out them the details and they do it all for me
that sounds awfully familiar
so are you selling all your stock there now
not exactly John
but if I do have a sudden influx
of Kia PICCANTOS
I know where to send them
dealers can find out more
at dealerway.co.uk
we'll be right back
now John I'm really enjoying
how easy it is to pay sellers on car well
I presume you'd rather not pay them at all
no that is true
but now I can do it with car well wallet
you can pay sellers, finance houses
and more instantly
literally in one click
it's secure, easy to use
and gets rid of all the pesky
finance back and forth
it's a total game John
that does sound pretty good
if you want to find out more
dealers can log on to carwell.co.uk
slash partners slash car well
dash wallet
now back to the podcast
so James and I
are going to run through our favourite stories of the week
and at the end Stephen gets to decide
which one of us chose the best ones
and who is the winner
I won last week
which is nice isn't it
sorry 3-2
just remind it 3-2 to me
3-1 to you
but I'll take the extra one
thank you James
I'm going to start with
the rumbling on of the JLR saga
so JLR of course
were hit by a
quite horrible cyber attack
a couple of weeks ago
which has crippled a lot of their systems
or
put it this way they've not been able to turn their systems back on
in a secure manner
so they simply haven't done that
so
the big issue for September of course
because this happened on the 30th of August
is that it stopped all registrations
in September
so if that has actually been fixed
do you know if that's been fixed James
I think some dealers have got a bit
of a work around on it but it's
still very difficult apparently
so that's slowing things down in the registration process
which is not great
we're now half way through September so you can imagine
lots of cars that should have gone out
are not going out
massive parts issues
in terms of ordering parts
all that sort of stuff
but I think the biggest problem
with the company having is that they can't
restart production
so staff have now been told
they can't come back into work
until September the 17th
and I'm assuming that when
JLR say September the 17th
that's a hopeful estimate
you know it's not that they've gone right
we'll definitely have it fixed by September the 17th
because it doesn't quite work like that does it
you know you need to be sure everything's up and running
because they'd originally thought it was going to be a couple of days ago
they'd have everyone back
well as of tomorrow
it's two weeks
of no production of any JLR products
in the UK
and by my maths
and around the world
about all of their plants
right okay
well you're better informed than me James
but you know by my
in the UK
doing a bit of maths on it I reckon that's about 15,000 cars
haven't been built since
this all happened
they do a thousand cars a day
in the UK
so good maths John there
I think that is 15,000
yes
yes I did get an A
and no GCSE maths as you can tell
so real massive problem
we've written lots of stories about this
because it's sort of a developing story
day by day
Business Minister Chris Bryant
Sir Chris Bryant I should say
spoke about this in the House of Commons
on Tuesday
and so much of it seems to be
I mean he basically wasn't able to say anything
more than what we already know
but he was asked
could this have been
a state sponsored attack
and you know he didn't
he didn't say yes he didn't say no
effectively he could say I've had no idea
I can't say who's responsible
can't jump to conclusions
can't say if it's related to the M&S
hack
I'm not going to speculate here in Cardila Towers
which I'm more than happy to do
but it all just seems
you know so much of this
is unknown to the general public at the minute
we don't know
whether there's a
what's the word a ransom
where
style attack where all these people want
lots of money in bitcoin etc etc
what we do know
is that some data
has been accessed
so JLR had to
as these things
happen when you have a bit of data
stolen or accessed by people that shouldn't
have access to it you have to inform
the ICO information
commissioners office that right
so that happened
that was made public so they have
some data has been accessed
but in the grand scheme of things
I don't think data is their big problem
really it's you know the fine
that would be
averaged upon them for losing some customer data
is nowhere near
the issues they're having
with lack of production
lack of parts all that sort of stuff
I mean
what we don't know is what kind of data that is
that's the other interesting thing
you know is it just customer data
is it data about
you know
well I mean they've got tons of data haven't they
it will be data about where parts are in the system
where cars are in the production line
but could it also be
confidential kind of
let's say development stuff
about the cars we don't know
it's all yeah it's all going to
come out in the wash but it's a horrible time
for JLR at the minute isn't it James
I honestly may not mistake
this is quite possibly the most
serious hack the automotive industry
has ever had this is
this is very very serious
indeed and I think the fact that we're not
getting much information at all
says a lot
the detail
you only need to see to see how serious it is
is the production lines are not starting
you know I mean that is
absolutely critical
there is some experts saying that's costing
JLR 5 million
pounds a day in lost profits
I actually think
it's probably the sum will be far
greater than that but you've got
just imagine this I mean you've got all of these
production lines that just stopped
with all of the cars
still in place all of them
have obviously have individual vins you're a fan
of vins John they
all have different specifications
they're luxury vehicles they need
specific parts that arrive from
this huge network of supplies
in the West Midlands who
you need to remember are also affected by this
because you know I wrote about this in my
sub-stack JLR catches are cold
they get flew you know
they very very serious thing
affecting a massive part of the automotive
industry I don't
see this being fixed any time soon
I mean you only have to look back at the M&S
and the co-op you know
those carp shells were empty for a long time
the M&S
couldn't couldn't do home delivery
could they for a long long time and
that's because when you have a hack
like this you have to very slowly
build it back up turning the parts of the
system back on and checking their secure
can you imagine how many
parts and how many different parts
to this JLR system there
are all linked together
that are going to need to be checked
I mean this I don't think
even throwing money at it and JLR
has got lots of that I don't even think
throwing huge sums of money at it will fix
it because it's the time
it's going to take to
get this sorted I mean I was reading
this week that even
GCHQ's National Cyber Security
Centre has been involved in this
talking to the company
and as you mentioned they're not ruling
out state involvement in this hack either
I mean it is incredibly serious
I mean this is one of the biggest stories I think
for the motor trade for years
and you know
I do feel for all of those people in JLR
I mean you've got all of these people sat at home
I mean just imagine the money that
this is costing imagine the bills
this is racking up
not just for JLR but the entire
West Midlands economy I mean
it's very very serious indeed
would you like my
completely unfounded opinion about who's behind it
of course
I don't think it's state sponsored
I think the state sponsored thing has just come from
obviously we've written a story along those lines
but the state sponsored thing has just come from
that question in the comments
I don't personally think
you have to ask
who would gain from that and who would
possibly do it
I suppose you're kind of some nations
in the world who are not remotely
connected to
the way the rest of the world works in terms of capitalism
and so on
I think the Russians are pretty cheesed off at the moment
the Russians are pretty cheesed off at the moment
well
yeah I just
I can't see it I can't see
let's hypothetically say it was China
I mean JLR is quite heavily involved in China as well
I can't see them
it's not really China's style I don't think
there's no unless it's for
you know basically what would anyone gain from this
unless it was theft of intellectual property
and that being the case
well I don't think you would
decide to cause quite so much disruption
as this I think you would
perhaps do it a little bit more under the radar
I don't know
I think it's probably just economically
minded I think it's
a ransomware thing that would be my guess
we'll see won't we
yeah I mean it looks like there might even have to be a bailout
I mean there was for
those companies connected
to the
Sunderland plant during Covid wasn't there
they were really hit
and helped out by the government
and every day that this goes on
these companies are going to be hit
even further I just
I can't see them being able to sustain the losses
I think it's very
very worrying indeed
I was just going to say as well
taking this down to a
used dealer level I mean I wonder what
let's say
Steven has a problem with his Range Rover
what actually happens from our point of view
if we're trying to find a part now
is that all it's a knock down effect
on regular dealers as well not just
franchise presumably
I think so Steven
what have you been following this story
what's your take on it
I must admit James I actually haven't
I've had
me eyes and ears
need even work so I've kept me head
so it's the first time I've heard of it
I'm a bit shocked actually that
that just like a cyber attack
you know like what world
we're living in now we're just totally
just slows down
the whole company in industry
I suppose and you know
those figures that you're talking about they're five million a day
that's just
absolutely crazy
I don't even know
how do you recover from that
I honestly
I honestly don't know
I mean I think it's going to be
very very painful for them and I think
there's talk that it could go on for weeks
I wouldn't be surprised if it goes on for mums
the stress levels
of the people at the top must be
I'm not getting stressed at talking about it
they don't know how to deal with it
yeah I mean
we wish them all the best I think
because I mean that is something very very difficult
to deal with
actually I'll try and move us on
can you have anything more positive that would be lovely
positivity
no haven't got any of that
right
but I'm going to stick on a JLR
theme
and this is news that the Harwoods group
a large family run dealer
group down here near us
has sold five of its Jaguar Land Rover dealerships
to DXB
investments
they are a big Dubai based
business that is very focused
on building
a big retail group in the UK
I saw Mike Jones
formerly of ASC now an automotive
consultant is helping them out
posting about it on LinkedIn today
saying that they are very serious
about building a big
retail business
in the UK and this is the start
of it
but interesting
for me was the fact that Harwoods
have made this decision
they have had a tough few years
just six months ago we reported on
their accounts for 2023
which showed a loss of
11.8 million pounds
and they said at the time that they thought
2024 was going to be
just as painful
and they'd be clocking up a loss last year
we haven't seen their accounts for that yet
I wouldn't be surprised if that's transpired
to be true
especially considering these
sell-offs
it's quite strange to sell
a JLR franchise
you remember
we had Nigel McMinn on this podcast
not long ago talking about how
JLR business would be one of the ones
that you desperately want to have
because they're normally very profitable
so I was surprised
that they're selling five of them
Bays and Stoke, Chichester, Brighton, Crawley
and Croydon as part of this deal
and they've also handed over
authorized repair operations
for BMW, Mini and Volvo
in separate locations
good news is no job losses
are expected they're all going to be transferring
to this new owner DXB investments
and they're going to be
up and running soon
so yes interesting to see some change
in hands there John
and can I slightly just
bring this on to another JLR
story which was a
Lloyd Motor Group buying
a JLR portfolio
I was just about to say James
I think you've slightly contradicted yourself in your own stories here
because you said I think
it's quite unusual to see JLR dealers being sold
and in one week
god damn it yes that's true
but yeah I will
do you not think this sold it off though
because they knew about the same attack coming
quick sell sell sell
Lloyd Motor Group bought three from Stratstone
so yes no I think
it's unusual to sell JLR
franchises I think
you don't see it very often but
maybe they got a very good price both of these businesses
there was
another group of JLR or a selection
of JLR dealers that were sold
a couple of weeks ago as well I was just flicking through the website trying to find them
see if I haven't imagined it
just to contradict me further
yeah exactly what I live for
but
it wasn't a you know
so Harwoods is a local
group you know they've
perhaps they've just decided the time is right
to get rid of them
but the Lloyd Motor Group one
is buying three from Stratstone
and you know it's
that's the unusual thing is when
enormous dealer groups offload things
that's when I start to raise my brows slightly
which I'm still able to do because I haven't had any of your Botox James
but
yeah that's
I'm just saying that's you have appointments
I'm aware of them
um yeah I don't know
I'm not I'm not hugely surprised about the Harwoods
bit but the yeah the Lloyd Motor Group
deals a bit of a bit of an eyebrow
razor for me
but again I also
think you know we've been very nice to JLR
in this instead of having a horrible time
but they've not put their dealers through very
nice times in the last
I don't know two years have they
you know to suddenly rip to make
them all as we've said before
build your gin palaces half Land Rover
half Jaguar and then
what two three years later
go uh yeah you know that
half that says Jaguar on it well
number one you're not going to get any new products
number two um we're not
actually going to let you sell Jaguar anymore
whatever Jaguar becomes a year after we've
stopped making any of them so
I can imagine if you're you've hedged
your bets on selling you know X number
of Land Rovers and a certain amount of Jaguars
um and then suddenly that's ripped away
from you you perhaps will make a decision
about whether you want to continue
to run that franchise
hashtag just saying
I mean maybe it was the suits that they
make them wear with those white trainers
maybe these uh maybe Harwich just decided
they don't want to buy them anymore
well unfortunately my smart casual ensemble
is a blue suit with some white trainers
so I become the JLR employee
JLR salesman
in the main just covered the other day
Steven what are your thoughts on these
couple of sales or JLR dealers
going in general
um
the first I've heard about this
um
absolutely fine
let me retrain the
question would you like
a JLR franchise yourself
no
no
why not
well I think you've just spent the last 20 minutes
telling this why
why not
I mean I'm not saying
this is why I
I've been driving a nice cherry this week
or I've been driving a nice
Pomoda this week or whatever not I've been driving a nice
Range Rover uh but the amount of coverage
we give Land Rover might in this
regard have some bearing on whether
we're invited on things I don't know
I'll be honest I'll be honest I don't think that was a good
take
hang our hold out
very little bit
moving on
I'm going to talk briefly about
the FCA and the Miss Old
car finance
inverted commas Miss Old
car finance um situation
so the boss of the FCA
the chief of the FCA
Nikhil Rathi has been
speaking to a
treasury committee
about the situation
and what they're looking to do etc
and what it looks like for a redress scheme
um and
he reckons it could begin
next year of redress for
any Miss Old
quote unquote car finance
um they're looking at a period between
2007 and 2020 so that's
about 30 million deals
he says not all claims will
be successful of course
um is once again
urged people not
to keep using these
claims management firms or lawyers or
whatever um who will happily
tell you that you're going to make
four and a half grand back
from that car finance deal you had on
a Ford Fiesta in 2007
he says that is very much not
going to happen in a lot of cases
um you know he he suggests
the redress for most people
if they're entitled to any
he's going to be in the hundreds not in
the thousands of pounds um
which is what we've sort of suggested isn't it really
because you can't I don't think
there's someone um redress
or more
what's the word um
more money than the dealers actually
received in the first place James do you
see this story I did see a story
but I'm I'm not going to give my take on it
I'm going to I just want to get Stephen's
opinion on this you know as a
as someone who deals with finance and
real life dealer what's your
take on this whole finance
commission do you know what it is
when are we going to start making
consumer responsible for their own actions
thank you
that that's my thoughts on it
I mean
you know regardless how much money a
dealer's paid in commission for doing the deal
the customer knows
the customer's signed a contract at the start
knowing how much money they're borrowing
how much money they're paying back how much it's
going to cost them overall how much the monthly
payments are it's just
ambulance chasers it's just PPI
all over again and it's just pencil
push as looking
you know for the next
the next bit of red tape that they want to exploit
I just I think it's scandalous
honestly do
I just I think anyone
that puts a claim in is
just you know
there's no way that every single person that puts a claim
in for missold call finance has been
missold call finance
it's just just a fact
I just it's
ridiculous absolutely ridiculous
and I don't agree with any of it
I kind of I'm with you
because I think
you know one of
there's a degree of safeguarding all right
if someone comes in as vulnerable
perhaps yeah I get that
very few of these
instances I think are that I think it's just
there's an assumption
that the dealer should be
anyone selling anything to anyone should be
giving them the absolute best
price in any situation
and that's where it starts
to get a little bit tricky because someone has to
make some money out of this at some point
I don't know
I don't I don't think people should be
entitled to compensation purely because
they have what was the phrase that was
used in
to regard one of the people in this
one of the three people in this court case
I think it was along the lines of not commercially
sophisticated or something like that
wasn't it yeah I don't think that
entitles you to compensation
another word because you're thick
because you're thick
not even that
but perhaps didn't do
you know five ten minutes of looking
things up to see if they
could find a better deal somewhere else you know that's
I mean what what other industry
is that where you start
a business and you sell a product
and then you've got to have run through all this
red tape before someone buys your product
like are you sure you want to buy this
are you see this cup are you sure
this is the right cup for you
can you can I just tell you
that this cup is one pound forty nine
but there are other cups
there are other cups that you can buy
I just
it's mad it's madness
just because that
because it's a car
a vehicle is a
a lot more expensive than any other
any other product why should it be any different
people are still making
a decision themselves
you know it can't be
put on dealers or finance companies
or brokers or anything to make
you know to make sure that they're informed
and that decision is
best for them why should that be
put on us the owners should be
on the person making the decision surely
if that person
hasn't you know done the
due diligence then
who's responsible for that
I was just going to say
another
what frustrates me as well
I've got on my high horse now
but what frustrates me about this
and there was a news story recently
bit of a BBC
and somebody else investigation into
estate agents
and how can it be that an estate
agent I can walk into an estate agent
and say I'd like to look at that house please
and the estate agents say
sure no problem you need to speak to our mortgage advisor
first and you need to do a
deal with them first
and behind the scenes will not
you know really
introduce your offer to the buyer
until you've gone through
that process and have an offer from them
how can that be allowed
in that circumstance
and dealers get
scrutinized to this level
for car finance I don't
really understand how we can have
those two separate scenarios
I just think it's
a highly
almost slightly overregulated
sector when some have under-regulated
that will be next
that will be next
it's like the
retrospectively
went back and changed the rules as well
you should have been telling these people
you should have been informing everyone about what commission you were receiving
but that wasn't the guidelines
that were told at that time
afterwards it's like driving down the road
on a
50 mile an hour speed limit
road and doing 49
and then three years later
that road's changed to a 30
miles an hour speed limit
and then you're getting a bill in the post
you were caught speeding will hold on
that was the speed limit
at the time that was the rules
it just baffles me
mad
let me try and wait one more story
because we're rapidly running out of time
can we just talk
a little bit about the podcast live
which is coming up very very soon
on September the 24th
today is the 12th
so we are very soon going to be
in the habit
did you need me to do that maths
thanks John
you might have got an A in maths
I've got an E so thanks for your help
but yes we've written a story this week
about what we're looking forward to the most
which I thought was quite interesting
because what we picked
was very very different so we've asked
those people who are going to be there myself
you John, James Batchelor
Rebecca about what we're looking forward to
I'm looking forward to the fact it's quite so sure
and there's lots of people that you can chat to
in the motor trade
you were looking forward to the fact that I wouldn't
be talking about Kia
Picantos I see here in the
quote you've made
Rebecca I'm going to be looking forward to
so yeah
I mean it's lots to look forward to
on that day tickets are still available
on our website
we've got Matt Galvin who's the boss of Polestar
Small Cars Direct
Alex Bradley he's a used car dealer down
in the New Forest
and Wayland's Vicky Hart
he's also going to be coming along
all three of them are going to be
on the podcast
with us we're going to be chatting to them about
all things and everything
John, we are by which you mean James
we haven't entirely decided
on what we're going to talk about
we will be doing that next week
on Tuesday yep
planning day to come
but yes I am looking forward to it
looking forward to seeing lots of people from the motor trade
to come along and yes enjoy that
BBQ among many other things
so yes tickets still available on our website
so it's sort of a plug but it's also a story
on our website so I've used it anyway
you're very big on plugs today
electrical or otherwise
very good
and there is a link down in the show notes below
of course as I usually say at the end of the podcast
so
I haven't got room for any more stories
so Stephen before I asked
for your verdict are there any stories you think we've
missed this week we should have talked about
not that I'm aware of
I'm honest
lovely
so I'm going to have to ask you who chose the best stories
or which was your favourite story
although
I'm very passionate about car finance
and
let me arise like no
and that story does obviously
trigger a few emotions from me
I did like the story about
G.L.O. in the hack because I wasn't
I wasn't aware of that and I think that's
massive so
that's the one was that also me I think it was
how was you
well done
excellent
yeah don't worry
I won't take it personally but yes
congratulations John well done
thank you very much
well I will take that win and go and enjoy my lunch
so all this left for me
to say then is thanks to Stephen for coming on
today it's great to chat to you
and chat about your business and cause D the way
as well
and I'm sure people will be looking at that
after this podcast and I've had to go
myself not that I'm on the app but I've looked at James's
and I'm actually very impressed with it I must say
thanks very much yeah
really appreciate you having us on guys
have enjoyed it thank you
absolutely pleasure nice to see you
welcome back any time as long as you pit me as a winner
thank you as well to James
for his very informative discussion
about why his screen is buzzing
and
I will work on my anecdotes for next week
yeah
not a lot has been happening has it
and thank you as well
for listening we will be back next week
with another episode make sure you're subscribed
take me notified when that goes live
if you want to check out the stories mentioned
so take a look in the show notes below and of course
you can head to cardiganmagazine.co.uk
to find much more news
besides probably about JLR
and the discount code
for the podcast live event
is underneath as well
and a link don't know why I'm pointing down
because no one can see me unless they're on youtube
anyway thanks for listening
and goodbye
About this episode
A deep dive into the automotive industry's current challenges, featuring Steven Douglas from Dealerway. The episode discusses the significant JLR cyber attack that halted production and registrations, affecting thousands of vehicles. Harwoods offloads multiple JLR dealerships amid financial struggles, while Lloyd Motor Group acquires others. The conversation also touches on the FCA's upcoming redress scheme for mis-sold car finance, with Douglas expressing concerns about consumer responsibility. The episode highlights the evolving landscape of car sales, the impact of technology, and the importance of trust in dealer transactions.